i like running in my robe,
seeing my shadow showing the robe
thrown out behind me in the wind.
don't say it, but you're exactly right,
i look like a wizard running across the quad.

academics used to dress like this-
they still do, in some places of the world
where knowledge is coat and tie affair
not something casually lectured to kids
in uggs and sweatpants, checking their email
on macintosh notebooks.

[i get the feeling that people are feeling sad
in keeney, a friend came by on his way to a long walk
it was 1:41 in the morning, a long walk meant
an hour plus- with headphones, listening to something
indiscrinable, there's something in the water I
promise you.]

i am foolish as hell
i want to major in love.

the way a dove shook down on me
her feathers, reminded me she was
an angel when the phone rang and she
had to go, tip-toed around the fact
that she was not in her room, and left
me sad and smiling simultaneously.

there's a suggestive illustration
on a dance album my brother gave me
and my mind dreams of x-wing fighters
attacking a death star that is made of
my professor's emails.

a sailor's life is drowsy
and insatiable when the weathers
down and the waters cold, frozen,
forbidding,
Still.

i had a dream that we were
film noir, trusted private eyes
that talked like the maltese falcon
real Humphrey Bogart
in a room that was nothing like our
room except that it had our flag,
with the triple x's
and a Botticelli- framed in gold,
but you couldn't tell because it was
a black and white dream.

a few boys from the hall
messed up the bathroom real good.
it was a twisted cavern listern
now.

i asked the boys what they made of it
and they laughed like they hadn't done
and said stuff like 'if i did this,'
'if I had done this,' or 'I would'
and other hypotheticals,
I told them to defend it as art
and they agreed.
they laughed and confessed that they
would call it an art thing, 'if they got
caught' 'if they had done it'

a stillness hangs in the air that is
uncanny. the heats on, and on high,
we dream of arabic women from persian
harems that tempt good christian men
from their foolish religion.

i felt the floor for a couple of hours,
and told my joy that the word was tactile
'tactile, joy, it's all so tactile'
'foolish,' I later explained, 'it was all so foolish'

i willed myself to boston.
i tapped into the core that will run
even when the interface will not
atm, pin number password, how to ride
an electric chain, train,
cognizant just enough to know that i
needed to get to the University
listening jsut enough to hear a man
tell another man that he needed the b line
and I followed that advice.

love, is the spirit, that moves the great
waves, it is the storm off the coast that
we're all waiting for.

the surfers, and the sailors, and the mothers,
and the runners, and the teachers, and the firemen.
because life's just more interesting when there's a storm on.
always, it gives you a chance to remember who you are,
what's inside.

nice days are a distraction, a flirt,
a promise, but no assertion.
the storm reminds you who you are,
what you have inside to entertain yourself.

the robe's out rippling behind me,
i like running in it,
i feel like a wizard,
i feel like an ancient scholar,
an academic,
i feel like me, and smile
to remember myself.