Item 10 Measures of the Week: Thursday

4. Thursday tastes of threat and thirst

Yes, you have come awake to find yourself

swimming blankly back and forth across

the pool. Small comfort to be right.

Yes, your breath really is that bad.

Yes, your offerings are indeed that sad.

Somehow as you slept the week has crept

forward in the night, passed you as you splashed

about in slumber's cooling lake, lapped

you silly and left you in its wake.

There is a weariness and worry

that fills most Thursdays, a helium

of tension that can make your voice

take on a funny timbre, so look lively.

Stay limber. Once more the beds all need

to have been made. Skim your fears

like stones over the tide coming toward you

in the laundry basket, and pray there is nothing

in it you can't live without until Sunday.

The weekend winks like a flirtatious

girl at a party but nobody is staying

out late tonight. Today we are in the thick

and almost through. There is still so much

you told yourself you'd do. Beat down

your bafflement like dough, give rise

to the yeast of your yearning to answer

the call of duty without giving in to all

those other voices. You know the ones

I mean, they are always speaking

never seen. Lock your doubts outside

like cats on a screened in back porch;

let them breathe fresh air without

giving them the power to scorch.

What's your point? You can not know.

You're probably late. Get up and go.

Your thirst unslaked, your smiled faked,

just dance with this day what brung ya.

Stand on the loafers of the larger future

the way you used to do with your father in the den.

It's deja vu all over again, but that's all right.

It means you know the words to this song

and you can hum along until another week takes flight.

Item 9 Measures of the Week: Wednesday

3. Wednesday weaving tales

The first day I worked for the peddler

he proclaimed my prowess

in salesmanship, asked my secret.

Leaned in as I looked at him strangely

and replied: Cheerfully bring them what

they ask for, in their size. For some

reason this pissed him off to no

end I'm pretty sure he stiffed me

on commission knowing me too

busy to keep count. He was always

hectoring me about only having one

child, who was I to deny them

siblings he wanted to know. I showed

him, ta, I ended up having three

only children! Still it was a good thing

he didn't pay well enough to live on

or I might still be fetching boxes

and watching people pose

before the three way mirror,

squinting to see if what they picked

might take them where they want to go.

There was something so appealing

watching them chew over the possibilities,

shift forward and back to peek at what

could be. It was the easiest job I ever

had and proof of Wednesdays wiles.

It'll wend you which ever way you

let it being the apex of all tangents,

the sum of the steps so far. Keep

your wits about you or you'll be peddling

someone else's wares and they couldn't

care less about what it means to you

or your little dog too. Don't get lost

in someone else's story. Push off, push

on. Tomorrow's yon.

Item 8 Measures of the Week: Tuesday

2. Tuesday, hardly a bruise day

Ah Tuesday, now it is up to you, today is the day

of the full and the true: whatever

you forgot or avoided before will be

waiting like a dog at this morning's door.

But you are up to all these tasks you've

found your stride and the beast has marked

the yard. You can follow the patchwork

in the grass like seeds that need tending.

Repetition is never ending, things to do

require bending but the full yoke

of the week still rests easy enough.

There is little time to stop and wonder

what is in this deal, but you do take

a minute to shuffle the cards, pray

for extra wilds on deck. A swing, a miss

no foul, no harm, no pressure, no alarm --

the tape you need to run through is miles off

and empty of eyes hungry for success. Everyone

else is busy. Grant their wish list longer

than yours. Make way, don't delay,

let them run on by. Just touch all

the bases, repeat after me, it's the trip not

the fall, it hardly hurts at all. Red

rover, red rover, let kindness cross over

the yellow lines that keep us safely in line

in our separate lanes. After, you my dear

Alfonse, I'm still on hold awaiting a

response. Just eat what you find in

your lunch sack, believe it or not you packed

it yourself just a few years back. Placed

each item artifactual in hallowed ground

with a fervent promise to be found.

Take it up, don't tarry. This leash

was made for you and isn't all that

hard to carry. It's only Tuesday, you won't bruise

as much if you just stay loose. Let the dog run

off ahead of you. He is following his nose.

The scents make sense in the field.

