What Then?

by W.B. Yeats


His chosen comrades thought at school
He must grow a famous man;
He thought the same and lived by rule,
All his twenties crammed with toil;
`What then?' sang Plato's ghost. `What then?'

Everything he wrote was read,
After certain years he won
Sufficient money for his need,
Friends that have been friends indeed;
`What then?' sang Plato's ghost. `What then?'

All his happier dreams came true -
A small old house, wife, daughter, son,
Grounds where plum and cabbage grew,
Poets and Wits about him drew;
`What then?' sang Plato's ghost. `What then?'

`The work is done,' grown old he thought,
`According to my boyish plan;
Let the fools rage, I swerved in naught,
Something to perfection brought';
But louder sang that ghost, `What then?'

My Friend,

I'm sick of everything spiritual,
everything elliptical,
everything fathomable.

Not enough bike rides.
Not enough air.
Not enough chewing.

Last night,
before bed,
I made a grilled cheese sandwich.
If you had been there,
I'd have given you half.

Shit. I would have made you a whole one.

I'd have shaken your hand for an hour,
showed you old pictures,
told you about my dream.
I'd have listened, too.

When you fall asleep tonight,
remember this game.

We Say Accident

Grand with a wish of cave men, grainy with kindling, crackfall of jar, uneven pavement stands alone, rain without sound. Some kindred hollow stun is gratified (drops in a bottle, too). Yellow dogs snarl once around the house and fall to sleep, dreaming upside down. Once I was upside down, saw shards, after superb velocity and drift.

Even rays of sound went thataway—or was it thisaway?—I came running, showed you my good ol’ messianic side. You (we, that is) or me makes a beat true: You? No. No: You.

Who owns a town of feeling? Take them up, your divining tools, et cetera. Time to tag a cleft in The Rock of Attention. A shepherd becomes a singer, becomes a salesman.

Muses busted through my engine block, left me handless, beaming. Dream, or you’ll go.

Beating Due Headfakes

A window or an asp will show you where you took your wrong turn. Neptune has certain objects that we possess, as fellows of the universe, but now is not the time to claim them. Nor is it the time to let Neptune know we are cohabitants. In time, in time. Hands agree to write as we get smarter, even as the fundaments of knowing fall away. This is the age of tessellated thought. Images bounce back at us for a grand undoing. Alone or along the window, our serpentine mental actions come back around. Time is the culprit, even as it is merely an invented thing. Yesterday, or the future, only exist in thought, and thinking only happens in the present --> the present is the only thing. Don’t think of it as a gift. It simply is. If something simply is, and you know it, don’t clap your hands.

Doing Something With A Strange Caravan

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Oh Yeah.

Read two of my newer poems in this summer's recent issue of Ekleksographia.