Post on 05-Apr-2018
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Effects of daily life on happiness
Enthalpy Press
Don Schaeffer
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Borrower Be
When your benefactor frowns
and suddenly
becomes yourcreditor, art
stops poetry
freezes. You look
into the unforgivingface. Earth shrinks.
All of the
rainbowsburn.
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Feeling Better
As I get closer to dottering,I put on Bach
and the music reaches out
through the centuries saying,
we are here for you,we are your neighbors,
in spite of the early death,and the cold impoverished
winters, wars,rights of kings, conquest.
My neighbors with their
smiles suppress their hates.
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Halloween in Spring
Sometimes I think
I enjoy fearremembering what I felt
when I was fearless.
I awake bravely
in the morning knowingrisks and hearing continuous
portents, sad words
follow me everywhere.
Is silence the scariest thing,or is the gabble of human
voices scarier still?
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Head First
As I tumble
I will stay the same;
I promise like the rainbownot changing the rules
clean in the morning
breakfasted according to the laws of nature.
I won't lookthat which is expected will come,
don't need to study it
will travel with myhead down letting
my body absorb the impact.
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Encounter with Superman
Big John Gunn,
one syllable man
whose eyesrefuse to elaborate
on the sky,
tells me how much
real honesty costs.
It's not the cheap
self serving stuff,not the insider stuff,
he says, big feet
crushing the clay.
Honesty only
counts when it costs me,
says big John Gunn, theone syllable man.
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Absolute Limen
We sit in the back
against the forest in April
at the border of Spring. She isstill sad as the dusk gathers
and will probably remain so.
I watch the filaments
in the trees get finer,uncountable threads of shadow,
nets of shadow, lace, and the
catching webs of vine,thinner and finer until we
fall into darkness.
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To Someone Allied with Death
Life, the time sovereign
is also powerful.
She didn't think so,didn't feel the
weight of days,
how they grind edges,
polish jagged everydayto jewels.
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Temporal Extension
Truth
that never lets up
is cruel.Objectively, Daniel was real
for two afternoons a month
plus a long story of checkered youth
and shaded manhood.But when he has died
Daniel's reality looms over her
like the god of storms.
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Dream from Delayed Check
I dream anotherdark towered city
that masks the sky, glistens
like diamonds in moistureand loves the rain at night.
With my muddy eyes,I grope, chilled,
wish for familiar warm
small spaces alone.
I dream the pension-granter
decides it's time for me to die.
My muddy mind races through thatlooking for ways to combat the terror.
Bound to happen sometime I dream,
considering painful options.
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Longish Epitaph
OK I'm not a good poet
and what I do for art
sucks too andI'm not really
a poet or an artist at all.
We can get that out of the way.
And what I am is just a guywho lives here doing some
biological duty, un-
memorable, living with error,memory of failure, denying
death.
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Labyrinthine Day
The trees
extrude themselves
along the low-resistancepathways in the air.
Nature abhors such vacuums and
fills them with wood.
.The birds who
inhabit the trees
ride sunlight trails,slip through transparent
tunnels in the surface of wind.
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Tango
He knows
how family is a war zone,
strut meetscounter-strut.
Leaving and not
leaving soon enough,the soft and warm
up for grabs.
He knows how life is war,
how sweet is victory
and how permanent anddevastating is defeat.
Love is the prize
and always has been.Those outcast can only
squeeze tight to
hold themselves in.
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Memories of Winnipeg
We often
intensely disagree,
but I know your faceand over the long term
you have always been here
and tightening my strings.
.Now I see you broken.
You have
temporarily lost andevery one of your days is scary
as you hang on a string above the
safety web, with king safety poised toeat you.
.
I could gloat and will and do in private
while smiling down at you and offeringa hand which I know is not enough.
We have tightened each others
knots and tugged for 20 years. I'mglad to see you victim of your errors.
.
I tell you your career has beencheckered. You have been stubborn and
righteous as if you were
meant to struggle. My
poor friend. And you have becomesomething else. It must be
better now.
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Time Factory
The human brain
has an organelle
.that stacks heartbeats
end to end
and synthesizes time.
.We are conscious
because we
make moments.
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My Van Gogh Poem
Oh look at that Europe.
I love the way it moves
the fields dance andthe stars circle each other
in the sky. I want a place of my own.
Thank God for my eyes
and for the color. WhenI cry and my eyes
emit paint. I make
my own Europe.Please take it.
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The Odd Thing About Memory
I remember Mr. Quinn.
"You can't just keep running
roughshod over people's feelings."He told me when I was twenty.
.
It's odd
that I remember thebumpy spots in the path
and honor those names.
