the poetry flows
comes out of my nose
or rather my head
from my mind instead

It's easy to write poems
about poetry
I like to dwell on it
so I don't need
to write about something else.

Goldfish swirling
 encircled in a fog
  wafting from unknown waters
whilst walking whales
 mellowly meander
  chairmen of the boardwalks
   picking up discarded pop cans
    and listening to the snoring sounds
     of sleeping people dreaming.

It's easier on TV
the hero smiles
no worries about taxes
or mortgage payments
or missed appointments
or airplanes crashing
or broccoli in his teeth
or feet in his mouth
or starving children
or dying relatives
or rush hour traffic
or noisy appliances
or paperwork due yesterday
or bumps in the night
or bumps in the road
or flat tires
or dirty laundry
or hour wages
or papercuts
or alarms slept through
or obligations forgotten
or performance declines
or oil changes
or oil prices changing
or stubbed toes
or burnt toast
or stuffy nose
or worries in his head
when he goes to bed
the TV hero sleeps
soundly; I am no hero

I can stay awake indefinitely
if need be, and sometimes
need has been for a while

So I'll stay up for a while
it's easy to stay up;
I have a secret method

No coffee or no-doze
or sugar or speed
for me: All I need is food

Any kind of food, or
even drinks sometimes.
I'm not too discerning

A brick of ramen noodles
is adequate for about an hour
I can buy time in bulk

Often ten for a dollar
each one an hour
and stay awake

Indefinitely.

 TOMORROW
    I   looked  OUT
    my
         WINDOW   b u t
    to  my  dismay,
    it   was   a    WINDOW
      LOOKING  IN
                   and so I looked into
           MYSELF
       and saw the
          scrambled eggs
             that  I  will  eat
                               yesterday.

(This one's been around for a while, and once looked a little bit different. To see the original of this poem, click here.)

 Disjointed,
   my poetry flows, not from my heart,
                    not from my soul,
           not from my life or experiences,

  but from  a tortured mind
            t r a p p e d
                in  a playground
                        with 

          electrified monkeybars.

(This one's been around for a while, and once looked a little bit different. To see the original of this poem, click here.)

On and off
   and    
On and off
    flips    the switch
             the electricity
     crackles

             through the monkeybars

    a cacophony
             of sparks and screams
    taunting

             sometimes  a  live  one  escapes

(This one's been around for a while, and once looked a little bit different. To see the original of this poem, click here.)

Crappy wet Monday
You dampen my head
Your rain my face does spray
I wish I had stayed in bed

Icky wet Monday
You brought a suprise
You wiped my tears away
When you rained in my eyes

Hated wet Monday
I wonder who made you
I'd like to make them pay
An arm 'n a leg would do

Useless wet Monday
I wish you were gone
There's no reason for you to stay
'Cause I don't have a lawn

Stupid wet Monday
You dampen my spirit
Your rain makes me dismay
Every time that I hear it

Evil wet Monday
You tear me apart
You're making my nerves fray
And shattering my heart

Gosh darn Monday
You came with no warning
I meant to awake early, but hey,
I'll just sleep through your morning.

the road to hell is paved with good intentions
the sidewalks are lost, grand possibilities
walking on them
every step is "I could've ..."
"... but I didn't"

every crack separating
another success averted
or a mistake accidently encountered
the sidewalks to hell are a solemn walk

It's easy to make mistakes
but hard to prepare to do so

It's hard to make poems
easier when you're not trying

Mistakes happen when I try not to make them
Poems happen when I don't think about making them

A poem is over when it's finished
Mistakes last a lot longer

I'm addicted to music
or rather my brain is

it needs to be fed
its constant diet of melodies
and rhythms and beats

whenever it doesn't hear it remembers
destroying the silence

A demented dee-jay
spinning my lobes, never
repeating but rarely
ceasing, receding only
when drowned out
by the tunes outside

 I write poems about writing poems
  it's fun to be so wry
and self-aware

 the hipness flows from
  my ballpoint pens
would I be mute without them?

