Attention, Language and Time:
Selected Poetry,
2016 - 2026
By Michael P. Garofalo
This WebBook is a collection of poems, quips,
quintain stanzas, resource links, lists,
onions, quintain sonnets, docu-poems,
concrete and Text-Art poems, koans,
and hypertext diversions.
All by Mike Garofalo.
Poetry WebBook, 85 pages, No Ads!
It features lifestyles and locales
in the Pacific Northwest.
It traces the evolution of the poetic voices
of one old man
during a decade.
It offers many examples of
Quintain Stanzas and Quintain Sonnets.
It essays the front and flanks of Time.
It has a Poem Title Index
and a Poem Subject Index.
It provides free audio recordings
of poetry readings by Mike Garofalo.
October 15, 2026. Ver. 36.
Texts-PreSS Couve Publications.
The Beginning Years: 2016 - 2019
I retired in July of 2016 at age 70. I had worked
since 1999 as the Technolgy and Media Services
Supervisor and District Librarian
for
the Corning
Union Elementary School District. We sold our
home in Red Bluff, and
moved to Vancouver,
Washington, in April of 2017. Enjoyed family activities,
poetry research, exploring, and gardening.
Backyard Zendo
my zazen was writing
pencil in hand—
sitting still for minutes
no special breathing
just moving my hand
in-breath
out-breath
unconsciously
enables me
to Consciously Be
Stepping Over Epiphanies
Affecting all the molecules in me
the pull of moon and sea.
I felt the call to walk the shore...
I smiled, opened the door.
Tides and time sent their signals to me:
step nimbly over epiphanies
flipped up and left
in the turning sand...
I was surprised,
focused my eyes.
Ignored by all about me.
I'm a fleck of cold fire
flung out on
this sacred space...
Pondering, today, my Place.
Shore pines paint a background scene:
short stubby crooked trees
swaying gently in the persistent breeze.
Mostly in shades of shadows and greens...
A gently ruffled tranquility.
I practiced outside today
the Practice of the Outside Way.
I figured a few things out...
Understanding, what Places say.
A friendly dog off-leash comes up to me
seeking a gentle pat and pet
desiring a kind human face to see...
Laughing. Shaking---she was wet.
Stunned by the crisp clean colors,
savoring the sweet scents of the sea,
enchanted by the relentless pounding surf...
I began wondering.
What I see is painted by me,
created for free in a brain for me,
suckled from the breasts of reality.
Why is this reality made by me?
Tiptoe over bull kelp strands
or over broken white clam shells.
Avoiding the driftwood piles
the tide keeps moving in swells...
Beaccombing eyes at low tide.
My granddaughter and I once walked
beside a Bandon Oregon sand dune.
Nearly two decades ago, as I recall.
I did remember---Barely...
But one picture can revive more memories.
Vancouver Hometown Miniatures I
1.
a stillness
a hardness
a bleakness
a shiver---
February: the essence of winter
Snow on Mt. Hood and Mt. Saint Helens.
Chocolate on a vanilla ice cream cone.
A brown hat was tilted on her blonde head.
Green lottery tickets smiled on a white counter.
Waitress wiping off table tops.
white moth
fluttering
down and up...
breezes in leaves
of dogwood trees
2.
six blind baby puppies
sleeping in a warm box
dreaming about milk
and their mother's licks---
we all just watched
Noticed a long black bug
crawling up my shirt---
Accidental tourist
on for the ride.
I brushed it aside.
3.
Old Highway 99 is Main Street,
with Kiggins Stadium on the hilltop by I5,
into Downtown Vancouver's Upscale Riverfront.
The impressive Columbia River on our South Side.
Hometown poets
at Ghost Town Open Mic—
sharing insights about their life
and living together in space and time
our environs shape connected minds.
4.
Tired
worked hard
job done---
resting now
sipping rum.
I felt crappy today,
nobody gives a shit anyway.
We all have too much crap to do,
plus pick up all the shit
from the human zoo.
5.
The clock on the garage wall
Stopped working months ago;
Timelessly stuck on 12 to 4.
Needs a new battery.
Time requires Energy.
My wife, Karen,
digging in the west garden,
pulling weeds, watering...
has drawn a crowd of crows
waiting for her to go.
pasta
sauce
bubbling.....
my dead dad's
recipe
6.
I was the occasion
involved in the occasions
that occasionally occurred
for me amongst others
in places familiar every day
Let things be as they Are,
that is, as we, truly,
encounter them,
from near or from afar;
elusive as they Are.
Not Walking With A Dog
My dog ran on Wednesdays.
A few summers ago---
frantic zoomies, so bizarre.
My dying dog Bruno looked into my eyes.
We knew our walking days were over.
..... Sigh
My dog died on Thursday.
Three months ago---
I miss Bruno.
Red Coals Pulse Like Distant Stars
The last light slips behind the ridge,
a thin ember of day still glowing.
Boots thud softly on the packed earth,
the air cooling with each step.
Evening begins before we notice.
The match flares against the cold,
brief and stubborn in my hand.
Kindling waste paper curls into orange petals.
The splintered kindling shifts as if waking.
Fire learns its shape slowly.
Tall trunks stand just beyond the glow,
their crowns lost into the dark.
The fire paints the pine kindling in strokes:
Of copper, white flames,
rust-red coals, seared splinters,
black charred remnants, orange flames...
Smoke threads upward in loose spirals,
finding its own quiet route.
A kettle hums near the campfire coals,
steam rising like a soft prayer chanting.
Night creatures accept our presence.
Voices soften as the flames stay steady;
words drifting like sparks.
Some tales are true, some nearly so,
all of them shaped by our minds.
The campfire listens without judgment.
Logs collapse inward with a sigh,
a slow settling of heat and memory.
Red coals pulse furnace hot,
steady, patient, unhurried, dying.
The night seems curious.
The fire shrinks to a quiet glow,
its edges cut with flickering flames.
Ash gathers in pale drifts,
the remains of what kept us warm.
What ends abruptly out here?
The final spark dims into silence,
leaving only the scent of smoke.
Stars settle into their places,
unbothered by our small rituals.
The forest smiles and falls asleep.
Five Elements Embracing
Soil, sea, sun, rain, sky ...
Five Elements embracing,
Intertwined in mind.
Unfathomable Matrix;
Scaffolds on scaffolds
Grounded in Otherness.
Below sky, gardener, bees, soil,
seeds, leaves, stems, roots, water...
Below wet cells embraced,
Below atoms dancing on Energy...
Deeper and deeper below
Into What?
A Plenitude, a sacredness.
Emptiness in full bloom.
Make it Interesting
The noun asked the adjective,
"Why do you speak of superficialities?"
The adjective replied,
"Because you're not very interesting
as a mere noun, unqualified."
Weeding Your Way to Kensho
The True Gardener of No Title deadheads
Persona after persona, shears the hedge
Of endless desires, digs up the dank
Roots of illusions, prunes out the rank
Suckers of sectarian ire, and weeds away
Attachments that choke out the Way.
Salmon Moon Magic
Midnight moon spells cast
into glowing zones of mist-fog
honored by the swaying willow trees
guided by incessant mystic gravity---
All marvelous results for me.
Replant the Memories
Crape myrtle, brilliant red, bursting forth;
Hiding the garden.
Some days, only the Garden, entire, serene;
Yet, hiding from sight, shy, single plants.
Seeing Both, seldom, but as One:
Sweat poured from my startled brow,
Dripping on the dry earth.
