growing assymetry

assymetrical for sure
more hair on her right
(my left)
eye more open over there too
ear only showing on her left
(my right)
and the whole thing
floating up there in mottled dark blue
bounded on all sides with silver
is
out of touch and
very much the equivalent of the
lesser hair or the
missing ear
stuck on the wrong side of assumetrical
more and more
Every single day

Snowflake

Falling
One at a time
At a time
At a time
At a time
At a time
At a time
At so many times
That you forget the one

Ever After Begins Somewhere

After

I lurch to my feet

Bones clicking and

Joints sticking

Cat howling expectantly in the hallway

Clock ticking away ceaselessly in my mind

Which has already raced right past lunchtime and back

Twice

After the world has returned to focus sufficiently

That I can identify a pair of pants almost warm enough

To allow me to brave the unheated basement

After each of those forty or so seconds have passed and

Before I leave the room

I always look back
To the tangle of pillows and sheets
For an elbow or
A lock of hair

Even now

After almost fifteen years

That is still how my day has to start

After
All

Taking in the Moonlight

I wonder

If 

On that 

Cold

Dark and 

Snowy 

Evening when my daughter

Pants and underwear around her ankles

Presented her bottom and 

Pulled her cheeks back

A half foot from the cat's face

It appreciated

The timing or

The irony

More than I did

Forty One Year Old Stay At Home Dad

There is awake 

There is asleep

There is whatever you call the 

Five or ten minutes

A six year old can spend

Still on the bed

Five minutes after verbally acknowledging both

Morning and

Dad

With one leg hanging out and

Only the top of his head peeking out from under the covers

Muttering 

In the dark

In an increasingly whiny tone and 

Then

If you extrapolate that over the course of an entire day

You have 

The state where I now dwell

electric stasis

cat stretched out on lap
me scared to dislodge wedgies
Stuck in fear of static

Of Families and Noisy Dirty Laundry

I heard the breathing and

Talked out loud about my astonishment at discovering that mom's shirts could breathe

While hanging in the closet

Then 

After a fifteen to twenty second pause to allow 

Maximum happiness for all involved

I pushed apart the shirts to find that

Nothing

Was still breathing

All through the closet

Everywhere I went

Everywhere I looked

Even near the hamper

The big

Newly emptied 

Wicker hamper

In front of which I finally paused

Long enough to appreciate

The trials
Tribulations and
Blessings

Involved with
having a family and
A life
That is so busy and
So young
That I can
Still
Hear my dirty laundry

Of Time and Props

I want to bring home an antique pie safe 

A butter churn

A spinning wheel and

A cider press

For starters

So I can look at them all

While I warm up food in the microwave or 

Create stiff peaks out of egg whites with power tools

At least theoretically

I could close my eyes and

Even step away

To do some laying on of hands

Working a deception on time or 

Myself or 

The egg whites

Kind of like a drive through wild woods and 

Dormant farm land

On a dirt road 

In my 2006 Mazda 5

With a chamber pot in the back

in and out and ...

Every night

Regardless of weather or season

I retreat 

Inviting in the darkness

One room at a time

Never knowing for sure

That it will 

Leave

Aging Perspective

My son's milk is taunting me
From its smudgy glass
It knows
That I don't want to get up until
I am ready to go to bed and
We both know
That by the time I get up
I will have forgotten all about it
So
Underneath its slowly congealing surface
It laughs at me
A one time
Would be
Statesman
Secret agent and
Hero
Who now
Can't act fast enough to stop yogurt from happening

The Best Poem

The best poem
Is the one that falls down upon you
When you are in the shower or
About to fall asleep or
Herding the kids out of the door and off to school
Five minutes late and
Which
You don't write down before
It slips past your fingers and
Runs away
Somewhere beneath your feet

Hope Alley

By the time the ten pin finished with its five second weeble wobble impersonation and
Did actually fall down
I had talked myself into believing that what I had just witnessed and
More
Was possible
For
If an eight year old girl and
An old pink bowling ball
Can find their way
From side to side
Bumper to bumper
Down the lane
At a pace that tests one's patience and
Still find all of the pins
Well
Then
Maybe
After forty years
There is still
Hope

Up and Out of a Long Day

In the basement
It is one in the morning
The space heater is off
My paid work is done and
I have only a poem to write
Before I can escape the encroaching cold and
Make my way to bed
Up and
Out
Of the basement

context

thirty degrees is
pracically shorts weather
after the new year

Olives, Fruit or Vegetable

This morning

It appears as if

A taco exploded in our dining room

The blast field of cheese and taco shell bits extending into the living room
Olive slices strewn about
Like body parts
I hope they weren't muslim olives
Because we'd be pushing it to get the funeral over in time
Those olives may well still be there tomorrow
Afterall
The kids still have to eat tonight
Besides
They were black olives
And I'm not well versed in
Human
Animal
Fruit or
Vegetable
Numerology
I wonder whether soldiers who survive battle ever sit among the corpses and
Haggle over whether the fallen were were enemies or friends
Heroes or
Not
I wouldn't want to do that
It's a mess that isn't so easy to understand or
Clean up
Even if you are so inclined and
To be honest
This morning
I'm not and
This morning
I'm not even  sure whether olives are
Fruit or
Vegetable

the inevitability of winter

there's always a chance

that it will be your next step

will break through the ice

Walls

In my mind
The woods
Where the two paths diverge
Is the one surrounding the tennis courts
Just up the hill from my house
Just the other side of the golf course
Just a little bit past the club house
Woods on three sides
Littered with tennis balls and
Paths diverging everywhere
Into backyards and
Parks
Everywhere
In a one mile radius
Just
In my life
In my mind

