Excerpts From Nonexistent Books

It lays there, solid steel warmed by midday asphalt
A holy ring of solid steel, malefactor gripped tight
The short claw of the law, flight an impossibility
It feels like there should be some empathy
For the poor stranded vehicle, chained unwillingly
But seeing the bleached-tooth gleam of that SUV
Its fraternity parking pass flaunted on the dash
Out of state Texas plates loud, proud
Knowing that this may be the one, the only
Situation they can’t weasel out of
In their young lives lived on cruise control
The only response is a smug smile
And a “give ’em hell, meter maid.”

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Someone once asked me
“Friend, I love books
So very much, should I
Work at a library or
At a bookstore someplace?”
And I smiled and shook my
Head. Having done both, and
Turned my hobby into a job

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The editor, a student like myself
Though an upperclassman, said that
It was the best writing sample he’d
Ever seen, that he had no notes that
He’d like to publish it immediately
Take me on as a columnist at once
Get me twelve dollars apiece
I utterly repudiate a lot of the
Things I said in those columns, a
Younger, angrier me wrote in haste
I now know I was both blinder and blindee
Unable to see and so depriving others
Of sight, as so many young men like me
Are wont to do as their first instinct
But still, I think back often to that
Crowded office in the basement of an
Ugly building because it was, and may
Still me the nicest thing anyone has
Ever said to me

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I watch the late-spring rains fall
Bands of radar green shading to orange
Sodden ground giving up its trees
Pumped in, groaning, sloshing
The lifeblood of the season to come

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I always felt that
J and Q
X and Z
Must be lonely
Anxious and a little sad
Looking forward brightly
To the rare occasions
When they are used
The razzmatazz, the jejune
The xerox, the equivoque
Each sparking a tiny joy
Before the long sleep returns

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Prepare a pan greased with anonymity
Set the oven to a case of deliberately mistaken identity
Add 2 tablespoons youthful indiscretion
Add 1 bottle rum (to taste)
Crack 1 egg
Simmer on low heat for 280 days
Let cool for 2600 weeks
Add 1 buccal DNA collector
Upload results, and serve
Feeds 1-2

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Whistling through boughs
Pines dancing upright
Storm front drawing close
For a gusty, howling night

Toothed gears interlock
As shining key turns
The springs, like a clock
Set to run, set to purr

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A thousand people crowd this land
Beneath edifices proud and grand
But though they dwell there row by row
The land contains not a single soul
Where am I?

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The pyramids were as old to the Romans
As the Romans are to us now
A Nintendo Wii is older now
Than the SNES was when the Wii debuted
Even as my little slice of time grows
With the passing days of my life
It seems to shrink

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Over ten years hence now I plumbed the depths
An oceanography of two motes entangled, dancing
I think I now see the trajectories clearly
One, up and out, a gravitational boost, escape
First in mind, then in spirit, then in body
One, drifting slowly aground, drawn downward
Looking for a place to land, add to Earth’s mass
Destined never to land, to settle in formation
Unable to soar together, for different reasons
Bound only briefly by circumstance, by time

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