And all became Sunshine
And shadows of surprise unraveling.
A Gardener's Sutra on Time: Excerpts
One purpose of a garden is to stop time in one place.
Take the time to melt into the Details.
Time will tell, but we often fail to listen.
Gardeners turn into the soil their lifetime.
Beauty is the Mistress, the gardener her slave.
Gardeners learn to live in worm time,
bee time, and seed time.
In the right place at the right time,
tomato worms on tomato vines.
Gardens are demanding pets.
Time creeps, walks, runs and flies---
it is all about moving things.
That something is eternal is unverifiable.
The seed idea for "God" is springtime.
The ten thousand things are more enchanting
than the Silent Divine One.
Dogmatists are less useful than dogs.
When the divine knocks, don't send
a prophet to the door.
Time prevents too much from happening at once.
Time is rooted in Place.
What you see depends on when you look.
Perfection can be the opponent of betterment.
A working hypothesis is far better than a belief.
Most laws of Gardening are merely local ordinances.
Mother Nature is always pregnant.
A callused palm and dirty fingernails
precede a Green Thumb.
Chaos breaks its own rules to allow Order to play.
Without vagueness we are bored with literalness.
Somehow, someway,
everything gets eaten up, someday.
Pulling Onions 1,053 Quips, One-Liners, Aphorisms, Jokes
The Bodhi Forest Cut Down
The Mind is a vast Bodhi forest,
The body a Bodhi tree.
Dirt is in every cranny,
Flowers blossom, leaves fall.
The Bodhi Trees have been cut down,
The Bright Mirrors shattered.
Beginning with nothing,
Replant the trees, remake the mirrors.
Make one's mind like a mirror,
One's body like the Giving tree.
Reflect accurately and impartially;
Give fruit and shade.
{{{ trees cut down by mpgarofalo}}}
0. Counting the Moons Over La Push
1. Moon of the Wind
2. Moon of the Shaman
3. Moon of the Raven
4. Moon of the Grandmother
5. Moon of the Summer Sun
6. Moon of the Blackberries
7. Moon of the King Salmon
8. Moon of the Trail to Tacoma
9. Moon of the Maiden's Wishes
10.
Moon of the Snow on the Hills
11. Moon of the Father's Arrows
12. Moon of the Memaloose Ghosts
Emerging Through the Green
By mid-morning the sun,
illuminated all the laurel leaves,
bright brilliant vibrant growing Green.
The intensity of the living leaves
spoke clearly of Here and Being.
Seeing the Trend Towards...
Sixty John Deeres
cleaned, shined and waiting...
no lookers, no purchases
Forty rings gleaming
in the jeweler's tray
locked up all day
Twenty tables
standing still
in a closed cafe
Ten outdoor vendors
left today...
puddles of forlorn rain
Five girlfriends
all graduate
fling hats in the air,
go to different countries
Four boats
left early
the docks lost track
Three boys
went fishing
returned with nothing
Two teams
in the Final Game...
hurricane canceled
One woman
departed on Sunday
Basho’s Frog Redux
Playing my harmonica
quietly
A pine cone falls
bounces by
I heard it clop Surprised
My Ears Hear Celestial Music
My bones have some stardust,
my brain some
reptilian vestiges,
and my soul
some of the Earth.
Vampires in the Hoh Forest
In the Town of Forks live Vampires,
teenage blood suckers on the night prowl, and
teenage Werewolves howling, running fast.
Humans afraid of these creatures’ wrath.
Human, not so human, called by the Night,
confused, resisting, teenagers losing the fight
against inner demons and lusty needs
and ordinary life with real human beings.
These beings fight and kill to survive;
wily, tricky, stealthy, with a Hunter’s pride.
The Horned God has history on his side.
Hunger keep us all on the Edge,
ready to amorally pounce from a hedge
and slaughter or harvest what is just ahead.
Category Mistakes Catch Up in Time
What is the distance from "Here to Eternity"?
How many angels can dance on my eyelids today?
How can time just run out of time?
How many inches in a lifetime?
At what time did Beauty arrive?
Time is not what it seems!
How long was the day for Molly Bloom
on June 16th, 1904 in Dublin?
When are you leaving last week?
How many hours in a second?
What does time smell like?
Lava Mountains
The Douglas Firs hold the dark.
June brings an extra gold moon tonight,
climbing the ridges,
turning the Wind River into moving blue blinks,
as if the sky cared for stained glass.
On the lonely gravel road in the black lava mountains,
we stopped, killed the headlights,
truck cooled under damp stars,
we bundled up and headed out.
We wanted a reason for our dark quests,
some grand excuse to stand in the cold.
But there it is!
Spilled thick gnarly black volcano vomit.
Mountains of basalt & andesitic lava cold.
Pines cover it now. Occasional snow.
Hood Canal in May
Mt. Walker flanked
slender long Rainbow Falls---
a salmon hatchery
on the tiny Quilcene stream,
returned the hatchlings to the sea.
The Hood waterways
blurred in hazy mists,
dull gray obscured today---
flashes of sunlight
cut through the trees.
Strawberry Moon
hung low
orange glow
midnight rose
over Lilliwaup Cove
The Halfway House Cafe was empty,
except for me at 3,
eating fried Hamma Hamma oysters---
while the perky young waitress
told me her stories
bird songs crossed
the hanging skies
while
emptiness hummed
after cars flying on 101 went by
The Dosewallips River moaned
a melancholy way all day.
Dragging big logs from the canyons above,
and fertile sand to fill the Hood Fjord's
waiting feminine embrace, in Love.
Above the river's mists, Consciousness...
which has everything to gain,
little to refuse,
which loves these beings and itself.
Full moon
morning sky---
a white silhouette
faintly traced
for uplifted eyes.
I’m not in Tacoma, Gig Harbor
or Bremerton---
just in the Geoduck Cafe (in Brinnon),
eating juicy clams, drinking beer,
listening to friendly tourists and learning.
Elk heads stuffed
on the Geoduck Cafe wall.
Still life taxidermy. Hair
bristling. Comatose.
I heard the elk's stifled moan.
Wavelengths Away
For me
a crow is black.
For other Animal Eyes
a crow is --- Rainbow Colored,
Brilliant and Bright.
Fresh Figs, Rotten Plums
Winter weeks we huddled by the hot stove,
Spring days we shivered in the sun,
Summer hours we sat in the shade,
Autumn minutes we stared at the moon.
We had idle thoughts, we had no thoughts.
Life lifted our spirits high, despite our toils.
The ordinary, the exceptional,
the chosen, the accepted
the beautiful, the deformed
fresh figs, rotten plums
They appeared and disappeared
Samsara and Nirvana...
Here and Gone
The End
I watched my
mother and father
Die!
Unconscious before me,
drifting away so peacefully.
Is As Is
'Is' is an insistent perplexity
of sometimes being identity
of sometimes being temporarily
of sometimes being actuality;
Yes!, 'is' even postulates = equality.
Water Falls Into the Gorge
We drove out to Dougan Falls in the Spring,
like salmon moving, drawn in by obscure passions.
I followed the ear-opening sacredness that keeps
coming back to me in the rain of memories.
The stream doesn't care about a trillion rocks.
It goes because it's been blind for many millennium;
unlike what the lanky Douglas Firs discovered
when standing still for decades in the Gorge winds.
My niece never said much about beauty.
I parked the car, we joined the crowds,
walked up to Dougan Falls.
