making sounds with my roommate and his friend, who had smoked a great deal of marijuana

the controversial seven-pointed leaf
that they had ground with little knives
and rolled and lit on fire
and breathed and breathed --
it took effect.

and then they asked me to make sounds with them,
sounds from our favorite metal strings,
blue sounds, and gritty sounds,
but later smooth
sounds, smoother sounds.

and when the bar of steel touched steely strings,
it slid, it wavered in my hands --
they thought it sounded like
an angel or
another world.

the time was not right on between the strings,
nor was it accurate inside
their fuzzy heads within
and fuzzy heads
also without.

but it was good and fuzzy, in and out,
fuzzy and clear, the sounds, the strings,
their heads but not my head,
giggling mouths,
mystical sounds.

Stale Bread

i will speak to stale bread,
because i know now
what it's like to be stale bread
and have no one talking to you
(it is bad).

A True Story

This poem is made up of real observations, and that is all it is. No symbolism, metaphor, irony, or other so-called literary device will be found in it, unless these things occur in nature and in the events described in the poem. Do not take this poem to be a creation, but rather as a record or document of meteorology, or just of general things.


Today was the spring equinox,
the first day of spring.

(actually that may have been
a few days ago.)

It ought to have been warm --
that's what you'd expect

from the first day of that season
of growing, and that's not

to say it was entirely cold,
but it wasn't too warm.

The buds on the cherry trees,
those blossoming pink buds

have started to unfold themselves,
showing me their white innards --

they hope to meet the bees
who'll help them have sex.

(plant sex, that is. i shouldn't
say it's much like human sex.)

Snow crystals fell on the buds,
first sloppy wet,

but then some legitimate
fluffy snow on them.

This past winter it snowed one time.
And melted in the night.

Questions About a Dream I Had

The stones in the streams
were mostly of blue hues,
and red and gold and green gleamed, too,
but was the royal color there?

The stones in the streams,
were fragile as glass,
but were they attached,
or was each its own
separate stone?

Why did the man have a hoverboard
when he came in through the window?

Until i know the answers to these questions,
i will not know what God is saying to me.

Of Apricots in the Late Spring

Armenian dirt, Hawaiian dirt, Indian dirt, and water --
I fumble to scoop them up with a knife
and spread them on my toast,

and when I do this, I do it in remembrance of home,
of the gurgling sweet goo in the brass-bottomed pot
and the old blue ladle stained brown
by years and years of soup,
of the banged-up metal funnel
and the rubber-rimmed lids bouncing in hot water,
of the foam, the soft stuff spooned,
gleaned from the top of the pot for ritz crackers,
of the popping and the turning upside-down
and the storing-away downstairs
in the dark, dark store room, and
of you, walking in the door with one million pounds
of apricots in the late spring.

By the Thousands

By the thousands they come down
to the sandy and stoop to pick
up seashells and tiny scamperers,
up the jellies and skies between
and I do not blame them, because
interesting, only I wish they'd less obtrusive.

After asking me quests they come
for my and they try to pick
up my arms and legs,
up me brain and my mouth between,
but evade them by clareshling,
by xracti and frgusz,
ti bloooy obn cl'o'aclothing.

Powers

The math professor
is a wizard, he's
not a god, but
he's a wizard.

He didn't say,
"Let there be light,"
instead he said,
"I just wish we'd get some sun today."

And lo! out came the sun.