February (Substance)

February (Substance) collects 101 poems written in February 2020 in Kalamazoo, Michigan.

Karma

What goes around
goes; it depends on
the arc
and degree from
the start
where it ends and
begins, but not
always. Sometimes
fate plays
favorites. Sometimes
what goes up
stays up. Sometimes
what goes down
stays.
Always
degrees, the rise or
the fall, the door or
the wall.
What goes around
goes, and sometimes
what comes
comes from nowhere.

The Keyhole

There are layers
of meaning
in everyone’s head:
a bed
under every
blanket,
a window
behind
every door.
What’s more is
we know
but we choose
to ignore it.
Close our eyes,
sleep on sheets,
swallow keys
to the doors locked
behind us,
a breeze
drifting in
through the keyhole.

Brautigan Vs.

Brautigan again,
I always come back to
“The Pill Vs. the Springhill
Mine Disaster.”
Observational poems that make some
half sense, map-shower hair
and widow’s laments.
Boys in coffins
with star-spangled nails,
and men in cafés folding bread.

Non-Player Character

Everywhere I look
are NPCs
pretending to be real,
non-players inside games
that they can’t see.
And I go on
role-playing life
first-person POV.
But tell me
how would someone know
if they were on a screen,
and how do I know
there’s no player there
controlling me.