We both looked up and didn't speak.
The noisy ballads of Cascadian waterfalls:
from high to low, young to old,
flowing down, colder to cold,
into the Columbia River flowing bold;
till it becomes the salty blood
in the arteries of Oceanus
beyond the south jetty of Living Time.
A Buoy Counts the Small Betrayals of the Night
The ocean keeps its ledger in shells and salt,
a gull erases a name with one bright arc,
waves fold like old letters into the breeze,
a lighthouse blinks the same apology each night,
and we learn to speak in the pause between tides.
The ocean keeps its ledger in blue ink,
gulls fold their signatures into the wind,
a buoy counts the small betrayals of night,
moonlight irons the surface into a promise,
and we learn to speak in the language of tides.
Double Visions
An eager face staring into the rich silence
Of mirrored space devoid of mind;
Not projecting or connecting, but reflecting.
Supreme non-fictions, Things
Naked as they are, as they are.
Inevitably, as sunshine blares on stones,
Green erupts from brown.
Curiosity Swings across the mind
past junkyards of ideas, peeling metaphors,
rusting rhymes, and concrete clichés.
We are as we are:
Twofolds, Fourfolds, Eightfolds of
Realities and Possibilities.
Pushing on. Pushing on!
Mountains on Paper
I really hiked to the Top of:
Mount Whitney & Mt. Lassen,
Mount San Gorgonio & Mt. Baldy & many more---
but only imagined understanding
the symbolic ideas of Mount Analogue.
Many Words for Rivers
Chinook People had many more words
for the Cowlitz waters than I.
Falling from my lips,
many words for electricity.
Lived places dictate vocabulary.
Writing Solo
I'm a poet
of a body, not a poet
of a soul, yes
I sing solo.
Yes, I wish Milton's Heavenly Muse
would dictate beautiful poetry to me.
But, unfortunately,
She never appeared, you see,
leaving me, seriously, with
the only Muse I hear—Me!
Every Detail Shined
Spring morning:
a young man stands,
listening to earphones,
waiting for the bus--
Downtown Camas soaked in mist.
every leaf
twitching to
the gentle breeze
thru morning dew
Even the little details and flaws
Shined like diamonds;
Caught our attentions!
Were called beautiful---
The Beauty of Imperfections.
Is it?
It scatters
It gathers
It advances
It retires---
What is It?
What is warm, then cools
What is wet, then dries
What is ice, then melts
What is rock, then shatters---
Time's arrow falls to the ground.
Time travel ----- imaginary
Fictional ---- hypothetical-figurative
Back to the Future --- reel time
Forward to the Past -- speculate
Fantasies in the Now - create
Magazines of Stale Memories
Opened the Door of his Mind:
Mostly a hoarder's rooms inside.
Filled with magazines of stale memories.
Packed with boxes of unpleasant dreams.
Piled with the dirty dishes of despair.
Winter Death
February fogs—
among the rotting brown leaves
a squashed dead frog;
Winter is a Brutal King
freezing beings one by one.
More Poetry and Creative Work
From the Beginning Years: 2016 - 2019
Bundled Up, Volume 1
Wakas, Quintillas, Tankas, Quintets, Northwest
Haiku, Cinquains, Docu-Poems, Quintains
Quintain Poems 1 - 1,000
Bundled Up, Volume 2
Gogyohkas, Limericks, Seashore, Moods
Rhymes, Remarks, Listenings, Insights
Quintain Poems 1,000 - 1,500
Bundled Up, Volume 3
Octets, TextArt, Epigrams, Commonplaces, Onions
Quintain Poems 1,500 - 2,000
At the Edges of the West
Highway 101 and Hwy 1, Docu-Poems, Ocean, Quartets
Cuttings: Haiku, Senryu, Brief Poems by Months
Pulling Onions: One-Liners, Quips. Sayings
The Beginning Years: 2016 - 2019
Title Index to Poems in this WebBook
The Middle Years: 2019 - 2023
Alone in Time
second by second
hour after hour
week by week
month after month
year after year
decade after decade---
longevity adds up
The forces of the winds
and the roaring of the surf
kept me awake in camp that night—
my 76th birthday
alone at Cape Disappointment
Will Cherished Ideals Survive
No Guarantees that to the End
Our cherished ideals will survive,
Our great great grandchildren will thrive,
Our monuments stand ...
Our guarantees?
This tree my great great grandmother planted,
This dog-eared Leaves of Grass on my desk,
This classic folksong on my breath,
This heirloom apple in my hand ...
This day,
no guarantees
for or against.
Good! So we strive on,
Their and our hopes in our hands now.
Ten Moves to Mate
The chessboard patterns
different each time...
Like my changing life,
complicated and intense.
Reacting when others move.
Enduring Monument
The lastingness of Mount Rainier
Fixed still standing aside the Salish Sea.
Nature's monument to Indestructibility.
Those seemingly forever lasting Things
That mark the geography of our destiny.
The Spiderwebs of Time
Fossilized seashells hold the tide's old hours.
The leafless gray trees keep their rings to themselves.
Children at play outgrown their shoes.
Mt. Rainier's glaciers glitter at noon.
A Hood Canal Raven breaks open the Clamshell of Time.
The cold ocean waves at Grayland Beach shiver in time.
The lazy Nehalem River Bay waits for summer.
The moving Reedsport sand dunes bury the hours.
Remembering is time, forgetting is time.
Great and small doubts reveal time.
Dreamless sleep dissolves time.
Hungry ghosts and naked demons haunt time.
The Spiderwebs of Time are Legion.
Multitudes of nows and thens;
Uncountable heres and theres
unhitched
from any Eternal Present
everywhere.
Chanting Canyon Streams
Opening bell
echoes from the canyon walls---
raindrops on the river.
The sounds of rocks bouncing off rocks;
the shadows of trees traced on trees.
I sit, still.
The canyon river chants,
moving mountains.
The sermon spun on the still point:
dropping off eternity, picking up time.
Letting go of self, awakened to Mind.
Rafting Down the Trinity
The river said go easy, so we pushed off,
letting
the raft find its own argument. The
current kept offering us opportunities: a
bend, a hush, a Class 3 rapid, fear, a jolt,
a twist, a quiet float, a sudden lift. We
followed,
not knowing how far trust could
carry us,
only that it kept insisting "Yes!"
Twisted by river stones, paddles, muscles,
current,
wind and the long drag downhill
on rushing cold water ..... the rubber raft
slipped into its becoming, guided by a
curious flotational logic.
Sunlight leaned into the canyon, finding
us still and
stuck
where the current slowed.
There the small trout dallied without hurry
on the rocks
below. We felt the day open,
wide as the bend ahead.
Later, the wind arrived, ruffling the surface
into small disagreements. We answered with
hard strokes that tried to match the river’s
impatience. We bounced back and forth on
the raft's edge. Two people had fear in their
voices. Even the river banks and forest
seemed to listen, cottonwood trees leaning
in, as excitement intensified.
The water shook us and we were fully ready,
paddling the raft past the damp bark of the
alders. We let the river tumble us over the
large boulders and growling rapids,
bouncing
us with sudden shakes and breathless glee.
Only the arguing water, our soaked clothing,
and the joy and laughter mattered.
Paddles touched the hush, the canyon walls
held their breath. Water knows the way. We
follow its subtle speaking, thinking
to ourselves.
