My Friend Calarel

Always myself.
Who else is there?
Well, I have an elf

in my brain and a wolf
at my heels. (I’ve needed rhymes for “self” before.)
Always myself,

but being myself isn’t half
bad, you know, if I have a care
for the elf

in my brain who's been known to put me off
my proper fare.
Only myself

to blame or thank, or to laugh
at. How dare
anyone complain about the foibles and peccadillos of my dear elf?!

I won’t take them off the shelf—
not that I ever could: they own the store!
They're myself—
my fairy elf.

God Exists Through Our Sufferance

     Jesus was a good guy—he didn’t need this shit.
     John Prine, “Jesus, the Missing Years.”

Shall we trust in God’s Providence?
Satan was a good guy—he didn’t need this shit.
God exists by our sufferance.

Maybe it seems to go against Providence
to block God’s word and say the hell with it—
expecting no Providence,

but if God’s not helping we can get rid of Him.
He cast poor Satan into the fiery pit—
same sufferance

afforded the Arapaho and Cheyenne by Colonel Chivington—
500 now-scarcely-repatriated scalps
in that sacred ground near the providence

of Sand Creek and its shady line
of cottonwood trees. Let us rest
here on this ground by whatever sufferance

remains to us for the bliss
of living in the world!
Shall we trust in God’s Providence?
Our eternal kindness.

Prometheus Off-Ground

A man has to try everything once,
looking for things that are fun and funner.
What could be funner than peeing on an electric fence?

Most men don’t have an ounce of sense.
Senseless men are without number.
They have to try everything once—

they’ve tried the sauce and they’ve tried the hunch-
cream; but now here’s the stunner:
they’ve tried peeing on an electric fence.

There can be a jolting consequence
if your prick touches a wire,
but you’ve got to try everything once

so you whistle “It’s a Man’s
World” to yourself and short out the generator
with a strong stream of urine on the electric fence.

You haven’t had such fun in months,
but now you can’t put out the fire.
You can try everything once,
but the last thing you may try is peeing on an electric fence.

Today's Marmalade

     Jam every other day. The rule is, jam tomorrow and jam yesterday - 

     but never jam today. White Queen

Anything that’s still striving is interesting—
trying to help us make it to tomorrow.
What’s finished is so yesterday!

Yesterday we were striving fools—
tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow
we were endeavoring to become, so we were interesting—

not waiting to see what tomorrow brings—
whether it be joy or sorrow.
When tomorrow finally does come, it’s so yesterday!

We were trying to work our clay,
work it on out of the mud with hoes and shovels.
Anything that’s morphing is interesting.

Never will we rue the days
we spent rehearsing Christmas carols.
We didn’t sing them very well

yesterday either. Succumbing to each passing craze,
we thought we were corpses but we were shape-changers.
Anything that’s still striving is interesting.
What’s finished is so yesterday!

Going for Bust

Put your mettle to the test.
No guts, no glory!
Be a guy who fell off of Everest!

You’ve gone to your eternal rest,
but you aren’t sorry
you put your mettle to the test;

and you don’t wear your gender on your chest,
but last time you took inventory
you were a guy who fell off of Everest.

Now you shine among the blest,
but you sure were a gory
sight after you put your mettle to the test

and slipped down that crevasse -
brains and entrails splattered
all over the rocks of Everest.

I guess you figured best.
You always knew what finally mattered,
so you put your mettle to the test
and became a guy who fell off of Everest.

I Sing the Body Electric

Our body is so pretty!

Can I change the nouns and pronouns however I want?
Our body’s a ditty.

And now here we are, in bed with the kitty.
We don’t have to change partners ‘cause we can’t—
bodies so pretty!

And I’m remembering what it was that brought me to this city—
Denver was a devastated land—
I hummed a ditty

and had myself transported to the Sin Twitties,
where I joined a band
of other Bedlamites whose bodies were pretty.

Well, one of us had type-1 diabetes.
He’s gone now—he went back to Cleveland,
and died after his legs were amputated.

Bandmate Steve suffered massive heart-
failure in Tennessee. But their basic self-love remains.
Our body is still pretty!
Our body’s my ditty.

Daffodils

When I lie on my couch, all I can see of me is my feet.

Happens, I enjoy looking at them.
Soles meet

when I cuddle them softly
together, brushing the hem
of my bathrobe. Well, I can see my knees

and shins too. Whom else do I see?
Foregone ancestors, though I’ve never met them.
My soles will meet

the floor in due time, but for a while I can lie here
and imagine others who had my slight, fem-
my build. God chose them. Their feet

walked the earth till their time was complete.
Perhaps they thought that loving themselves was wrong,
but my soul

believes theirs glowed like mine in the restful
morning light. In future times, beloved others will behold them.
When I lie on my couch, all I can see of me is my feet.
Souls meet.