Eight Good Songs, One Good Meal

Yesterday I argued with a physicist
about the musical qualities
of the words "meandering" and "wandering"--

it took him a while to see the difference
through every fault of my own
way of think-talking
which is something I now accept about myself:
I talk myself onto the highwire,
flip, maybe land on a toe,
then cut my losses.

What this does to, or for, the listener
I can hardly imagine.

Old ninja movies from my childhood
apparently still taunt me
to throw smokebombs
when the odds tip way, way
out of my favor--a man
cobbles together
a morality, doesn't he?

(Ah, that's the idea
I've been searching for
since I started this poem. You see,
I've been writing something
called "The Balled of Ecstatic Morality"
and now I'm wondering if
I just finished it
or just started,
or if, some drafty day,
it will all merge
in the quickly folded hands
that at
once pump
the heart closer, then further from
the unsearchable.)

Oh, and I meant to mention
one of the songs
so as not to confuse intelligence
with coyness, or
Ticonderoga
with silence.

Look, either way,
I declare simple
chicken and rice
and earthy, open wine
an occasion
for tears and laughter.
That Tuesday evenings are
so easily spent
on collapse
must again be
disputed. Who will
form a union
for the ordinary,
who will bribe
the powerful men
who would obliterate
all our simplest words? Good Christ,
sign me up.
I no longer accept
the loss of magic
or the indignity of sense.
I want to crush basil in my hands
and drop my nose in
and come up clean.
Good Christ
are you with me?