Toward evening the canyon settled into
closure. We stopped, made camp, ate dry
bread and jerky, drank peach brandy,
talked by the fire. The river retreated
into the closing darkness. The night
gurgled a restless tune off key.
Two dreamed of being tossed off the raft.
Polished Till It Glowed
Tumbling river stones
In the raging river borne along.
Polished smooth for decades past,
Till all the edges are cut smooth and slick,
Then the polished colored pebbles sink home.
Halfway Between:
The Equator and the North Pole
I live near
the 45th Parallel North, along with:
Lincoln City, Salem, North Powder, Salmon,
Eagle Butte, Chippewa Falls,
Wausau,
Minneapolis, Montreal, Stewiacke...
Atlantic Ocean...
Grenoble, Turin, Bordeaux, Belgrade,
Bucharest, Simferopol, Qyzylorda,
Feodosiya,
Karamay, Harbin, Wakkanai...
Pacific Ocean...
Same latitude, same April---
many different Springtimes
Held Up in a Decade
We ourselves are immersed in the Facts
Working our way from first to last,
Living each day, not our last...
Surviving here and there, in somewhere cast,
No choice in our decades,
and our specified spatial-spiritual trap.
American Investments
they had no books
in their home
and in their side yard
a $35,000 travel trailer
gathering dust and moss
Nighttime Chores
One night I awoke to the sounds
of cold rain on the hard wind.
The clanking of backyard gongs
till I took them down.
Wiped raindrops off my head.
Opened my fly
pissed on the ground.
Headed back into my bed.
Recalling Errors
The door forgets being closed.
I remembered forgetting.
The sentence forgot a few words.
something was missing
after I looked
Not retrieval---reconstruction!
Each week I remember
some rebuilt recall---
a pinch of error
and something slightly new, that's all.
I remember remembering
a museum of portraits
each one of my faces
each face at a different age
asking me quizzically:
"Are you still here?"
Details on Details, Zoom In
The endless treasures of the everyday,
the uncommonness of common things;
Ordinary mind does point the way
to unspoken wonders of myriad beings.
Whether a leaf, the moon, a plastic spoon,
or a shoe, an eye, an infant's cry;
the endless parade, zoom out, in zoom,
Details on details, thick, piled high.
Cellular seedpods pulsing pure time,
Flowering brains clone families of minds
that revel in thinking to the Infinite edge,
agog over life, and love of knowledge.
Whether a quasar, a hand, a DNA strand,
Fantastic journeys in the Minds of Millions.
Vancouver Hometown Miniatures II
Finished by December 25, 2026
1.
summertime (Frenchman's Bar):
swimmers
towel off---
children grin
in umbrella shade
Salmon Creek from Elkhorn Peak.
Greenway Trail Watershed Park:
ponds and swamps,
jets leaving PDX rising overhead,
soccer pitches & baseball fields so Green,
bikers bike, walkers walk.
Some sit in the shade and think.
2.
Leaving my house.
It's alright.
It's alright---
It ain't!
COVID Years!
3.
My hickory cane hangs
from a peg on the wall
near my back door;
beckoning me
to walk even more.
4.
Pointing at the moon, making a point---her lovely fingers.
Head on hand---eyes down, whiskey breath.
This cat in my lap: purring, eyes closed---fur on my fingers.
Fumble Fingers
Of things mechanical
I've little ken,
I fumble and fuss
from start to end.
Where a mechanic
pushes right---
I pull left till
things stick-tight.
Bending things
I shouldn't bend,
unfortunately---
Till they ain't right.
It's just so, so it is,
fumble fingers my fate it is.
Skeletons in Love
Live long enough,
and the losses pile up.
Till you're tossed away,
like an old cracked cup.
All stained and worm,
dulled by time.
Useless, leaking,
not worth a dime.
Then, you die ... sometime.
Egoless then, until your flesh falls away.
You, a skeleton becomes, they say.
Lost in Nirvana,
lights out,
all done.
Nine months later,
to your utter surprise,
you awaken in bed:
Changed, very much alive.
Not as Kafka's
Ungeheueres Ungeziefer;
or as Casper the Ghost
all covered in fur.
Not as a Memaloose on the Run,
but alive as a horny Stud Skeleton.
Then, the Skeleton Woman
drinks your dry tears,
Drums your still heart,
and sings away fears,
Slips under the quilts
and gives Love a Whirl;
Spinning, twirling,
your reborn as a Girl.
Forget yourself,
crack the cup on the floor,
Speak in a new voice,
the past is no more.
{{{ women and men by mpgarofalo }}}
Shifu Miao Zhang
The Taoist Cane Master
I. Sudden or Gradual
Master Pita asked Shifu Miao Zhang,
"What is sudden enlightenment?"
Shifu Zhang immediately
threw his staff on the muddy ground.
Master Xita asked Shifu Miao Zhang,
"What is gradual enlightenment?"
Shifu Zhang stomped on
his muddy staff three times,
and yelled "Get to Work!"
II. Slicing Through Nothing
Mayoku walked around his old
Daoist friend, Shifu Miao Zhang,
three times, and he then thumped
his oak staff once on the ground.
Miao Zhang stood up,
walked around Mayoku once,
tapped his pine cane
three times on the wall, and said,
"The power of the wind can topple trees
and is gone by morning.
My cane can cut through the wind."
III. From the East to the West
Master Sound of Bitterroot Mountain
asked Shifu Miao Zhang,
"What is the meaning of the
Bodhidharma Phato emerging in the West?"
Shifu lifted his cane
placed it in his mouth,
saying nothing.
Later, zany Zen liar that he was, he wrote:
"No minds, no Dharma.
No-mind, much Dharma.
East and West Meet on the Middle
Way."
IV. I Will Take Your Staff Away
Zen Master Baqiao told his old friend,
Shifu Miao Zhang, "If you have a staff,
I will give you a staff; if you have no staff,
I will take your staff away."
Shifu Zhang replied "I have a cane and
you don't. Would you like to borrow yours?"
Baqiao replied, "Miao Zhang, you will
likely have to walk into Hell!"
Miao Zhang raised his eyebrows and said,
"Well, Baqiao, then I will need to
borrow my cane for the long hot walk
with you.
Sorry, but I can't lend your
broken staff to you."
V. Same or Different
Zen Master Seung Sahn held up his staff
in front of Shifu Miao Zhang, and said
"Then, Miao Zhang, what are this staff,
this sound and your mind? Are they the
same or different? If you say "same," I
will hit you thirty times. If you say "different,"
I will also hit you thirty times. Why?"
Miao Zhang lifted his cane slowly,
grounded himself, prepared to block
Seung Sahn's single strike, and then said,
"Don't know! Same or different,
nobody can hit the sound of our minds;
not 60 hits, not one hit."
VI. Quacking Questions
Shifu Zhang enjoyed a month's retreat
At a cottage in
Willow's back streets.
One night he dreamed:
And before the Northwest Ones appeared,
Forty million years of ducks in the mud.
Lighting two candle lanterns
a hundred miles away
Cutting up a duck for dinner.
A dog barks at smells.
A thousand ducks twitched---
winds of winter.
Do the ducks have Buddha-Nature?
"Sssshhh!
Stop quacking like a duck."
Meetings with Master Chang San Feng
Shifu Miao Zhang Points the Way
Zatoichi and Kung Fu TV Characters
Entropy Points Its Finger
The Arrows of Time
never rest,
moving forward unrelenting
irreversible:
from hot towards cold
from stream to Sea
from organized to disorganized
from past to future
from moving towards stillness
from life towards death.
