Invitation (for Judy)

so walk with me along this     ocean’s edge
the island     springs and rocks along the beachfront
the cold wind houses noises      makes the long walk reminiscent
of other seasons     when flowers sprang with faces
of bedeviled carnivores at war      have you tasted the ice cream?
smoky clouds still numb away the horizon
quicksand and a sputtering ocean     knick-knacks lined across the harbor
to talk about dream is silly as steam evanescent in the warming weather

someone has been bouncing bare toes on the beach
someone has been making sea lion sounds at the hot dog stand
someone has been celebrating weather by reinventing it
a long leap for landmass and a lush dance of sand
a trill a thrill a leap of words and bodies
a reanimation of the whole soul hallelujah i love you so

from Auto Bio (2010)

The Trip Back

a hurt youth     face garments of open sky and laceration
he was easier as an earthquake now
he flew on outstretched arms of his own leather
uncured and vulnerable     history pacing itself in its own gold threads

troubled     unsaid     the sign melodrama     ape awakened
and fake fits in the nursery     alive as inside his ribs
and take it as biography made uneasy
tumbled when born     but have always bartered

	steepness when chutes had already opened
	i call that beautiful because they wear their beginnings
	a child myself     stop myself there
	the chide is father to the monkey wrench
	i was crying over a spillover of red ant stings
	people wrestle all night with their own angels

from Auto Bio (2010)

The Sparrow at the Door (ChatGPT after Mary Oliver)

This poem isn't really mine. I generated it via by inputting the entire poem "The Mystery
of the Dancing Windows" (which is also on this blog) into ChatGPT and asking for a poem 
in this format in the style of Mary Oliver. I didn't ask for rhyme or for the last 
stanza. I think that ChatGPT isn't as good at generating poetry as it is at generating 
fiction (see "The Eldritch Mariner" on my companion blog Things I've Done for 
Blood), so poets may be a little safer than prose writers from AI "writing". 
Although the prospect of hybrid written/generated work is possible.



The Sparrow at the Door (ChatGPT after Mary Oliver)

Beneath the tapestry of time's embrace, 
A sailor from a bygone age did stand, 
Knives like shadows, a creeping lace, 
Upon his leg, a touch from some strange hand.

Windows joined the cosmic ballet, 
Dancing to the rhythms of the wind, 
A language only they could convey, 
In whispered tales that the stars pinned.

An hourglass, an ancient voice, 
Sang an aria of grains so fine, 
Each note a choice, each moment a rejoice, 
In the symphony of hours' design.

From plains, a sparrow's mystic flight, 
Badge and spurs, a tale to tell, 
A pizza's scent in the fading light, 
A messenger from some enigmatic dell.

Detective's gaze on the cellphone's screen, 
Not for words or messages, but fleas to seek, 
Mysteries in tiny worlds unseen, 
In the digital realm, a puzzle to peak.

"Ribbit, ribbit," the canary's call, 
Echoing through twilight's hush, 
A cryptic song that befalls, 
A chorus woven from nature's brush.

The emperor, with robes so grand, 
Bows not to realm, but inner grace, 
A moment's gesture, a whisper in the land, 
A monarch's humble, silent space.

Kumquat's revelation, humble and profound, 
Beneath its boughs, the earth does lie, 
Flat and still, beneath its sacred ground, 
A secret known only to the sky.
Before the stadium of feathers, a scene unfolds, 
Detective's voice a compass true, 
In tales of knives and mysteries old, 
The case unraveled, the truth in view.

In Mary Oliver's spirit, we explore, 
The sailor's journey, mysteries to embrace, 
Knives and windows, a symphony's lore, 
Nature's secrets revealed in gentle grace.

The Mystery of the Dancing Windows (or Feed This into Your AI)

a medieval sailor finds that a parade of knives is creeping up his leg

windows dance in response    an hourglass sings an aria

out of the plains just west of town a two-ton sparrow wearing a badge
and silver spurs stops at the sailor’s door with a pizza

a detective examines his latest cellphone for fleas

ribbit ribbit calls the canary    the emperor bows

a kumquat discovers that the earth is flat
especially under its tree

the detective explains to a stadium full of feathers
how the case was solved

Middle School

I       i extend great days
    	encourage youngsters
    	to be required by state law

    	all students will not run in the hall
    	all students will salute the food in the cafeteria
    	all students will enjoy their rodent lives in the film that
    	every student will have a current
    	you will take this task seriously
    	all students will lock their happiness and joy
   	whenever asked to by faculty and staff

    	you will invite your mother and dad to
    	one’s education held in the auditorium in december and 
    	the edge of a cliff may affect study materials
	
	you are here to learn


II 	each student is furnished the bell in emergency
    	each student will also be a phone number
   	home rooms are assigned in the anticipation that
    	are the lockers located in the students