.The broken spots
have anchors in my dreams.
They shame me all my life.I will be embarrassed beyond death.
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How Poorly Do I Love You?
We have
the agreed engagement of
fingers and the casualbrace of arm on waist and
laughter to break the silence.
We sleep with limb touching limb
and feel the brief vacuum of absence..
I tell her that she
spent most of her lifeorbiting around people
who never learned how
to show love..
I ask,
among the
love skills deficient,why am I different?
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Heroism Dream
They have forgotten the athletes.
Heroically, I run to grab
as much of the vaccine as I can find.I dash through the tunnel
to where they are about to board the bus.
But I must return to make an appearance
at the dinner partyand I forget the needles.
You watch my sneaking back.
I can't do it all myself. I cry out,
in spite of my heroic intentions.I lose the way as my opportunities vanish
Something is wrong with my legs.
When all comes
down to it, poemsflow through my
brain like dreams,ephemeral wispsof egocentricity processed
through my eyes,
frozen self-centered ripples.
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Biography of a Man
We are creatures
atop and below
whose ancestors joined long ago.
Slimed together
in gelatinous
biological glueswallowed into
the maw of an elastic fish.
I don't know why
I think myself alive,
I,suffused among
masses of
soft automata,
each with its own god,can hear the pumps
and wonder.
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Letter to the Ethics Editor
How do you feel about anger?
Does it feel good
like other passions?Is it a friendly device
like a sharpened ax
to shape the hardwood?
Can one be
forgiven for it?
When I hold
anger in my mind's hand,
I cut through ropes,jam smooth uneven walls.
It vibrates hard
like a rifle butt.
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Biography of a Tree
I know she is one
huge vegetable harmony,
impossible to dissect.
The vines reach inside her skin
and their fingernail fleshes
merge with hers.
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Known but Not Familiar Words
I always
put it around my nostrils,
I answer when she asks mewhere I put my Vicks.
Then in my half-sleep
I notice how strange the word sounds,"nostrils." Words not often said
wander in the woods without trails.
Something like nose,
I know that word even though it's
not every day. Nostrils, the appendagefeature, like the nomenclature of insect parts.
In my half-sleep about to slip
into dream my facetious mindknows the link
here on earth to parts of strange beasts.
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The Hole
The truth
has to buried
down here somewhere.
I enter cannily
prepared for
a long slow journey.
The light of my candle
flickers as ifit can fail.
It is throughthe basement of my old house
that it opens.
Sub-floors andcatacombs never explored
behind a door of wooden slats I could nearly remember,
as if the truth
were hidden in the realm
of devils.
I walk in alone
peering at the cells of my brain
amazed at how huge I am.
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Why I like Cop Shows ("Where Id was there shall ego be.")
Police come in
bright like the sun,
cleaning away from the outsidewhat should be hidden safely within.
So the ordinary hours
dawn from underneath.They are full-sized,
with heavy feet.
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Chauvet Cave
From a world of
closed loops
where kinks andcorners weren't
imagined yet,
where animals
mixed and soulsslipped in and out
of bodies. We hold
the line now, coldand fast. We
lock and crimp sharp.
The circle is onlyan ideal we cannot match.
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Freud vs Jung
I used to thinksomething came from
down the great tube of body and brain.I thought I saw a light.
But I'm grown less certain.
I now think it all comes
from this tiny Earth,
emergent detail. Memory
is all that's left
of mystery.
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You Have Many Moles
When I slipped into the world
it wasn't certain about me.
The lines around my bodyare therefore fudged.
It takes more energy
to finish the work of rounding.Rough extrusions remain,
statistical shivers
of half way.
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Mom Returns for a Night
It took
a lot out of her,
returning that kind of smileand pushing her body into
that angle she learned
in high school. But shebecame my mother again,
briefly, on that anniversary day,
those years ago, a womanof long learned habit in front
of the camera.Unknowns followed her, just
weeks ahead. The effort
showed. I don't know how
she remembered.
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My Comment When The Poet Denied the Rant
He wrote a wonderful rant about
somebody's criticism of his poems.
I never noticed the trouble
somebody said he had.
I told him the one thing
you have to watch when you
write a rant is the glorious high you get.
It makes you selfish.He blushed saying it was
just a spoof. But this was no spoof.I told him how much he enjoyed the bitter juice.
I told him I can tell.
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Daily Visit of the Unforgiving Sun
First sun slipping through the
East window excites the air dust
and highlights the flawsin the rug.
The sun is
refreshing likean inspector
who visits from
beyond the walls
and tells me I'm OK.
That's why I lovethe morning.