Or, so it seems, to us,
with our little particulars,
with our home brew views,
with our social habits a must.
Broken Down
My great nephew,
Joshua Loya his name,
a troubled, sick, tired fellow.
We tried to help him and failed.
A soul free of conventionality.
His mom died when he was 10
he never recovered!
He lived with us for over a year.
A lazy fellow!
Straight F's in high school.
He was a homeboy styler
a skinny fellow
dressed in
baggy pants.
Hanging out with homeboys, cholos, vatos
for a fine machismo time.
I drove Josh back to his father in Fresno.
Larry and I, frustrated fathers,
our last ever meeting that night.
A few years later, a more confused Josh,
faltering after auto accidents and hepatitis,
and fun drug usage most days;
he slowly slipped from us away.
My son and we tried to help
Joshua when down
and others did contribute,
to bring him better around
but his failures ground him down.
He phoned every so often
babbling and rude
wandering in a broken brain.
His long letters, indecipherable,
but with artistic Tagger displays.
He lived in County jails
for petty crimes
and old half-way houses
time after time after time.
In garages of friends and tents sometimes.
He called his Aunt Blanche last month.
He was homeless again
hoping for help from family and friends.
Sadly, he was sick again.
He wished her well at the end.
She sent him cash later that day.
Yesterday, Josh's sister said,
a sheriff told her:
Josh was shot dead!
They found his slumped body
on bloody asphalt
in a City of Industry
vacant parking lot.
Bullets through his broken heart!
| cruel |
| man |
| gun |
| in |
| hand |
Ugh!
{{{ ugh by mpgarofalo }}}
The Day My Religion Started to Die
In the fourth grade, my teacher,
a stern Catholic nun (towards boys),
told the entire class:
My grandmother and I
were going to Hell (her emphasis!)!
Because we attended my grandma's
Lutheran Church on last Sunday.
Shocked, upset, and annoyed was I!
My grandmother was a good person.
Catholicism, for me, on that day
shrivelled
and later died.
Put on a New Suit
Delete more adjectives
Cut more adverbs
Remove crayons from the box
Empty the trash
Tell a quarter of the story
Climb out on a limb
Be concise, be precise
Imitate Rae Armantrout
Don't tell it like it is
Neutralize explanations
Get to the point
Even when pointless
Worship the God of Brevity
Handicap the God of Verbosity
More Poetry and Creative Work
From the Middle Years: 2019 - 2023
Bundled Up, Volume 4
Remarks, Rhymes, Seeings, Onions, Sonnets
Quintain Poems 2,000 - 2,500
Bundled Up, Volume 5
Quintain Sonnets, Time, TextArt, Koans, Remarks
Quintain Poems 2,500 - 3,000
Bundled Up, Volume 6
Sonnets, Lore, Time, Language, Thought
Quintain Poems 3,000 - 3,500
The Fireplace Records Koan Collection
The Tao Te Ching: Anthology and Concordance
An Old Philosopher's Notebooks
The Beginning Years: 2016 - 2019
Title Index to Poems in this WebBook
The Recent Years: 2023 - 2026
Slippery Sentences Dematerialized
Syntax melts into waxy calligrammes
Dictionaries cry out in verbs
Pages and pages of precise punctuation marks huddle
Semantics smack of misunderstandings
Poems simply dematerialized into nonsense
Limber metaphors walk over water
Messages leak and bleed down paper posters
Nouns found time to hum a haiku
Periods became black blank zeros
Quintains morphed into Sonnets
Predicates dissolved into adverbial pointers
Adjectives unspoooooooooooooled into Hieroglyphs
Cliches retreated into walls of phonemes
Truth became shy and subtle
The bridge of silence collapsed
Turn the Clock Back
I turned the clock hands
back an hour in the fall.
Even though, in private time-space,
nobody can ever
turn the clock back at all.
The coffee
in my cup
was Cold!
A compass
for
Entropy.
What Happened to Silence?
The clock in the classroom
Worked hard diligently
To avoid, To Silence---the Present;
Never stopped...
Tick - happens. Tock - happens.
Decades passed,
Left no forwarding address.
Tomorrow dreams of Yesterday.
Today forgets both...
Tick - silence. Tock - silence.
I didn't think
I would live this long
What a unqualified surprise
to be standing silently
on the shores of Lake Quinault.
The Tick-Tock Tractatus: 5.6.4.2
Speaking of Time: The Poetric Investigations
Oulipos Coordinates Conceptualized
I. Punctuated Still-Life
&&&&&
$$$$$
;;;;;
@@@@@
| ##### | Counted | ##### |
| ..... | Asserted | ..... |
| ????? | Questioned | ????? |
| !!!!! | Exclaimed | !!!!! |
| ,,,,, | Paused | ,,,,, |
Compare with four pages of random punctuation
marks by Elizabeth Clark, Between Worlds.
II. Hidden Codes
A26 B25 C24 D23 E22
F21 G20 H19 I18 J17
K16 L15 M14 N13 O12
11P 10Q 9R 8S 7T
6U 5V 4W 3X 2Y
Z1
Compare with six pages of meaningless codes
by Vito Acconci, Removal.
III. We/We/We
we see
we want
we steal
we lie
we use AI
Compare with twelve pages of brief phrases
beginning with the word 'my' by
Charles Bernstein, My/My/My.
IV. Counting Down
eight, eighty, eight hundred,
seven thousand, six million,
five billion, four trillion,
Three, Two, One
Zero
Compare with ten pages of words for numbers
by Claude Closky, The First Thousand Numbers
V. What?
ArE swbath blaZe muteRing empty RocKet
reD ciTIzenS As he desiBA Ntecello golD
comPlaining FocusDownnn Ulla FideNtia
is KelPt stOne CSChUrch btone threadI
mi sPirghi ch'iO gU di pietro Negator' D'usura
Compare with seven pages of misspelled, invented,
and highlighted Non-Words by John Cage,
Writing Through the Cantos.
VI. Seeing Three Ways
| Winter | North | Today |
| Spring | East | Future |
| Summer | South | Past |
| Fall | West | Now |
| Year | Center | Time |
{{{ the power of three by mpgarofalo }}}
Compare with thousands of concrete poems,
text art, calligrammes, ASCII art, and graphic
messages as found in the Index to Concrete Poetry
by Mike Garofalo.
Concrete Poetry and Text Art Exhibits
VII. Alphabetic Trails
Abecedarian Sextet
All bohemians can't do everything.
Formulas give help in judging.
Keeping loving men noticing.
Only perfectionists quickly revise.
Settled truces universally valued.
Worried xenophobe yells zilch.
From ABCDE ... VWXYZ
| At the beginning | After the end |
| Before the end | Before the beginning |
| Caught in the middle | Compromised splits |
| Divided in between | Discovering emptiness |
| Everything dissolves | Empezar de Nuevo |
| For the Record | From that day |
| Giving it away | Gaining respect |
| Happy I'd say | Hands on right |
| Inner work done | Innocent delights |
| Just keeping on | Joining others now |
| Kicked out hate | Kissed my mate |
| Lucked out | Left quite late |
| Mesmerized | Many times |
| Not surprised | Not compromised |
| Oh why | On time |
| People pursued | Pursuers persisted |
| Quite exhausted | Quantities stolen |
| Really afraid | Running away |
| Slowly relaxing | Secure home |
| Troubles gone | Treasures reborn |
| Uu Uu abcdefghijklm | uU uU nopqrstuvwxyz |
| Very clearly | Virtuously so |
| With a Changing Key | Wechselndem Schlüssel |
| Xmas comes | Xanthia goes |
| You think you know | Your known |
| Zany at times | Zendo zone |
- Compare with:
See also Paul Celan, Index of Titles A-Z.
