Notes on Choosing a Vocation

Everyone must have
some kind of gift
to give the world
and if you have no gift
then you must provide
a service to others
so that they might offer their gifts
to the greater whole
but the last thing you should do
is spend your life
waiting for a mystery
barely visible flecks of pain
splattered on the canvas
a series of handwritten loops
where the poet once stood
XOXO scratched
into the protective glass
around the sheep’s head
sculpture of an eagle
at the bottom of the pool
wringing the last drops of butane
from the manuscript
into a shot glass
emerging after days and nights
in the mirrored casket
to no applause
hand outstretched
to touch the mystery’s muzzle
before it disappears
and you realize
you could have been
a pretty good baker
or the monk who keeps
the candles lit
in the entrance to the monastery
after everyone
has gone to bed.

Notes on the Pain in My Heart

The pain in my heart
tells me where to go.
Past a convenience store plagued
by dewy teenagers.
Over a bridge
of shattered drumsticks.
Through the android poetry reading.
I have no destination or map.
Just the pain in my heart
and its half-baked ideas.
Place your phone
at the edge of the table
and leave it there for years.
Jog around the lake
until you fall sleep.
Two or three slashes
in the dashboard
says the pain in my heart.
One more manuscript
on the bonfire.
The pain in my heart teaches me
to tabulate losses
to build a makeshift shelter
of all the evil things I’ve done.
Better settle in
says the pain in my heart
It may take years to learn
to live without me
or we reach the end
together and never
have to dance again.

The Rules

are different every time
but several remain
always the same.
Rule number one
distrust what you see.
The surface of the world
is but a guise
beneath which lies another
fecund with forms
one by one revealing themselves
to those who seek them.
Rule number two
is the cancelation
of rule number one.
The world is made of solid lies
transforming into dust.
until even the rules
will cease to exist.
There are those who believe
new rules are waiting
where the dead live
in peaceful mountain villages
eating healthy weeds
and drinking pure water.
To be honest, I don’t care
what awaits or doesn’t.
I’m so in love
with the fucking rules
most of which I’ll never know
or comprehend.
I can feel them now
making an isopod.