the machine churns out another one
 ready to produce the next
 unaware as to what it's doing
 or why or how

machines has no muses
 nor methodologies or motives
built to build, not created to be creative

the machine churns out another one
 ready to make the next
 unable to give its product a soul
 devoid of life to impart
 unhurried, unworried

the machine churns out another one

just one more before bed
 it doesn't take much
 might as well, done so much
 already, so why not
just one more before bed
 it's nearly over
 hardly realized it started
 can't hurt to do
just one more before bed
 it's past four already
 the damage is done
 no problem to have
just one more before bed
 nobody will notice
 it's only a little bit
 and then there's
just one more before bed
 and one more and one more
 and one more and then
 the sun rises.

Is it simplicity masquerading
   for concise ingenuity
or lack of ability
   that drives my writing
for though you may not
   I know that my poems
stink.

why do you title your poems?
so you can tell them apart?
something to keep track of
or a way to order them in a book?
I don't name all of mine
first since few deserve it
and second because I stink
at coming up with names
and third because I already
can tell my poems apart

music
a maddening calliope
of cacophany
in my head
relentless in its pursuit
of my sleeplessness

conscripting my thoughts
to its evil ends
keeping me from my
blissful slumber
the silence outside
punctuated by the

notes in my head
keeping the rhythm of the
thoughts in my mind
keeping my eyes open
in the head on my pillow.

  confusion
            bewildered
blindsided by simplicity
  behind
            distracted
can't get anything done.

sitting in front of my
workstation
playing the one last game of freecell
that isn't
fighting the paper that isn't
writing itself

I realize the futility of
changing lightbulbs
since they always seem
to go out

maybe that's why my old roommate
always sat in darkness

between the notes of
a song
a thought gets through
my brain is busy now.

I am not a poet
I am just a guy
 who hears words in his head
and writes them down
 broken up into lines

earrings, earrings in your ear

why the mutilation?

poking holes with no fear

just for admiration?

sitting in math class
not wanting to be here
   my mind is already full
   I don't want to empty it
   just for more calculus
because the spigot between my ears
is arbitrary; I open the valve
and lose engineering disciplines but
   random facts about Samuel Gompers
      stay in.

taste soft beauty forever
as an angel's musical murmuring makes a
perfect picture of a thousand worlds
with rivers of pretty light
which glisten like sacred nectar
eternal as if always flowing.

flirt with each morning

look, yet see
the open moon blaze & burn away

then every evening
dance life naked
and celebrate secret animal urges
with a frantic pounding whisper

it is as beautiful as crimson sugar

starting this without knowing
where it's going

it leads to whereabouts unknown
along the way it meanders

pausing

as though to give insight on
its destination

it doesn't matter
it doesn't know where it's going either.

I wish I had another mouth
with at least another tongue
I don't think it'd need tastebuds
since this mouth would only talk

A direct line to my brain, it'd speak
the words that run through my head
effortlessly articulating the vocals
endlessly competing in a marathon
around my lobes

Stopping the repetition, ending the
arguments with myself and others
allying my niggling doubts and
verbalizing my insecurities, my new mouth

would be a perfect impressionist
mimicking me in any mode or mood
even imitating the vocalists of the songs
of the soundtrack accompanying all
the words in my cluttered mind

Antidisestab-
lishmentarianism:
You are so darn long

Antidisestab-
lishmentarianism:
It's hard to spell you

Antidisestab-
lishmentarianism:
over-cumbersome

Antidisestab-
lishmentarianism:
rather unwieldy

Antidisestab-
lishmentarianism:
noone will use you.

the waves roll in and
the horizon rolls out to infinity, and
you realize that nowhere else matters, that
you're nothing compared to the waters
ten feet below you and miles in front of you, and
though it doesn't matter and you don't matter,
you don't care and you just listen to the waves
splashing on the rocks and then
you almost envy the rocks
for their permanence.