THREE POEMS

AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL MYSTERY

Observe, among the German sunbathers,

A family resemblance,

How grossmutter donates

Slender skeletons to all

The females downstream.

Looking at their faces,

Her kite-shaped jawline

Is repeated as if it were die-cut 

into paper in a printer's shop.

I’m hoping my daughter or granddaughter

Can organize my life, which I can't

Organize while I live it. 

I’m talking about all the papers,

Which threaten like a river to sweep her away.

The story of my life,

If I don’t write it, will fall to her.

She’s meant to include herself

In the empty spots I started to illustrate

But left blank.

Meanwhile there is a type of bookworm,

Which only feeds on mystery novels,

Eating from the last page backward,

Solution first, chapter one last.

It mistakes my autobiography for its next dinner.

So with those family members who inherit my mystery,

I put any and all descriptions of their faces at the beginning.

2D CHURCH

In the Church of Two Dimensions, 

the z-axis       is the index        of all depth of doubt.

I don't know what to tell you,

How to position yourself in relation to it.

Clinging to beliefs      "as is"      

would be like

rock-climbing    up     tidal waves,

Holding onto outcroppings 

of         liquid surface area.

My mind can't render it for you         beyond this point.

I source you the code,         you use it

To interpolate       a crystal dome       of content,

And either it twinkles apart and collapses 

onto felt tabletops for you         or it doesn't.

Scared of having ideas without ability 

to give them          a  jellyfish's parts 

to        propel         through         water. 

Propulsion would mean connection.

Moving the poetic lines        in space 

to link up with other ones.

Dreaming up something to make 

all         the poem's flexors         cohere.

To find the one lette      r     that, when

r    epeated twice elsewhere 

in the text,       will verify that it is even 

a font.        

Othe    r    wise 

it could have been        raw       hand

     writing but for

Script-to-font apprehension

Cloud-to-face apprehension

in the backyard           on a mild day.

the breeze     and the sequence     

of the clouds modulating above,

Filtering           the sunlight 

into dots      and       dashes, 

Morse code of nature.

I want someone      whose face comes closer         

into focus like tempered sunlight            embodies 

the edge

That I'm concealing in myself

Living close to the confluence.

GUILT-PANGS OF THE DREAM ADULTERERS

Guilt-pangs of the dream adulterers

Forgetting about the conscious breach

That ended their marriage years ago.

The cuckold outside the thought bubble

Can’t see in, can’t watch them go to dine

At the restaurant in the candle-whipped dark.

To get there the couple drives in reverse

Down a narrow alley, careless of impeding

Anyone needing to go forward.

Sleep is when the encoding happens.

Her dream image: a mirage so thorough

In scope it resembles in every way a legit memory.

Her concrete portrait always flees in tiny runnels

But the mirage is patient, solid for him to see

After a decade, two images compared.

He gets another chance, the man allowed to walk

The night-path twice, the first time

With broken monocle, the second time: repaired.