The Search for a Compliment Look, I didn't commit a crime
or have shareholders
to worry about.

There weren't any
Elvis-like marketing
haute couture camera angles

side stage banter,
milking it like pre-big time Warhol
drawing shoe sketches.

We are accountable:
foiled somersaults,
unpaid tabs, race slurs, bad K-turns.

We all pay in some way.
It's just this iceberg's tip,
memorial fragments

to this pressure that gets me,
the inexplicable shtick:
tight turtlenecks on an unexpected

humid day,
hacked away
at a stilted mind --

the search
for a compliment lingers.

There will be clouds
peeking through
the luminous skyline.

Cheesing up my act,
I combine thoughts
like a newborn child;
glance at passers-by.

To a Young Poet He wrote Franz from Mannheim
once, probably played with himself,
popped in a porno tape to pass the time,
put the discordant writing pad on the shelf,
fast-forwarded them to the good parts,
drawers dropped, and sat paralyzed,
hypnotized over insecure childhood
memories. Iron John would prize
such tenderness, the reassurance,
the persistent groan, a distant
bell of another man's confidence,
too soon to be as pure and arrogant
as he. And when the movie finishes,
his health improves, his talent diminishes.