New Track Record

The Dow
The Nasdaq
and a man from Secaucus

with a tip on the second
at Santa Anita.

The gelding, Litigious
stands twelve hands high

with a jockey whose interests
are fully vested.

It’s just the right time
to invest in a lawsuit.

If I were a betting man—

but I’m not.

His tip seems attached
to such a long shaft.

They also serve who only stand and wait.
                                                                   —Milton

And you’ve been standing for damned near ever.

Standing by the way while others pull the strings,

Standing in the rain, unsure to stay out or come in,

Standing by the sideline as the world is subjected
To another football metaphor.

The meek may inherit the earth but remember,
The earth was never meant to be The Kingdom.

All that’s necessary is for good men to do nothing.

So stand and wait, my good man,

Stand and wait.

The Endless Pursuit

With the last of the purple skylight
come certain private conversations

birds fall silent in the gloaming
like a flute fading away
at this life-or-death moment.

This is no whispered romance
but excess baggage:

the promise of a card from Budapest
left over from the panicked days

a fifty franc note
the only residual good will.

You’d offered yourself—
the first buckling bloom in spring snow

only to be blown across the yard
like last year’s leaves
bagged and dragged to the curb.

But ice eventually recedes
just as your blossom continues to unfold.

The man with the jumping frogs
will tell you
any standing water
will eventually bubble with tadpoles

and a wise Spanish seductress
should continue to do her thing.

David Blaine, the writer not the magician, lives and works with his family in rural Michigan. David has had poetry, fiction, essays, reviews and interviews published widely online and in print. His last book of poems, Antisocial, was published in 2009 by Outsider Writers Press. David is presently the cigar editor at The Smoking Poet and a frequent contributor to the Outsider Writers’ blog.