A BIKE IS LIKE A THOUGHT BECAUSE

A bike is like a thought because
a smaller wheel drives a larger.
Put a bookmark right there, close book.
Or your finger, and close it partway.

Disposable flash cube from the 1970s?
Just like my life as a monk.
Fifty years in a yellowing blister card,
waiting to “live in the moment.”

Right now has a stick of hay in its mouth;
yesterday, a blade to the roots.
In competition you have an implicit enemy;
in poetry, your enemy is yourself.

The seeds are on the outside of the strawberry.
The fleas, the outside of the cat.
“The upholstery don’t hold to the frame like it used to.”
—My comment on turning fifty.

Prostate exam. There’s a device up in there.
Its ON/OFF switch needs to be on.
Post-disaster, investigators can recover
the device from the smoking crash site.

Line of ants with their tools and their backpacks.
The bug guy showed me their holes:
where they were going, where coming from;
their hopes and dreams, beliefs and customs…

And Nadya, in her had-to-teach-today clothes,
tearing into a Fender Telecaster.
The sound out the amp, like chainsaws in a dumpster,
fighting each other to get out.

But never again shall I mash the metal,
and force out a “shiny” of paint.
Nor see the teeth at the mouth of the tube
carve stripes into that pleasing “shiny.”

I am almost there. Gotta find me a hat
that “sits right” on my head.
What is it with these hats?
I feel like a fragment.

You can’t change film with a kid on your back.
You can’t change film with a kid on your back.
You can’t change film with a kid on your back.
But you can flash once and vanish.