See Monsters?

I saw a hairy monster
in the empty lot behind my house.
Among the bushes and trees and fallen logs
the creature moved slowly,
disappearing into evening shadows.
The overgrown empty lot
takes up only a city block.
Just bushes and trees and fallen logs.
Hardly an ecosystem.
Hardly a niche where a sasquatch might live.
But I saw this hairy monster,
tall, bent, man-like,
slouching through evening shadows.
The next day, in sunlight,
I walked through the empty lot.
I saw footprints in some soft dirt.
The big footprints led nowhere.

Impossible Kisses: The Empty Lot Behind My House

Footprints to nowhere in an empty lot
left by a creature something like a man
living somewhere no such creature could live
doing things nobody can understand
turn into monster stories, things like myths.

Sea monsters—see monsters?—like little fish
in an aquarium that’s exactly
like an aquarium that has real fish
turn into monster stories, too, like myths
people use for purposes of their own.

Everything’s happening in empty lots
and parking lots, and acoustic guitars
these days come with electronics built-in
that capture string sounds and string vibrations
before they both fade away to nothing.

String sounds and string vibrations are the same
but pickups get the story from magnets
and mics get the story from moving air
and something like a man can leave footprints
and something like a fish can swim away.

Everything’s happening in empty lots
and parking lots, and I’m still here writing,
writing about impossible kisses
and everything I write is electric
except the words—they’re something like a dream.

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .




Yamaha’s Studio Response Technology



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Wild Dogs As Acoustic Holdouts (Redux)


Everything’s Happening In Parking Lots



Goldfish And Sea Monsters #1 of 3


Goldfish And Sea Monsters #2 of 3


Goldfish And Sea Monsters #3 of 3