Ohthere

      “There’s nothing you wish for that won’t be yours
        if you stay alive.”  --Beowulf

Winter mix. Don’t relax. Leave me alone
with autumn, an autumn like last autumn
or running in new snow, loving that feeling.
Sick of meditation, my existence
indivisible from the wry Creator’s.
I like the old Rhymer, his smile resplendent,
but all I have is all I do not know.
The past isn’t dead it never even
happened. Learn the changes then forget them.
Keep on learning and re- learning them.
Down the steep and icy trail through hail and storm,
take into eternity my hail and farewell.

We’re living in the Anthropocene.
Indestructible garbage. Bulldozed landscape.
Big Brother, dead father. Penis of the tiger.
Getting thought to twitch the prosthetic.
Mischievous, malevolent, militant
thistles. Or just plain polite Americans,
afraid to get shot. Old-timers bagging
groceries, low social security.
Situps, pushups, fix yr brakes, fix yr leaks.
Exhausted by that irritating,
constant need to survive. Surrounded by
history, neither seen nor heard from again.

If it’s human, nothing’s wasted. Pasted
into a big wet kiss or posted
on the internet. Stolen from the pockets
of the dead, burgled from living memory.
Most art is dispensable, booty and b***s,
vaginal lubrication, prostate enlargement,
the unknown, anonymous man named me.
Things fall apart. Or maybe not. Maybe
it’ll all hold together 10,000 years more
after all we’ve observed a galaxy born
13 billion years ago, a faint red blur,
and microbe partnerships on the ocean floor.

The good life’s all around us smiling
girls on bicycles, dogs on leashes,
equality is mandatory.
Sweet solitude and privacy, quiet
sitting spot, write a little, read a lot.
Tip generously, gratuitously,
like good luck. Haircut, cabride, dinnerout,
to eat a continent is not so strange.
Japanese knotweed also known as kudzu.
The Chinese navy also known as t’ai chi.
Water shortages. War and wildfire.
Humor or ardor, I can’t decide.

Dad’s steel-toed boots. Leaves, buds, flowers, fruits.
Things are said, mistakes are made. I’m driving
pontificating on geopolitics
when an archangel flies into the windshield!
Lost my timepiece, lost my metronome. Well,
music is a manufactured crisis.
Caloric restrictions, control your addictions,
desire to be famous, prone to violence.
The profusion of species contents me.
Wilderness comes back strong as cactuses,
chestnuts, coral. No more missile crises.
Eat less, an empty belly’s holy.

Horselum, bridelum, ridelum,
into the fray! World order--not my problem.
Only meditation can save your soul,
should there be such a thing. Learning who you are
is difficult as sitting still 10 minutes
w/o a thought or want. Knowledge of death
without dying = early retirement.
No solution to death’s finality
and such a blessing awaits me, too.
If you’re suicidal they call the cops.
The audience is full of glee. Most failures,
and most successes, are in our future.

Look one way, from another come the heart’s
missed beats. Look slowly, labor for the success
of others, even the old and frayed.
First entertain, then enlighten if you can.
Forget me not, is that all I want?
Jail or zen mountain monastery
hiphop artist hypnotist bebop trumpeter
unknown soldier black bear bad bladder
ice cold beer poker player wry Creator.
If not one way, then another. Otherwise
give me your 5-10 best hiphop artists. Can
they take the sting out of life like bluegrass, jazz?

We hope everyone alive is essential,
consequential. The commonplace and everyday
is sanctified. Nothing else special
need be done but stay alive. Don’t lose passport,
don’t be late to airport. Is it stress? Yes.
Insects are pollinators, insects are us.
Romance without finance is a nuisance.
November, however, is sweet, sunshine
through bare trees, dry leaves companionably
visiting among the dead. If you run over
a chipmunk, a groundhog or a skunk, say
a short prayer. One can’t help being here, c**t.

I live in a state so blue there’s nothing I can do
to change man’s trajectory and if I could
what angle of re-entry or ascent
would I choose? Grace is what we get no matter
what the plot. Come the tired end of day
Jack thinks why not waste time watching tv
but the next day he has a hangover
like Ernest Hemingway or Mick Jagger.
The material world is reality.
Reality’s not always what we’re after.
I like Jack’s confidence, that working the problem
will result in better outcomes than guessing.

Poetry is plumbing an answer to
the problem of what to do and why do it
when your cancer makes poetry from
losing the argument with yourself.
Man needs help from every creature born.
The blackbird contains death but it’s bigger than death.
It’s more like God but an ironical god.
Smaller and funnier than God, impossible
to regard directly, gotta look sideways,
aim binoculars left, right, up, down--
missing every time. There’s nothing you wish for
that won’t be yours if you stay alive.