You are my rent-a-poem
You are love jungle -- Yoyo, hula hoop!
You are my closing costs
My plasma vibrator, my single malt
You? You are my Tampa manatee
You are my Occupy
You my eucalyptus octopus
And a haircut on an autumn day
Also submarine. Surreality check.
You you...! You YOU you!
That’s who. The Temple of Shenanigans,
AKA Shenanigan Temple.
The complete works. The leftovers.
You are what I’ve been waiting for
And now I’ll never wait anymore.
Dream baby, you are, and indefatigable,
That, too. And you are the cream in my coffee,
And you are the one, and you are my everything,
And you are everything I could hope for.
And still you are more, and still you keep coming,
You are coming like a river, like a torrent,
Like an all-day lollipop where every day is today.
You are the Castle of Doubt on the Plain of Forgetfulness.
You are one more and able to laugh it off.
My sunshine, that’s what you are.
A rocking chair and a band-aid. Violin castanets.
An elusive perfume. You are all history. You are
Breakfast and you are on your way and all
I can do is list, name, and hand out passports.
Because you are who you are in a way that is all
Your way and which, as a poet trying to set it down,
Failure, I am a failure in that you will always be
Something to me both bedrock and ineluctable,
A passion of opposition and an unchecked probity
Of probability and yet a chemical formula not to be
Tested. The Higgs bosun, that’s it exactly. A gluon.
A ramshackle melody. A forgotten memory that
Never happened and when all is said and done,
Actually nothing was said and nothing was done.
That’s why I keep writing, endlessly penning, because that’s
Who you are and when I stop, Surprise, you are
The surprise. You are the inching to the summit,
The chocolate razor, the tadpole’s pole and the
Gate to the Fields of the Lord. I sing you praises and
The answer is more like a light fog saxophone, a
Kingdom Come revelation, a hunch that blossoms
To birth a new species. An appointment for lunch.
Some nectar in a tube, a pillow. Like the new language you
Are, if I could write that I would, you in a race car,
A pendulum, a fire tower, a blimp. A pothole, narcissus,
An a capella cantabile, a big bucket of milk. I can run alongside
You but can’t keep up with you, your tapdancing
Shadow, your clothing made of earth and spit. But I know you,
And when you wish me happy birthday, I trade it for yours,
You not growing old, you everlasting, you infinity you.