every step we take back to the hotel after this meeting tells me
      you’re crazier than i remember
      socially awkward (understated)
      maybe i’m someone else’s weird

you drive me nuts sometimes
and it’s a privilege to stand here next to you

your life at two feet six inches
all for a curable disease at 1
your legs fold now like jello
in half across a board you use
in a wheelchair-unfriendly home
raising your child
(you were lucky enough to bear)
in hopes he walks straight
through every day

tomorrow as i sit and try to prove
my proficiency in a subject at which
i’ll never approach proficiency i’ll
think of you sitting on the couch and
doing nothing
and

be jealous
for jealousy is all i have to give
when my mental power is being completely
drained by trying to fill in the appropriate
mother fathering bubbles.

we pitched our tents on wind carved
sand pits and fought with ants the
size of mice. we woke and ran along
dolphins jumping just off shore as
curious at us as were of them.

salsa. oh… the salsa.

we took directions from crazy
ladies driven to their insanity
by their taste-buds after years of ingesting
the salsa. oh… the salsa

fish taco after fish taco we turned
right through a field on a dirt path
through mountains and passed in
twelve hours only one other moving
vehicle.
stopping for tacos in a village so small
the only restaurant was a hole in a kitchen
where 50 cents buys two grease balls

we stood on peaks no one should ever
have to leave and bathed under
blue skies, a sun anyone would have
worshipped had they not known better.

and then came day 3.

record spinning is smooth
in its necessity for analog
you’re hard, gritty, pixelated,
a little digital for my tastes

put on facade
dance in promenade
claim you prefer swing
lie.

i cannot hope my feelings will wane
with my fever leaving me once again
healthy. in charge of my emotion.
it’s april and the sun has yet to shine
leaving me today groping around in
the dusk from dawn until the end of
dusk as there’s nothing between.

in three months i’ll have a city. but
for now i’ve nothing but a thread to hold
so weak it would break if i used it to
floss

i cannot hope tomorrow will change
with my switch from beer to gin in
hopes for something better, stronger.

but when reality hits three months from
now and out from under your thumb
i emerge stronger and brilliantly naive
ready to engage in something like battle
ready to do something like conquer

just want to feel you in my hand
brush you through my fingers
hold your breath
and feel you in my hand
your every grain

today for a change
my poo
does not remind me
one bit of you

and i feel this is progress
a no-wiper of sorts

like a child looking to his father
i take what i believe you’ve told me
to take
to enjoy
to pursue
to love
and all the while the media tells me
‘spoil your appetite’
‘try this candy or that’
‘ignore your daddy, have fun’
as though my dad doesn’t know fun
when he sees it.

like my daughter looking to me
content to climb up and down the stairs
ignoring my calls to find and enjoy
the slide

like a child looking to his father
i take what i believe you’ve told me
is worthwhile
believing you know best

trying not to
spoil my appetite

an ipad it would make roger happy
ipad like iphone just more more snappy
but thousands of miles away
and a price i can’t pay
man oh man my life can seem so crappy

“suffocation by breasts”
my epitaph shall read
now who shall help me write it?

days we’ll spend
constructing and then de
as we figure the insides and out
and weeks years decades from now
when we see our fruit
we’ll know
there’s no way we were acting alone

four years ago i sat in this room
with those who will not shape tomorrow
but eternity
they were of different colors
skins, languages, races,
and i found myself honored to be sitting
in their midst

today the same crowd gathers and now i know the man of God who commands thousands in front is also a close talker.
the mover and shaker on my right passes gas incessantly in meetings.
and none of the gentlemen on my left will look you in the eye when you talk to them.

i find myself wondering
am i weird like these?
or simply worthless to the cause for i’m truly without grand defect?
then i remember my overbearing personality
and feel again honored to be in such company

oh these stars align on just the right
days for lunch and days for dinner
dates where we connect and roll through
old memories we managed to drum up about
the times we shared before the bottom fell
out of tune, out of time, out of place, out of
towns through which we’ll roll in three months
time to move beyond these clouds of gray to
perpetual hope in dreams of complex problem
solving issues we didn’t know we needed
to have friends and leadership passed off to
those much more gifted than us take the reigns and
ride full speed ahead as though i wasn’t there
in the first place

it seems like just yesterday
our communications systems were firing on all cylinders
but systems break down if not well oiled
or should you throw in a rock
or even fail to give them their necessary attention

a full system tune up may be in check
but first i’ve another system to flush

inspiring teacher, sarcastic jerk
unmatched golfer, unfaithful spouse
gifted singer dancer, likes little boys
visionary leader, big time embezzler
comeback quarterback, statutory rapist

and you find yourself wondering
what will your ‘after comma’ be

today i wrote my masterpiece
on letterhead from that place
we know
encrusted it in overlaid gold
submitted it for review not by
peers but the higher ups. you know
the people who really decide
if you’re someone or not

today i wrote my masterpiece
i blogged it on the interwebs
i crossed my fingers and hoped
for wealth. but i knew i was willing
to settle for comments

oh my obsessions my obsessions my obsessions
my obsessions have got me down
dreaming for better times without obsessions
obsession free sessions
where life is simpler with no distractions
a place where i can obsess over my lack
of obsessions
oh my obsessions my obsessions my obsessions
my obsessions have got me down
and here i’m dreaming of
obsession free sessions