A few things come natural;

eat, sleep,
and in the end: die

The years are blistered,
look back at me
with bothered expressions:

When's he gonna quit?

I exchanged my blue pencil sharpener
for a green one;
seems like an improvement

I take morning notes
on the sipping of coffee

As a rule
I have two mugs in bed
as I read and write

First gulp feels black
and smokey,
and comes with some persuasion,
but that down,
the others stand in eager line,
stepping on feet,
and must be restrained some
for the caffeine to start up
the think machine,
hooked up
to the word machine,
the energy scribbling
like a deep woods stream
out of the sharp Faber Castell
in a forest of wiggly,
hard to interpret, writing;

the second and final mug
more mature,
sitting back some,
pondering,
more aware of breath
and the cardio-vascular horse show
that keeps life and momentum
automatic,
showing me off
on the oldtimer's Off Broadway
of Sentience
with some mean and menacing
poetics

A sudden thaw;
heavy wet snow from the pines
banging down on the roof,
the house trembling,
the snow sliding off the roof,
birds lifting from the feeder,
dispersing in all directions

I'm still here,
with some irresolution

Making decisions,
or just bouncing through?

Hariprasad Chaurasia
is allowed a lot of space
with Raga Bageshwari
in the big room downstairs
while I hurry to place a microphone
out on the front porch
to record the irregular percussion
of the nervously dripping melting water
on the tin roof