Bob Perelman, An Alphabet of Literary History.
Harryette Mullen, Blah-Blah, and Jingle Jangle.
Amaranth Borsuk, Show of Hands.
Frances Picabia, Metal
Reference Sources:
Against Expression: An Anthology of Conceptual
Writing, 656 pages, 2011. Edited by Craig Dworkin.
Artifice and Indeterminacy: An Anthology of New Poetics,
392 pages,
1998. Edited by Christopher Beach.
The L=A=N=G=U=A=G=E Book: Poetics of the New.
Edited by Charles Bernstein and Bruce Andrews.
312 pages, 1984.
The Marginalization of Poetry: Language Writing
and Literary History, 187 pages, 1996.
By Bob Perelman.
Poems for the Millennium: Volume Two. Edited
by Jerome Rothenberg and Pierre Joris.
871 pages, 1998.
Dying is a Hard Journey
Dying is such a depressing waste
a wasting away of dignity
facing the firing squad of some disease
your own body murders you with ease
twenty names for your miseries.
Can't hide in the woods or city,
Dying spares no home, nor has any pity.
Dying can be over instantly
in an hour, month, season, or years.
Dying can be around the corner
or in a hospital in south Spokane.
Dying ends with an open mouth sigh.
Dying and Death, the Faces of Janus.
Dying is Death's Emissary, both liars.
My mom and I shared a final toast.
Dying waited for mom to release her ghost.
Vancouver Hometown Miniatures III
Finished by December 25, 2026.
1.
rain drops
shimmer
delicately
on leafless
dogwood trees
2,
A shredded snake skin
on my shelf with shells,
stones, feathers, and bones,
some fancy trilobite fossils
200 million years old.
3.
As dawn turns to day
mountains appear ......
I stretch and yawn.
Christmas in Red Bluff
Santa folds his list into paper cranes that fly.
Ornaments gossip in the tree about last year's top star.
Reindeer practice tap dancing in the parking lot.
Gingerbread men hold a polite debate with the pumkin pies.
The radio forgets its place and hums the carols backwards.
Multiply the Facts
I walked two miles in one hour.
And the Earth rotates at 1,000 MPH.
And the Earth flies at 67,000 MPH.
And our Solar system flies at 514,000 MPH.
So, how fast was I really walking?
Yes, facts multiply.
But do they divide into facts?
Yes, the world has many facts
All stacked in rooms now called
"Now and Past."
In the future, we will add more facts.
One Picture of Me
This bony skull of mine
electrified
pictured onscreen for me.
Doctor recommends
some oral surgery.
The brain disappeared,
an empty space.
sliced from
X Ray images retraced.
Eyeless in inner space.
Monkey nose holes,
bony eye glasses,
teeth glowing in the dark.
Inner spaces never seen
underneath my very being.
Skinless, noseless, earless,
a shape, a form---
the images informed.
Stripping away the unneeded,
revealing my pixelated inner core.
Cedars Reflecting the Hood Fjord
a syntax of resin the green refuses
its own NOUN holds
what holding means against
the Hood Canal does not
reflect the cedars
The Cedars reflect It
January opens from the inside
the word for COLD is not COLDER
is the water's other adjectives
writing waits. In its waiting the
Hood Canal, Sea Hood Fjord, Hood Inlet
a conjunction of Names & Nouns
suspended between spruces & Firs
jammed between crammed in
cabinshutstrailersmansionssetatescottages
boatdockspiersporcheswoodlandscarsRVs
campgroundsshackscarshousesapartments
summerhomescondostownhousesvanscars
hoodcanal: shoretoshore, sidetoside ... HOMES.
(January) the adverbial cedar bark
speaks only in the direction
of having spoken already
Hood Inlet: a Grammar
Of a valley, two peninsulas, mountains, and the sea.
And nowadays, {{ fenced in, in military fit prim }},
THE Naval Base Kitsap and
the
Bangor Base for Nuclear Submarines!!!
{{January}} an exclamation point of snow "!"
Glaciers in the Olympics Frozen Prepositions:
down the cliffs, in the ravines, at the top.
The Dosewallips flows from the Olympic snows.
what the Cedar means by standing
at the water's syntactical
edge: to mean?
To stand by
the Hood which curls like verbs
by 101 and the sun
{{{ paradoxes by mpgarofalo }}}
Tight Timelines for Unwanted Advice
In every moment
today is created anew---
pristine possibilities
changing opportunities
depending on you.
/// RATION your cash supply ///
/$$ simplify $$/
??? Do You really NEED it? ???
!!! reconceptualize !!!
bitter pills 10
Life is an open book in a language we can't read.
Doing something involves undoing something.
Independence depends on others.
Blame is often a dirty mirror.
"God's Will" explains little except resignation.
When your "problem free" your dead.
You're a book unopened:
hidden potential
covered insights
closed ideas
Waiting.....
Between
two eternities
your brief life
is stretched
! tight !
{{{ the whole truth by mpgarofalo }}}
Altered Identities
My experiences at times
have not damaged or broken me;
but, indeed,
have bent and twisted
my identity.
Under the Water
of my mind
an unconscious Sea
of Memories
guide me through time
Keep me on a course line
send me some signs
become conscious at times...
freedom may a fiction be
controlled by unknown destinies.
Bring the Unconscious,
Sub-Conscious, ego, and Id,
Collective Unconscious figured in---
Over the waves of Consciousness
the flotsam of Unknowns are adrift.
{{{ karma of acts by mpgarofalo }}}
Damp Bandon Docks Bemused
Bandon sea stacks shout at starfish
Hotels hang loose over pillow basalt cliffs
Tourists circled like annoying flies
Our wine glasses toasted our broken resolutions
Summer blackberries were juicy black
Cranberry candy softened like flowing sand
Fried fish n chips were savored by avid lips
The seagulls refused to understand our silly plans
We pretended not to know what others knew
Cars on 101 stared intently at red stoplights
Painted sculptures dot the aging wharf
Downtown stores sell shirts and shells
A child's sandcastle outlived the afternoon
The Coquille River shivers with resolve
Listening Intently to the String Quarter Concert
I detach both ears and pin them to the velvet seat in front.
Four musicians in tails are methodically sawing wooden fishes.
Hush! The vibrating intestines are dripping blue triangles!
I staple my eyelids to the balcony to catch a flying C-sharp.
The viola just coughed up a ticking grandfather clock.
We concentrated so fiercely our spines turned into third violins.
A symphony of Non-Euclidian geometries!
The acoustics of the theater were perfectly keen.
Decades later, memories somehow remain.
Clear and concise as yesterday's life.
The Kronos Quartet at UCLA, three decades past,
Sounds from a warm Westwood night...
a detailed video in my brain.
Attentive listening creates richer memories.
Memories allow us to focus attention on ourself.
The Dazzling Stuff
I try to pay attention to the quotidian and sublunary,
to the particular ordinary stuff,
to the familiar and the close---
yet, I'm sometimes infatuated with
the mysterious, magical, amazing, dazzling stuff.
I sipped the imperfect unique noises
until my pocket watch exploded.
What you see depends on when you look,
when you listen, when you don't.
