The Shears

It’s hard as hell to stick to your guns

when your patience is put to the test,
remembering which atrocities were the big ones.

There was that Nixon-Cambodia fun—
a million killed on behest.
That was one time we totally stuck to our guns!

But it’s between you and me, Bub—who’s the one
to be damned and who to be blessed,
weighing which atrocities were the big ones?

You fed me eggs that gave me the runs,
horned in on my eternal rest,
so I had no choice but to stick to my guns

those days of yore—I was smoking a blunt—
sins I did confess,
never sure which sins were the big ones.

You always made me the fox in the hunt,
so I exited stage-left.
It’s hard as hell to stick to your guns,
remembering which atrocities were the big ones.

The Judgment

1

When you were abused as a child

and you’re always anxious,
it can be irresistible to relax
into booze and sex.
Booze is love to you,
fastening onto you like an incubus,
sucking your life.

2 

Rendition of the end of Goethe’s Faust, Part 1

Margarete at her spinning wheel,
approached by two trolls—
only one of whom is the devil.
You shall live! says Heinrich the troll.
She is judged! says Mephistopheles.
SAVED! speaks the Voice from above.
Her zu mir! says Mephistopheles.

enough already

1

suppose these 

remnants suffice

poet trapped
in a room

feeder-hugging
chipmunk

loud birds
garbage truck

Van Gogh’s remaining hearing after
shearing off his ear

poor painter
only subject himself

2

suppose six
stanzas suffice

multiple buzzing
intensifying-fading

cop ambulance
sirens

some chipmunks
not accounted for

ok who
else

the redwood 
porch

Why Does a Chipmunk Chip?

A chipmunk chips to guard its musk.

It isn’t trying to pick a fight.
It owns no sharp rhinoceros tusk.

A chipmunk chips from dawn till dusk,
trying to get the vibration right,
chucking away to guard its musk.

Though a chipmunk’s musk’s a dry husk
of any horde you’d covet, still day and night
it hankers for some kind of tusk

that it might wield in fields of risk,
putting horny foes to flight.
A chipmunk chips to guard its musk.

But a chipmunk’s not just waving its stick.
No, this charming little wight
feels threatened by some gnarly tusk

that someone else is waving—its task
ever to beat its drum of fate—
rhinoceros, boar, or narwhal tusk.
A chipmunk chips to guard its musk.

Growing Upward

A cow for six beans?
— Stupid Jack!
But the stalk grows upwards.
Jack steals gold.
Jack steals the hen that lays golden eggs.
Jack kills the giant and marries the girl.
No one cares that Jack’s hands
will always stink of giant’s blood.

voice singing from

dove on the powerline
taking wing
pulling a thread of soft cheeps

cabbagy cabbagy in the trees
whatever that noisy
animal is

someone
choosing words
for their sonority

voice singing from
its limited 
viewpoint

poem
without
voice

must be possible
to know or not know
what’s making that peculiar sound

Inexhaustible

Will I ever run out

of tiny poems to write
from my redwood porch?

There are only so many
describable items
in my backyard—

plus the birds that arrive
and depart in a single
wing stroke;

some kind of squawking again—
squirrels in the basswood tree?
sounds like a wheezy duck!—

Jade planters.
Aluminum tray of desert rocks.
The kilowatt-hours clock.

Nothing the same as it was
yesterday, or even seconds ago.
Inexhaustible life!