After Graduation

I have headaches and worries

and psychotic blurs of future jobs

and coat hangers holding solemn

jackets, torn from wasted days by

my wasted hands. I'll sit at the kitchen table

argue with my wife

and maybe have a drink. And so it will go.

Rather, I'd be wise to assume now is the time

to find a new route

live for what's to be done awake and alive

rather than skating by on a good salary and

no hope to survive this life of deadlines

specifications, stale coffee and office blinds.

If I remain innately divine, and follow the few last

gasps of true thought and hope I have in these old bones

I might make a right decision, an unbargained trade to my

future self, with a handshake and goodnight kiss.

Goddamn, The pages and pages of online research

bold letters, italicized guides and corkscrew insights

helping me plan a path build on unlit gas, ready to burst

if dropping the match, unless it remains unlit.

All I can do is write to console, and silently scroll

the pages of suggestions and guestimations of certified

educated undergrads who, like I, weep and hope

for a life which loans can be revoked

or at least to wake up and start the day

alive as when your head hit the sheets yesterday.

Distracting Books, Beautiful Sax

Bronze brass breathe deep and stares do seethe

the show before our gazing heaps

of noise and silent gushing cares

praised hallowed reaping notes do creep.

Then silent walls begin to speak

the noise once hidden in the hush

begins to pull and slip unstuck

to frame a noise distracting beats.

Once focus glides towards bolstered horns

now concentrate their blare no more

i focus more upon the floor

which holds the book that broke the score.

Eyes rub roughly upon my back

annoyed I brace now looking at

the same nude head before my face

but lost among a trail untraced.

If only friction fixed the place

of pages held and gravitate

not to the floor but coiled embraced

upon the piano where it was laid.

My Phylum Future

Sparkling waves, glassed bricking brook

poured broken shards of bedrock soot

until the river ran its route

memories settle overlooked

Up ahead glows of red, mean green

paying tolls down the untold creek

which wasted well will surely mean

a few more hours, like jaded peas

my future floats, awaiting me

It passes by the present I

rivulet torrents through my

weathered mind

Instead of knowing, seeing past

I wait and feel its breezing clasp

Hindsight hinders hinged decisions

made in muddy waded marsh

of momentary muddled mishaps

forced to choose among a farce.

It's hard to tell my phylum future

awaiting flushing force down stream

soon it wanes and weans til' sea

accepts the oceaned river's plea

Now I lay knee deep in surf

where I may contemplate marine

amongst the shells and shore horizon

my journey made by gravity.

Psyche

Psychologists are neither artist nor fool

nor doctor nor philosopher

they are a breed of astronomers

trying to look through the wrong end

of the telescope

at an array of dead stars

Rain on the Muskegon River

Truth is a fishless river

Anglers be wary

Overflows, dark soot, no eggs

Autumn Duties

Outside, mellow glass walled in

The world exposes a faltered glow

as hearts do beat I hear the sounds

of fellows steering through puddled roads

Walls warm, though still compelled

while thoughts tugged as though by string

to look among the fields below

ghastly steps twist days to dreams

Words spill across the keys and screen

spirits still, locked and cold

hours spent to ask and know

while life whirls on beyond my window

Breaking leaves off stems and fall

like sifting sand by nature's hand

Though fingers grind for future gold

today is lost indoors alone.

Golden Harvest Mason Jar

Stitched imprints on phial curves

holding frothing malted brew

against the fashioned oak you sit

my night revolves around its use

Nightly, weekly, weakened wills

do capture in your hallowed grin

though used to seal sweet boiled fruits

instead good cheer swills within

Kindly kiln the kindled days

which slowly toast my days away

pious piece of passive glass

let only I be lightly smashed