I had in my pocket.
I spent them,
nickel-and-dime.
The Pilot razor-point pen is my
compass, watch, and soul chaser.
Thousands of miles of black squiggles.
Throw out the anchor
unattached to a rope.
Heart lifts as it sinks.
Out of my mind at last.
Some days
one needs to hide
from possibility.
Fear is a swallow
in a boarded-up warehouse,
seeking a window out.
So what if women
no longer smile to see me?
I smile to see them!
Why do I behave so badly?
Just because. That's still
a good answer.
Strange world indeed:
a poet keeping himself awake
to write about insomnia.
After carefully listing my 10,000 illusions
I noticed that nearly all that I found
in the depths was lost in the shallows.
If you can awaken
inside the familiar
and discover it strange
you need never leave home.
You told me you couldn't see
a better day coming,
so I gave you my eyes.
The face you look out of
is never the face
your lover looks into.
This slender blue thread,
if anything,
connects everything.
At my age,
even in airports,
why would you wish
time to move faster?
On my desk two
indisputably great creations:
duct tape and saltine crackers.
When I watched her hands
as she peeled a potato,
I gave up everything I owned.
Oh, to be in love,
with all five buckets
of the senses
overflowing!
I hope there's time
for this and that,
and not just this.
Come to think of it,
there's no reason to decide
who you are.
Sometimes all it takes
to be happy
is a dime on the sidewalk.
The moon put her hand
over my mouth and told me
to shut up and watch.
I thought my friend was drinking
too much, but it was the vodka
that was drinking him.
Come close to death
and you begin to see
what's under your nose.
In our October windfall time red
apples on frostbitten green grass.
You learn to eat around the wormholes.
Treasure what you find
already in your pocket, friend.
Today a pink rose in a vase
on the table.
Tomorrow, petals.
[Jim Harrison {1937-2016}, from "Braided Creek: A Conversation in Poetry", with Ted Kooser, in The Essential Poems]
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