Item 7 Measures of the Week: Monday

1. Monday forms like weather on the eve.

It begins, whether we want it to or not on Sunday night, anyone

who tells you differently is a liar. Even for poets pledged

to peace, the start of the week speaks of war, startles

the horses in their stalls. Nostrils flare as they too sense

the straps of breast plates snapped into place

across the kingdom and face after face tries to hide

the wince at what might be out there, the wise

try and ready by singing fear to sleep. But it won't stop

the clock and before you know it is time to step so

Mind your Mondays, no matter

how well you prepare you will be

caught unaware. You will rush

to show up and be in the wrong

homeroom, just re-group, go on,

let it blunder by. Bluff it out,

you can be tough without

being too rough. Be like the butterflies

in the meadow on the way home

from Grama's. They have no ears

or blood pressure evidently: they let

the state police practice without blinking,

let them take aim against future villains.

Bullet after blasting bullet volleys

across the valley, but the bugs don't pay

any mind at all, just flit and follow

their own paths, tasting pollen

through their feet, passing it on.

Some say ignorance is bliss like its

a bad thing and it can be, but it is also

necessary for concentration and sincerity.

It is true I do not want to know when

the bullet leaves the chamber, I might

flinch and forget to finish what I've started.

You shoot your way, I'll fumble along

at the locker door of this armory whose

only ammunition are my fingers and everything

could still work out fine.

Item 6 The Gravity of It All

Where were you when the towers fell

taking America straight to hell?

I was holding my baby, 7 weeks old,

as I watched the terrible events unfold.

For days we sat speechless under a spell

hearing the bell tolling knell after knell.

For years that shade of blue up in the sky

colored our hearts with hue and cry.

Those stolen souls were not alone in loss,

the pain was felt the world across.

Today my boy of nine sits down to play his drums,

I want to weep for what I know still comes:

more death, more killing, fewer rights for all;

is this what they meant by mankind's fall...?

I need to teach my son to stand up tall

and not to answer instinct's bloody call.

Pacifism isn't absent pain,

it merely walks away from the insane.

Smarting, yes, but smarter still

than planning further souls to try and kill.

Where were you when the towers fell?

Honor the dead by living well.

Item 5 Floaters & the Search for Intrinsic Value

What you see is what you get: it is all or nothing. It all

has to mean something vital or nothing at all so don't sweat

the details they are interchangeable and will all come out

in the wash, become trapped in the lint filter where we

can attempt to read them as tea leaves, or wait - maybe

it is both: all and nothing, what you get

is what you see and if you are lucky you will see what it is

to be. Maybe the cork screw of inner eye detritus that dislodged

from the back of my cornea sixteen months ago and swims

back and forth across my vision in its inner aquarium

appeared to remind me of the gospel of 'stop sticking your grody

fingers in other people's eyes to try and clear their point of view';

Focus instead on being flexible and automatically tuned like

a view finder. Micro, macro, up close and personal or very far away:

be mindful-- you know how those boxes appear over blades of grass

in search of a face to recognize, you still have to aim before you press

the button to hold onto what you thought you saw. There are no such things

as ghosts, but there are always shadows, always things that get in the way

of what the world might be trying to show us if we would only look beyond

what we think we see. We might capture the swish and switch,

steal a glimpse of the exact moment the magician sneaks the card up his sleeve.

Item 4: No Time for Free Will

Over sushi we discuss his philosophy class last semester,

since it is easier to understand than physics, but once again

I do not understand the question: Do we have "Free Will"?

I only understand my answer, could only sincerely intone

do we have will? and even there, there is doubt. Surely,

we all have ways of wending through our days. I have intended,

I have extended, tripped and fell and followed the physical

laws of the universe for five decades but what matters is still

what matters. All matter is heavy with a mass

of volume, filled to the brim and reacts in predictable ways

to different stimuli, no? Isn't that what they say? So

what simple machine could I invent to solve this problem:

one foot always has to go in front of the other if

we are to move forward into the future.

Existence equals me somewhere over a fraction of truth.

My thoughts have achieved maximum local entropy

and they have no where else to go. I have never been free.

I have always been me. It is a difficult calculation:

no one has ever figured out how to do it until now.