What hides in the garden

My garden awakes for spring,
or so they say. I worry about it.
I know beneath the rocks a menace
hides, awaiting. creatures oblivious to anything
but their selfish appetite, threaten the blooms
of the old crab apple, the lilies, the flowerless wisteria.
they wait for warm weather, lie still and let us think
they are all gone for good.
I know better. I invite inspection. The inspector
says not to worry, tries to calm my fears.
They are part of nature, he says. Deal with it.
Ignore. The tree will be okay, he says to me,
as long as the buds are there.
For now I’ll take his word. There is really nothing
I can do, but wait and see.

Hello

Well hello there my lovely stranger,
where you gone to all this time?
I’ve missed what you mean to me,
though I can’t say what it is,
I know it’s there because I miss
something and here you are
to help me find it, whatever it is
that I’ve been missing.
You know how I love telling people
that something is missing, don’t you?
specially my women, but they don’t seem to like it,
for some reason they get upset, sometimes they even cry.
I feel so sorry for them then,
when they get upset just because of what I said,
I said that something is missing in my life.
They seem to think it’s them.
What’s wrong with people, eh?
They must have something missing too.
It isn’t me because I’m with them when I say this
although sometime I’m not, I sometimes say it from afar
and I don’t mean I miss them, it’s confusing, you know?
Anyway, I just wanted to say hello,
and have you been missing me?

The other's voice

Why do you cling so hard, lady?
let go, old friend. Let go
of me, for though I wish you well,
I always will, I never dream of you,
well not that often.
I’ve got my life back home you see,
and you’re not in it,
so please won’t you just go.
I travel, light on the ground, no rope shall tie me down,
I fly.
let go. I’ve got things I want to do. People too.
Stay still, unchanged until I need you once again, in time.
You know I will, but don’t you wait too hard.
Let go, for now.
Take care.

My fortune cookies

May you rest in the peace of my mind.
Once loved, twice forgotten.
Secrets should be taken to the grave.
Don’t get angry, get even.
Don’t get even, it’s a waste of a good time.
Time is short, use it well.
The well of wisdom is as deep as the universe.
The universe doesn’t think about you, it just is.
What has been is what there will be.
Life is good.

Beginnings and ends - Do.

Do we ever get to know?
No. Does it matter what we know?
No. Should we ask you why? no.
We’ve talked about this
so many times, chewing on it,
on this tasteless gum sticking to my teeth
and I can’t spit it out.
There’s little I can do.

Personals

You got eliminated. 
Slightest detection of deficiencies
gets you to the bottom of the list.
I spy with my little eye:
idiotic impatience
emotional imbalance
crude impervious ignorance, 
saturated hate.
Keep them to yourself.
All opposites – welcome.

Seaweed

Once these curls billowed like seaweed
like me in the shallows of your attentions.
willowy no more, nothing svelte remains
except that love, now twice as thin as the ghost
swishing in the gutters of my ego.
My artillery bilious, my owl eyes tired
my squandering generator absconded,
and so I stand upwind, my curls fast asleep.

In Memoriam

Commemorating is for pain.
bliss is remembered without.
I’d rather pierce his heart
for commemoration, she said.
That thing is perfect as is, why spoil it.
Perfection needs no additions.
Or edition. At any rate,
he never forgets his cock.
cocks never need reminders.
they hang there
oblivious of memory
indifferent to memory loss
or rather, they thrive on it.
They forget and move onwards and
upwards. If they can.
When they flounder, the cocks that is,
then they remember, something.
They get a little sad around the edges.
They look for signs to remind them
of lost glories.

handle with care

we put mental stickers around our hearts
fragile
handle with care
this side up
do not bend
while our bodies go on without protection
we let others come and go
In and out,
like a train station.

we issue invitations
we attach ourselves to other bodies
in great delight, or misery.
When we grow old, our hearts stay young,
at heart we are all seventeen.
and look at the devastation of the bodies we live in
and look at the pickled mess we leave behind when we die.

Who needs these poems

These flowery love poems, emotional bursts
of metaphors and people, who needs them?
Not the reader.
The wordy poems, cascading
one word after another, gathering force,
or losing it, as the case may be.
you never know unless you read them all the way,
until it's too late. You've lost precious minutes of your life
reading someone's curious words.
Who among us can vouch that our lines
are of any use once out there, living the life
in the world of other people's thoughts?
Not unless you're Pablo Neruda, who's words are worthy
of this invasion, this occupation.
Pablo is Pablo, and we are not. We must remember
this and conserve.
All I know is you don't need my poems,
and I need yours like another hole in my head.
And you're not writing, which makes you the best poet of all.