pale font


in the hard reality of dreams
i have watched my words evaporate
cold gray fog yielding
to the grinding ascension
of every new day's sun
every pain, every pleasure gone

i wrote with the blackest inks
boldest strokes i could squeeze
from my imagination

and yet they slide away
confetti stirred by eddying breezes
on the second day of the new year
fading without sound from public view
pathetic, erratic observations
pale font on a white page





taste test


you don't hear much these days
about the super-collider
buried somewhere in switzerland
that racetrack for subatomic bits
designed to move the building blocks
of the universe at indescribable speeds
until something crashes hard enough
in just the right place
for someone to get a nobel

i'm waiting, none too patiently
for all that science to filter down
to this simplest of concepts
the taste and texture of my latest
smoked creation / cremation moving
at delectable, undetectable speeds
from my serving plate to your tongue

in the same instant exclaiming "ahh!"
as your cheesecake's creamy bite
excites my waiting taste buds

what, i wonder, might hadron and higgs
say to that, or a fine ravioli
shared across continents





poetry reading voice


young at first hearing
i was assured that this and only this
was the way, the one true way
to give life to lifeless verse

a muted, drawn out droning
that someone, don't know who anymore
told me should add three measures
of marvelous, breathless immersion
in the otherwise mysterious unreachable
thing of the work, the meat, the heart
the empherous, elusive MEANING

i woke too late to be baptized
by the baritone trailing off
into a pseudo-ecstatic whisper

which is why whenever i read aloud
it is always to an imaginary audience
of children, hobos, and mice
who sing each verse with me in a mix
of gravel and clouds and piccolo