But for Thee


I wasn't born on the fourth of July in America
so I don't think my independence has any meaning.

In a world of dependence
and depending on one's point of view
what I am depends completely on you.

Born of the sea mythologically
I developed on land pathologically
and am now forever dependent
on vertebrate biology.

I prey upon and underneath
the so-called body-politic
fashioning a dashing poetic
pre-formed matter-of-factly
content with content
contentious and puerile 
and servile caught in time
bloodied by rhyme.

"Forever and a day," they sing
"is a forever long time."
I go from child within 
to child without
like swinging between trees
like singing in the breeze
like singing in the rain.

I will or
you must
unlock the hidden
to see if I am
so full of what is
and you too are so full
such opposites gasp.

For one and only one
and two and three or more
a vital community
a certain society
how many does it take
how much is too much?

But for thee,
I am not forever.

An Alien Plan

[for P.C.]


I had a plan:
come to this alien land
meet my special alien man
and live my life atop alien sand.
By the blue light
I was to be the moon at night
in my alien lover's sight
life atop the sand I was told
was an inalienable poetic right.
But the plan was more a metaphor
alien man alien sand in an alien land
blue light poetic right
washed away by a wave 
of hindsight.