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Systemic Misunderstanding Dream
Now I get it I'm
surrounded by the
frowns of righteousness-addicts,I sit swiveling on a pike.
When they spin me,
push into my eyesglower after glare,
asking whys.
I wanted to please them,
loved the project;
but can't do it.Resign.
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Brenda the Real Poet
To all the
unheard poets
who want to weep tooin the spirit of weeping
feel the tropical
drizzle gustson just a special day of
music they make,
to all of us
with small and silent audiences,
I call in sympathy,"May your stories
sting."
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What Happens When You Settle Down
I put away my
pretty orange vest
and toss away mywing-tipped salesman shoes.
Love means
no more parade,poetry over,
the end of the pleas.
The world of aspiration
thins, fantasy assumes
its valid translucent form,all is tame. Days pass.
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Photographs of Textures
Focused eyes
dots of the world,
filaments streaming
wavelets
within the big thingshovering through intermediate space
between the nose pushing insectsand the mountains of the moon.
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The Party
The first course of
outrage was wonderful.
Now, I await the tears.Lick my lips,
feel the
sea building in my eyes,breath surfs
prayer.
Servers bring dessert.
Yes. It's my birthday.
I so lookedforward to this.
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Love Light
When you say
I love you and
you are faint of heart,uttering a slight or
ignorant lie,
you live luke warm,
senses numbing.The answer is also a lie.
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Seeing the Earth before Exit
1.
I wore the jacket padded
armor to the office.
The hands that
touched my shoulder
were just dead weight.
Tailored decoration
hid my neck
so there was little
visible flesh.
Stacked fluid instants like
a football game wentfrom offense to defense,
victory to loss,covered as possible.
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2.
We paid
for ways to spend our minutes.
We exchanged
past units for dollops
of the future,
licking anticipation
from our lips.
Manipulated sound
or flavors especially formed, or
carefully timed open gates.
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Evolution
I am tired
of worrying whose
mood is badin the evening.
I just want to find
bits of pleasure.
I am tired of
civilization, let the place
fester in themorning. The movement
around me makes me
want to hide.
Blast the others
and their selves.
I am tired ofmaking room.
And I love the outrage,
feeling how muchI earned it.
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The Victory of a Mature Man
Well Madam,
I have purged all those
pretensions. I haveneatly simplified.
No longer do
what I called art,
laughable recordinglike a cave man.
Especially with the vainelements, burnt away,
purely I live, immersed
in what I see and feellearning how short life is
and how few will
briefly remember.
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Dreamless
What do I have
to worry about
in an era of peace?Just death
and arrangements.
As usual I open my eyesat four am for my customary
waking dream compulsion.
In foresight, infrantic planning.
In an era of peace, another mindworries. I am
absent and someone
disposes of me, whole
or pieces.
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Night
Tonight acts and
pauses like a theatrical.
The curtain risesthrice during intermissions
and falls as the drama ensues.
Act 1.Murk and introduction.
I stir.
Act 2.
In medias res
with my girlfriendflying in my balloon designed to make my
enemies jealous. They
reach up to grab me
as I throttle away.My eyes open.
Act 3.Sleep and wakefulness
mix. I count
and worry.
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The Clinic
When I enter the room
with my huge keys dangling
in my recognizable uniform,I see him sitting there.
I say I want to help you.
I take the "help" by thehilt and slash him. He is
agog, repeating only "I" and "I".
The "we" falls from his face.
The "you" is long lost.
He and I exchange stares.Mine wins..
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Renovations
Awake in the breath
of ghosts after
a nightmare suppressednight, unlocatable feet
no discernible floor.
It got cold last night.The room pushes me away
as I move from the bed
out of the blankets
Cats are disobedient. Halls
are haunted with disorder.Estranged breakfast.
I wait for the sun.
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Getting Old without Religion
I remember
what it was like
in the old dayswhen I would go
someplace that made me
obedient. The obedience
made me safe. Therewere no obvious friends there
but everyone knew my face.I always felt there would be
more chances and the years
would be a path to perfection.Now I am far, far away from those melodies I used
to chew on to ease the sweet sap
out of the words. I look around for
other chances and see brevity.
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Her Sunday Night
Her Sunday night
convulses.Breath whistles,
crashes on pillow.
Her outer shell crimps.But inside she
only sleeps.
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Definition of Art
When we traveled
to an arty town
we found most artistsown their galleries.
What about this?
Art definedas things on display
in an art gallery
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Grumpy Dream
As he balds
the dark stripes
on his pate appear.
His face formed
with a glare,
tiny baby teethshiny and sharp.
Unfriendly like a tiger,but he is a lamb.
I was born with him.
He stages the day.
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