I walked into a mirrored box
and there and there and there I was
images entrapped without locks
reflections bouncing without pause.

Reflections stacked up to eternity
every one an exact duplicate
each one a copy of just me
as if from an old template.

But what of the spaces in between
all those reflections in the glass;
might they hold something there unseen
where the waves of photons pass?

Aunty Osi, was my neighbour
starving baby cries wakes me every four
her breast like a gallant whore
dangling here, dangling there
yet a breast milk could not drop.

Osi, what are your breast for?
since your child could hardly see its nipples,
if not for cow milk,
many children would have gone,

What did it take
To be the first to fly?
It all started with
A twinkle of an eye
Seeing a single
Bird in flight
(Oh to be in the minds
Of the Brothers Wright!)

Who was the first
To think up a submarine?
That bullet-shaped
Underwater machine
Perhaps it started with
A whale or a shark
And the ambition to reach
The maker’s mark

Rise here she comes

O foolish men ye
you could elect him
not me

He can hardly butter
his toast
and
asks me

which side darling
what

a kiss

I mean today is a Tuesday
you like the kiss
on the left cheek
so told me the Priest
he enjoys it

Glad you have started
consulting him
Now sweety let's go to the Ganges
It's cold here in MISSISSIPPI

we can have a swim in the
GANGA THEY SAY Ji

They assure you a second term
God willing

I first became intrigued when she said
she wanted to teach sign language at a
school for the blind

she thought people who spoke
with a British accent did it because
English was not their native tongue

she figured by attending enough spin classes
she wouldn't fly off into space
if Earth stopped spinning

she wished she had a twin sister
so she could know twice as much
or half as much...she wasn't sure which

Uncle Jack, on my wife’s side, was an uncomplicated gent.
We’d see him once or twice a year at family events.
He was devoted to Aunt Hilda, and the two were childless.
His claim to fame was how he spent the fewest cents

To buy his dapper clothes. He read the cartoons daily
And had few and little needs, like a bald-headed boy of ten,
For fifty years the happy seller of stationary supplies.
He retired, played golf, and died in the senior center.

The fish we caught
The vegetables we bought

Tasted of fire

A hundred mile
And a thousand year journey
Back to the woods

Where man is subject
To nature
Not the other way around

We need these reminders
Now and again

That not all roads
Are paved
By human advancement
And endeavor

Not all time
Is punched by man’s
Belligerent clock

But sometimes the best
Memories
Are so close to primordial

The smell of a rolling smoke
Started from
A spark on a rock

oh, my little humming friend;

for beckoning my cats to
your pastures of warmth,
forsaking my lap
for another place to nap,
I can do nothing
but grunt
forgiveness,
while freely admitting
a bit of jealousy,
we must do what's best for the cats

soul mates
in mud pomade
each one half of the other

a headless body
and a bodiless head
retrograde

two monsters
severed halves of a snake

the head with no heart
ravaged with criminal ambition

and she; the heart; a pulsing ache, headless
made him nauseous with her ceaseless churning
ocean of darkened milk

disjuncture of passed and future
a gnashed twig
time shattering time

slamming doors in each other's faces
through a disaster of eternities

Lately, I've been dreaming more;
strange, mundane, and silly vignettes
perused for a moment upon awakening
but forgotten as quickly as a
"sorry, wrong number" phone call.
Thank god for that.
Who needs more stuff cluttering up the morning.
There's already enough random shit to contend with.
Why allow incredulous invasions from dreamland
to muck it up even more.