Memory expands when you pay attention.
Chevron Station at the Edge of Empty
Gleaming gas pumps in the fluorescent night.
Silent slaves of the Almighty dollars,
Pouring costly high-octane gallons
Into the bellies of Chevies.
Ding! Ding! Gallons go down.
Wallets open and fold.
Customers piss, buy coffee, stretch and go.
Headlights come and go, flashing
By the drying Lakes of Petro.
Acid fogs melt steel-belted moons.
Smog smothers each empty black street.
A Dead End ahead, everywhere,
For us, for OPEC, for Fords.
A Bandolier of Manifesto Bullets
Reglas del Juego Ars Poetica
what you don't say
is as important as
what you do say---
and vice-versa
spontaneous perceptions
change directions
willy-nilly Improvised
one perception should
directly lead to
another perception ... Quickly!!
Follow the Breath:
like a harmonica buff:
in and out, stop and start, flow, Blow & Suck.
Or, like a jazz horn player: Go!
doubts embrace the hemistich
irony precedes the enjambment
confusion follows the non-sequiturs
randomness hugs ambient metaphors
The poetic work ethic:
constantly prodding,
ever scrutinizing,
relentlessly wording,
swimming in stanzas.
Self-correct like a skeptic.
Delay the punchline ... then Punch!
The unspoken space leaves a heavy silence.
Attend closely to things and perceptions
avoid intellectual digressions.
Focus on Locality---Our Places in Reality!
No ideas but in things.
"Things" are ideas.
Algunas ideas son abrazadas por las cosas.
Solo los seres humanos reavivan las ideas.
Muchas ideas simplemente flotan en el espacio.
Avoid historic styles, meter, rhymes and
"that traditional stuff."
Be more lean and buff!
The open-field is beautiful;
The closed-field grows vegetables.
Take your pick when you're in a pinch.
No ideas but in beings.
Fading orange sunsets never talk.
But---Speak Out for Nature.
The desire for the Objectively Perfect:
rooted in our history,
fixed to our place Inside
current real particularities.
Put your text contents
into a new presentation format,
and you will have extented the content.
words cover the pages post-haste,
don't stop much to meditate---
go, go, Go ... don't hesitate!
Don't tell the readers what a scene means!
Only a special natural object is
the adequate symbol for an idea or inward state.
Present then Stop
reduce the i-me-my
no confessionals please:
Depersonalize
Don't tell a story; hesitate to fictionalize.
Yes, there are characters, but keep them dry.
Narrative suppresses immediate attention.
The story keeps us focused on the story.
The potholes of plots can hypnotize.
Narratives trend towards conventional conformity.
To be more creative---overcome
your fears
of being wrong
or making mistakes.
[Wink: Use one or two of these Manifesto Bullets,
Ignore the rest; let freedom be your guide.]
Even for old news: MAKE IT New!
Making your poetry:
Make it New, Make it Strange,
Make it Now, Make it Yours,
Make it Better, Make it True.
Make it Reveal, Make it Change.
Some poems are better
Read
than
Said.
Let the speaker set the pace; or,
Let the reader set the pace?
The eyes and/or ears
both have plans.
Some verses stretched the mind
Baffled the understanding
Confused the senses
Upset one's peace.
Discomfort can rejuvenate.
- A Collage of Influences:
Charles Bernstein, Robert Creeley,
Allen Ginsberg, Charles Olson,
Bob Perelman, Ezra Pound,
Ron Silliman,
Louis
Zukofsky, W.C. Williams.
Truths about the Future?
For the moment, Now, for me,
the world is the case.
Yesterday, the world was
actually the case.
Tomorrow's events are not the case.
Only the Present and Past are Actual
The Future is bounded by possibilities:
uncertainties, unpredictability, chances,
accidents, unknowns, contingencies ...
And quasi-informative necessities.
God knows the future some say.
I don't think that way.
Some statements about future events
Are neither necessary nor impossible
and have no truth value.
Two Options...
Can't but help
think in Two's
brain aligned so---
Forced to choose:
Yes or No?
Past or Now?
Last day of Spring,
ripe purple plums drop---
form is emptiness.
First day of Summer,
ditch completely dry---
emptiness is form.
{{{ Past-Now Text-Art by mpgarofalo }}}
Closing Time
running out of time
for catching up
with the future
now
a problem
my mind grinds
my times
into memories
so fine
they disappear
Note this:
9 + 9 = too many to carry very far
and & and = a homily that went far too long
6 - 6 = an empty fruit jar
4 - 2 = only half-way to the Columbia Bar
0 / 0 = meaningless questions so bizarre
| < | F | A | R | > |
| * | ? | ! | - | $ |
| 5 | 4 | 3 | 2 | 1 |
| # | ; | : | / | " |
| [ | J | A | R | ] |
| R | @ | ^ | & | $ |
| * | - | = | + | ? |
| 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 |
| { | R | ^ | % | " |
| ~ | ? | H | * | # |
| 5 | B | A | R | 1 |
| # | ; | L | / | " |
| { | []} | F | % | ? |
| t | h | e | n | d |
Body Surfing at Huntington Beach
Meat torpedo hisses and BAMS into the froth-committee
Salty telegrams: SWIM HARD ahead AHEAD ARMS arms FAST
Kick those big black rubber Fins: KICK KIck, Fast and Hard
Foam! Foam! A bureaucracy of Swishy Froth
Lifted by cascading surf---I'm flung, I fly
My arched body negotiates with a seagull's diving alibi
Brine hiccup --- my spine unscrews itself impolitely
Tumble tumble Mike's wet body ...
THRILLING long ride
Fizzling out, I stand: a shallow wet parenthesis, finished
Time Travel to the Outskirts of Words
Objects are Intertwined:
Inter-breeding like space and time
Inter-acting like brain and mind
Inter-relating like the drummer and the band
Inter-locking like fingers and hand
Time is Objectified:
Counted, tallied, recorded, traded;
Clock hands moving, telling time;
Clarion bells singing hours at nine---
Time eats everything; Objects dissolve.
Time is Personified:
Grim Reaper, Stork Baby, Dorian Gray;
Talking Time Machines, Killer Shark AI;
Old man with a crooked gray cane;
Eternal Goddess in a perfectly lazy Sky.
We travel via Time:
All the time, consistently, logically,
Relentlessly, unavoidably, inexorably...
But, realistically--- Entropy ---
Closes the Past with a slap!
^^ We Only Travel in Time in the Now ^^
Words, thankfully, are Free
To thumb their noses at reality
To toss time-places-people randomly around
To invent a Supreme Fiction for us to See---
To create a timeless Heaven for Eternity.
Disappeared and Never Returned
I will be gone someday
never returning
to walk or play.
Signed my Last Will to say
to whom my possessions are given away.
Coming in
let me nourish
like rain on a garden.
Going out
let me disappear
like geese going south.
I'm too old
for any real Destiny
except for Death
creeping up to me, tagging my shoulder:
"Your It!"