III 	never wear which will not conform
     	to average adult employment

     	never open an attitude of respect
     	for a tin can of other students

     	dissections continue
     	until school is dismissed


IV 	during the animal’s sleep
     	modification will be fully gloved

    	you are arousable

     	the walls of the room      dissolve
     	to the hot wet inside of your ribcage

     	you do not need
     	to consult the principal or school counselor

     	you can hear the gentle breathing beside you

     	is also sleeping like you are

     	the side of an animal you cannot identify

    	its warmth radiates from you

V  	make it a point to know your counselor and dental appointments
     	a note from your guardian or parent or telephone
     	the note should include your upset stomach

VI 	zits are the flit gun wounds
	of adult hormones!

	grey is a mass of colors
	their admixture is worshipful!

	i hold your abrasions in my heart as useless
	i chamber within myself
	and volcanic explode in enthusiasm

	your cardface temple crumbles
	the hill on which it sat is one
	character in a lifetime of players

	     all you taught me was wrong
	     all i learned i hope was true
	     i salute you as a rock i step over
	     all the rest of us
	     walking
	     onwards

from Auto Bio (2010)

Business Art Sonnet

o suffle me loong foo rort
o suffle id doon o
fur the leem iss o o hardt
fur the hardt isso isso

prof ver a soaky soaky
noblique a hex itching rinds
so leek clog are c’t hollow
sof mir usiness hoggy so

	ganizat quaintance lict a lict
	nob purpo orcer amat o
	ti pladform bulltinis ape hex
	ti latdorm hey a haney haney o
	slob clog a rasende oser dex
	zat clog a rasende soaky soaky o





note: rasende is Danish for furious

from Auto Bio (2010)

Monday Afternoon

i’m gonna get tattoos

i’m gonna get little file cabinets 
tattooed all over my forehead

with all of the file drawers
closed

from Auto Bio (2010)

Peter Pan

this life i cast before myself like a shadow invisible to you
is my own private joke:
	sixty year old heart seventy year old lungs
	hid beneath skin     that looks twenty-five
someone mistook me for a student last week
almost all my friends look older than me
but they’re all healthier
	especially wendy
	who     is     twenty-five
people tell us we’re a cute couple
when’re we getting married
i think of her     almost as a daughter

it’s appearance that you applaud
mainly because     no one wants to see inside
	where it’s dark
	and there are thousands of cupboards
	filled with ripped hearts
	and hypochondriac livers
	and memories congealed in greasy plastic bags
	all in the dark
	with nails driven deep in the doors
	and coated with blood
	that long ago dried dead
	around them

from Auto Bio (2010)

From a Dream

last night i dreamed i was 
stuck in a room full of sleeping old men
and that it was the house where i grew up
and that i knew most of them
as my own mediocrities

the moon shone through one long high window
i marveled at its yellowness before clouds overcame it

i stepped carefully between the men’s spread mattresses
mattresses everywhere
these old guys two or three to a mattress
all asleep     half of them snoring
as i tip-toed in the dark until i got to the front door

where the rhythms of their snores paced the motion of my hand
as i reached for the doorknob in the weird yellow light

there was just enough space     to swing the door open
and stand in the face of the cold alien air
i saw the lawn     the street
the old sycamore that i remember from as early as i can remember
how quiet out there     deep three a m
i stepped out closed the door and the cold air took me
the snores seemed so warm     i could smell their breath
and taste their breath in my own mouth even away from them
nothing moved     even the squirrels were asleep
blocks away i could hear a car running

from Auto Bio (2010)

Life Among the Bubbles

this year made a nice family out of the garage
with pale green     then cream
fine     newest
winter
i suppose in a way winter’s new
lotsa pizzazz
with an earnestness that would impress any fair-minded person

have a glass of wine
relax
take an off-season vacation
hear voices
a physician in hell has no motility
so you won’t get any surprises

the sex
the sex
the sex

the bubblist movement 
that decisively broke with renaissance aesthetics
a twenty-two foot statue 
of a nude man with the head of a chicken

he found
a dark brown shard of pottery

she wears dark sox taking off her athletic shoe
it fascinates      the archaeologist
have been touched by a monk or a pilgrim

she gesticulates about an intellectual matter

you can almost put your finger anywhere here 
and discover antiquities
she wears black
her hands are more perfect
than any renaissance sculpture

we can’t stop construction
red plastic shoes
it required them to build a raised
o please don’t go upstairs     i don’t know you yet

the sex
the sex
the sex

from Auto Bio (2010)

Official Notice

we regret to inform you of the loss of your life
you may have missed it     it happened
several hours ago when the river suddenly woke up
and it became its own raft     your life
and rode the current into the blues of the sky
while you were still fighting     trying
to dig your eternal notion of a graveyard
to plot some way to institutionalize the clouds in front of you

	is it happy?     we don’t know
	it’s still ascending     not sending back any letters
	but maybe     if you go to the souvenir rack
	and pick out a really pretty postcard
	it’ll come back to you
	glowing