stuffy ideas
  don't have to belong
   to zinnias
  a brush pile

no bank can hold
  the basic violation of spiritual law
   the credit may not come
  in time to enjoy it

once again reticent space aliens
  have abducted desire
   crossing galaxies of excuses
     in search of topaz
   in search of styrofoam packing
  you are still defiant toward many rules
   though uprightness is
    as far away as you

this is what I will do for you
  Andrei Sakarov
   bought two loaves of bread
I was hurt and you healed me
  I stumbled and you picked me up

I didn't know that by not doing enough
  I would find you
   looking at the former winners
  hurrying to brittle husks
   instead of slowly sadly
   turning to the first page

please choose intelligence
  don't recognize the burnt candle
   that attacks one kind of seed
  that eats the blood of the prophets
banging against porch light
   its redesigned symbol
  one moment healthy
   the next at death's door

this movement to overcome hard liquor
  something about the way we dressed
   made resistance greater
how much should a person blame himself
  what's wrong with steady work
   you would rather be without honor
    in your own country
  than sign a sworn statement that is untrue
   witness to the refusal
  to speak out against the pain-killing maze
   of selfish subpoenas
  prodded by colorful technological beaches

suddenly you have made a fatal mistake
  you began to relax
   what will you say to the elevator
    would winning help
   in your search for wilderness

protruding newly built houses
   clogging the veins of graveyards
  merely want to leave
   don't give thanks or enter in
   don't taste the slim agony
  merely want bigger more

you get to seeing it all the time
   with wildly aiming
    at the faded strength
perhaps you have an answer
  for my fretful aspiration
   become as unworkable

    as the confirmed inhumanity

  the moment you went outside

we have succeeded beyond enumeration
   supple in lucidness
the hand-written waters
  sparkling in eternity
   what I don't see I see

if they are left alone
  for the sake of the blackened prize
   no key chain remains
    though we take every precaution
  the fishermen welcomed uncharacteristic widows

woe to those that injure the cause of love
   taking advantage of devoted attempts

I have sought straight ways
  for the sake of myself
   look the tabernacle is undamaged
  without losing anything
   all the living walking about

heaven still dreams
   of a peaceful dustpan
  no one can take away
   each mammoth like and dislike
    judged for what it was
  exuberant in weedy parking lots

do not mix the glutted latch-work
  with anything that belongs to others
    up ahead
   a man and woman embrace
  we left everything as we found it
   nothing should be as bad as this
nothing else is important
  nothing accounts for this threadbare nothing
   approved by nothing

the simple equation for life is
   the nuance of words
  physically all around
   indicated by subtraction
we don't talk about
  lots of things we did together
   the successive initiatives
  our colossal carelessness