More Poetry and Creative Work
From the Concluding Years: 2023 - 2026
Bundled Up, Volume 7
Quintains, Delight, Strangeness, Things, Beauty
Quintain Poems 3,500 - 4,000
Bundled Up, Volume 8
Experimental, Surreal, Conceptual, Text-Art
All types of Poetry 4,000 - 4,500
The Tick-Tock Tractatus
Speaking of Time: The Poetic Investigations
25 Steps and Beyond: Collected Works
Attention, Language and Time:
Selected Poetry: 2016-2026
The Beginning Years: 2016 - 2019
Attention, Language and Time by Mike Garofalo
Poem Title Index: 2016 - 2026
Poem Title Index: 2016 - 2019
Backyard Zendo
Basho's Frog Redux
Category Mistakes Catch Up in Time
Counting the Moons Over La Push
Disappeared and Never Returned
Double Visions
Emerging Through the Green
The End
Every Detail Shined
Five Elements Embracing
Fresh Figs, Rotten Plums
A Gardener's Sutra on Time: Excerpts
Hood Canal In May
Is As Is
Is It?
Lava Mountains
Magazines of Stale Memories
Make It Interesting
Many Words for Rivers
Mountains on Paper
My Ears Hear Celestial Music
Not Walking With a Dog
Red Coals Pulse Like Distant Stars
Replant the Memories
Salmon Moon Magic
Seeing the Trend Towards
Stepping Over Epiphanies
Vampires in the Hoh Forest
Vancouver Hometown Miniatures I
Water Falls Into the Gorge
Wavelengths Away
Weeding Your Way to Kensho
Winter Death
Writing Solo
Poem Title Index: 2019 - 2023
A Buoy Counts the Small Betrayals of the Night
The Day My Religion Started to Die
Halfway Between the Equator and the North Pole
Vancouver Hometown Miniatures II
Poem Title Index: 2023 - 2026
A Bandolier of Manifesto Bullets
Body Surfing at Huntington Beach
Cedars Reflecting the Hood Fjord
Chevron Station at the Edge of Empty
Listening Intently to the String Quartet Concert
Oulipos Coordinates Conceptualized
Slippery Sentences Dematerialized
Tight Timelines for Unwanted Advice
Time Travel to the Outskirts of Words
Vancouver Hometown Miniatures III
Subject Indexes to Poems
Attention, Language and Time by Mike Garofalo
Attention, Awareness, Sensations
A Bandolier of Manifesto Bullets
Listening Intently to the String Quartet Concert
Vancouver Hometown Miniatures II
Time, Duration, Being
Disappeared and Never Returned
A Gardener's Sutra on Time: Excerpts
Time Travel to the Outskirts of Words
Vancouver Hometown Miniatures III
Post-Modern, Conceptual, LANGUAGE
A Bandolier of Manifesto Bullets
Category Mistakes Catch Up in Time
Cedars Reflecting the Hood Fjord
Oulipos Coordinates Conceptualized
Slippery Sentences Dematerialized
Outdoors, Travel, Nature
A Buoy Counts the Small Betrayals of the Night
Counting the Moons Over La Push
Edges of the West: Highway 101
A Gift of Dried Garlic Flowers
Red Coals Pulse Like Distant Stars
Zen-Taoist-Druid-AmerInd-Mystic Influenced
Counting the Moons Over La Push
The Raven Broke Open the Magical Clam
tas axu? qwaxwqx ? astaw s? axu tas?
Personals, Persons, Psychology
The Day My Religion Started to Die
Listening Intently to the String Quartet Concert
Tight Timelines for Unwanted Advice
Vancouver Hometown Miniatures I
Vancouver Hometown Miniatures II
Vancouver Hometown Miniatures III
Home life, Suburban, Rural, Northwest
A Gardener's Sutra on Time: Excerpts
Halfway Between the Equator and the North Pole
Listening Intently to the String Quartet Concert
Vancouver Hometown Miniatures I
Vancouver Hometown Miniatures II
Vancouver Hometown Miniatures III
Surreal, Dada, Beat, Oulipos, Fantastic
Cedars Reflecting the Hood Fjord
Listening Intently to the String Quartet Concert
Oulipos Coordinates Conceptualized
Humor, Jokes, Quips
Facts, Information, Science, Technology
Category Mistakes Catch Up in Time
Halfway Between the Equator and the North Pole
Vancouver Hometown Miniatures II
The Wreck Ahead Comes Into View: A Jeremiad
Endings, Conclusions, Transitions, Death
Disappeared and Never Returned
More Poetry and Creative Work
Resource Link Lists
Productions from the Early Years: 2016-2019
Productions from the Middle Years: 2019 - 2023
Productions from the Recent Years: 2023-2026
Reading List: Post-Modern Poetry
Audio-Recordings
Free Audio-Recordings of Readings:
Mike Garofalo reading his poetry from
Attention, Language, and Time.
To be Finished by December 25, 2026.
Red Coals Pulse Like Distant Stars
Body Surfing at Huntington Beach
Chevron Station at the Edge of Empty
Vancouver Hometown Miniatures I
Vancouver Hometown Miniatures III
Concrete Poetry and Text-Art
The Power of Three Concrete Poem
Texts-PreSS Couve Pubs Text-Art
Ugh! Concrete Poem
{{{ the onion garden by mpgarofalo }}}
Texts PreSS Couve Publications
Free Online Poetry and Studies
By Mike Garofalo
Vancouver, Washington
Text PreSS Couve Email
Michael Peter Garofalo (1946-) grew up in East Los Angeles,
raised well by my parents June and Big Mike, was educated
in Catholic Schools, lived with two other brothers, graduated
(B.A., M.S.) from local universities.
Married Blanche Karen Eubanks, served in the US Air Force,
worked in and managed many City and Los Angeles County
Public Libraries, raised two children, socialized, traveled,
and learned. Retired as the Regional Administrator, East
Region, Los Angeles County Public Library in 1998.
We moved to a rural 5 acre property in Red Bluff, in the
North Sacramento Valley, CA. Webmaster since 1998.
Worked part-time for the Corning School District
(Technology and Media Services Manager, District
Librarian, Grant Writer, Webmaster); and as Yoga,
Taijiquan, and fitness club instructor until 2016.
Traveled extensively in Northern California, Oregon,
and Washington.
We both retired, and we moved to Vancouver, WA,
in 2017. Currently in 2026-2027: reading,
writing, gardening, harmonica playing, home
chores, yurt camping trips, exercise, traveling
in the Northwest, web publishing, family events,
poetry research, photography, Northwest research,
Nature mysticism,
Buddhist and Taoist literature,
reading Spanish,
Tai Chi Chuan, walking,
Existential-Environmental philosophy,
sports events, etc.
I am influenced by, but not severely restricted
by, the above cited ars poetica objectives.
Amateur poets like me need to focus my
autodidact poetry studies on reading.
I need examples and options for expanding
and improving my poetic range and
my practical and productive writing efforts.
I wrote effective business prose during my 50
years of employment as a librarian. I've read
poetry all my life, but only since 2021 have
I been a serious
poetry
researcher and theorist.
I
specialized in writing aphoristic
one-line quips,
indie webpage production, and
three line
Haiku and Senryu from 1998-2016. I began
studying Quintains in 2019.
Many many thnks to my wife, Karen!
{{{ Texts-PreSS Couve Pubs graphic by mpgarofalo }}}
25 Steps and Beyond: Collected Works
Texts-PreSS Couve Publications, Vancouver, Washington State
Backup .PDF on 9/27/2026 Version 32.
Spanish Version from Google Translator.
I really appreciate positive feedback,
reviews, kudos, and encouragement
about the value
of
my free webpages.
Send your comments to:
Text Press Email
This document was last edited, revised,
reformatted, added to, relinked,
changed, improved, or modified
by Michael Peter Garofalo [mpgarofalo]
on October 15, 2026. Ver. 36.