Lust

If lust is truly the root of all sin,

I must be firmly planted in the world of vice.

When a beautiful girl walks by, I cannot look away.

Like sugar on the tongue, she dissolves into my eyes

And lights up my brain.

And if she gives me a smile,

Like a tightly wound child’s toy

My soul springs towards the sky.

Some say I am damned.
I say, flesh is my salvation.
Better to taste the pleasures of this world now

Before the flesh has rotted away
And prayer is our only affections.

Winter Robin

Brave little robin, it takes courage
To stay here in the mountains
All winter.
Even though your brother tells you tales
Of the spring-like breezes down south,
You prefer to stick out the snow
And the bitter chill of the winds
In your adopted home.
Your downy coat must be very thick
And your heart very stout
To fly in the face of such winds.
And yet, I must say, I am happy
To hear you sing
Those cold mornings
When I must shovel the walk.

Dream

Last night, perspiring, filled with fear,
I awoke to the evanescence of a dream.
There was a doctor, and a diagnosis,
And then a thousand needles penetrating me at once.
"You're cured!" I heard the doctor say
As the poison burned my blood.
Then, awake, I searched for the sound of my pulse.
For a moment, it was absent,
But my breathing was heavy
If not somewhat alien.
I was not myself--somehow more alive,
Yet filled with the presence of death.

Owl

In the middle of the night,
I was awoken by the sound of an owl
Hooting outside my window.
I put on my slippers
And walked outside,
But the sound of the door was enough to spook him,
And off he flew.
The sound of his wings
Gave me a start,
And I watched him soar off
By the light of the December moon.

A Poem

This isn't a poem about the ephemerality of life.
If it was, it would end now,
To highlight the importance of living your life
Instead of distracting yourself with poetry.
This isn't a poem about love, either.
If it was, it wouldn't feel so cold and matter-of-fact.
It's not a war poem,
Or a confessional poem.
It's not about a memory
Or a particular image.
In short, this poem is what it is.
It is about itself.
"So what can be gained from it?" you ask.
I'd tell you, if I knew how it ended.

Work

When things were easy, I'd ask myself all sorts of difficult questions.
I had the time and the energy to think things through.
I'd wake up at noon and ask myself something like,
"Why can't the pleasure I derive from my dreams
Be stored in me for use throughout the day?"
And just because I had the time,
I would stay in bed and try to figure it out.
Now, I wake up at seven,
And I ask myself, "Why can't I stay in bed?"--
A relatively easy question to answer,
Which I do, every day, with a grunt and a sigh.

Carrying the Piano (For Rob Ingram)

He carried his piano up eight flights of stairs, I heard,
On his back, all alone.
It was the first thing he brought to his new apartment,
Before his bed, which he rarely slept in,
Before his couch and chairs, which he rarely sat on,
Even before the cage that his pet canary lived in.
Supposedly he said he owed it to the piano,
That it would have done the same for him if it could.
For, you see, they had wept for the same sorrows
And laughed for the same joys.
They say when he finally got it up there,
He played, and made all the neighbors pause
And thank the heavens for their luck.