Clouds

Clouds are a canvas

A ceiling

A comfort 

A barrier

A threat and

A lot like people

Love them

Hate them

Transfigure them in your mind into bunnies and busses

They aren't going anywhere

Check Out Anomalies

Black high heel boots

Black leggings

Black sweater

Black beanie

Black purse

Three gallon tub of rainbow sherbert

He's Six

He's six

He was just arguing with me and his mother about whether or not he was going to eat half a strawberry

And now

He's lying on  me

On the couch

Cuddling

At his request

In a moment he'll be up again and fighting with his sister over whether the lights can be turned off while they brush their teeth

Then he'll be

Falling into sleep

While I sing

Falling

Out of reach

Again

Until morning comes

And then

He can stare at the wall and spin in space while I run around turning off lights, gathering shoes and coats, and barking out commands 

Forgetting

Just for a moment

His smile

The touch of his little hand on mine

And that 

Even when he tells me he has both bags in the back seat but it turns out he only had one and we have to go back home to get the other

A hug or a cuddle might 

Serve to remind me

That he'll soon be out of reach

And now

He's six

Bigger Questions

If
God says
To kill
Why
Do you listen

Authorship

My words
Or yours
Or
Shakespeare's
Or
God's
Or
The big bang's
Or
Does it matter
Isn't possession nine tenths of the law
Of
Any law
Oh
It is true that I might not be the first
Or
The last
But
I am planting my flag
In the middle of this word
this sentence
this poem
this mess
Claiming
That it will be someone else's to clean up
But it;s mine now and
If it;s not
Then
I
Myself
Am just a myth of someone else's creation and
In that case
It is their will
That I assert my own
That I claim my voice
So
We all should agree
That these
And all the rest
Are my words
And
Or
So I believe

Radio Mash-Up Two: Three Words Have Two Meanings

Three words have two meanings
The trouble is knowing which is which
I mean, suppose I'm just a photograph on your floor
It makes sense
So, then would you let me see beneath your beautiful
I'm bound to stumble and fall
Trust me
And I'm not afraid to fall
How can I love when I'm afraid to fall
How can I be afraid to fall
If right before I drown you resuscitate me and
I know that you will love me all the same
Of course that's the big if
Or one of them
For the poet in the overcoat looking for a suntan
I'd like to make myself believe that planet earth turns slowly
Really I just hope that you spend your days and they all add up

That is the only real meaning
For those three words
It's a cold and it's a broken hallelujah 

radio mash-up one

You are my inspiration and 

Love is the reason why

We can live beside the ocean

You can't always get what you want but

I'll be alright

Playing my music in the sun

I know I'm not the only one

I will wait for you because

You've put these questions in my mind

Mailing In Moments

I did not leave enough Rice Chex in the box for a full bowl
Even for a child
I could have eaten a bit and then poured the rest in
I could have thrown out the remainder
I could have done a lot of things other than
Leave that pittance sitting there in the box
Neatly closed and
Sitting on the shelf
With the other cereal boxes
Another moment
For another time

the age of the blizzard

give me a blizzard

snow flurries are for the young

who have time to wait

Boo Ya

Reading on ESPN.com

About the death of Stuart Scott

Has made me wonder

If 

Only the sunniest days 

Get to have

Yellow

Orange and

Pink

Spread liberally across the horizon

When they come to an end

Or whether

The memory of a beautiful day

Follows in the wake of its exit and

Exultation 

New Years Resolution

a resolution

should start and end in the cold

holding its own hands

Of memory and will

Memory creates the cracks in the foundation

But you recognize them as a given

Before you ever choose to pour the water in 

Pour the water in yourself and

Wait for it to freeze

Knowing full well

You don't live in Mexico

But apparently not knowing

That people can move and

Cracks can be filled

Blast It

Lightsabers might be

An elegant weapon for a more civilized age

But I'm not sure six

Is ever a civilized age

And it is highly unlikely that anything wielded by a six year old can be 

Elegant

Charming ... perhaps

Entertaining ... absolutely

But I'm not buying elegant

Of course

I did buy a lightsaber

For a six year old

With Visions of battles in a dark basement in my mind

As I typed in my credit card information and

Verified my shipping address

While wearing sweatpants and a hoodie

So 

Maybe I should have bought a blaster

New Year

One day ends

And

Another begins

And

Ends

And 

Begins

And ...