Poems

A Good Poem

Gothic style painting of man writing poem, circa 1825.

A good poem
captures the essence
of something, or of everything,

in the fewest words possible.

Truth does not need
to sing, campaign, or serenade;
it might take a lifetime to figure out,
but only a sentence to translate.

Craig

Poems

Everything. Don’t Carry the One.

The lover I still seek
is better than me.

Infinitely small and large,
She has been where I am before,
Where they gave her trophies she wouldn’t accept.
But you can see them in her eyes.

The answer to everything …

Poems

Mistress

I want you to be my mistress for a lifetime.

I don’t want to carry the weight of the world with you,
or perpetually and publicly rearrange life’s building blocks
with a goal in mind.

That would be a waste …

Poems

Identity

When you’re young,
you look for something to worship,
you find a uniform,
adopt an identity,
become a noun.

Then you rebel;
you resent not having your own identity,
you are suicidally disgusted with yourself
for exuberantly accepting a generic …

Poems

The Truth About Miracles

You’re often in love with strangers,
And still too young to recognize
That none of your fantasies
Have ever become real.

The strongest emotions you feel
Are for those with whom you’ve interacted the least,
The places you’ve never gone,

Poems

Lightning Bugs

You can tell a true lover by the gifts they give.

When you only get them on occasions,
dutifully,
when millions of people probably got the same thing,

Love is coerced.

The true lover finds you gifts
randomly, accidentally;
the

Poems

More

Only the obedient know what they want.

They’ve seen enough of the world
To know the size of their appetites,
And the flavors they most enjoy.

They dedicate themselves to these limitations
As though they have more honor than those

Poems

The Bottom

Picture of a tavern with empty bar stools
The Bottom

I’ve been to the bottom and back.

Sometimes I leave because they kick me out,
other times I get enough sense to leave on my own,
but mostly I can’t remember why or how I left.

Usually I