ARCANUM

As a loitering kit 

of pigeons 

hears my footfalls 

on the roadway surface 

and explodes, 

so too does my 

head start 

to oscillate and flutter. 

You could say 

they've been trained 

to fear my approach, 

and I, conditioned 

to fear their departure—

but life is no trick 

in a Pavlovian circus; 

its moments chime 

in harmony, not 

on purpose. 

DAYLIGHT SAVING TIME ENDS

All has given in now 

to ponderous shadow—

to slanting, 

to shifting, 

to edges, 

to echo. 

Still, we feel 

we have come too far 

to disappear into 

the hardening air, 

and so we 

console ourselves

that we still feel okay, 

only—

in smaller 

and smaller ways. 

HERDING SCHRÖDINGER’S CATS

No frills with these

new quantum gods;

no sacrifice, no
scapegoat.

And no thrill

to exist 

in two places
at once, because

magic is
as magic does;

all things 

now both

keep the faith
and don’t.

NO EMPERORS

Salved and swaddled 

in the rhinestoned 

robe of words, 

we set off and posed 

from the top 

of life's parade float—

protected, 

we assumed,

from our loitering guilt,

by the glitter of logic 

and self-righteousness

in air quotes.

We explained each small move 

that we made 

as we made it 

as if 

narrative arc 

were a miracle cure 

for the cancer of greed 

turning sense

to Swiss cheese. 

But looking back now 

at the Polaroid 

of memory, 

we can see 

why they laughed as we 

taxied past, waving—

the armor we'd donned 

to oppose 

the old doom 

was lying 

like fiction, not 

clothes, on our skin; 

we looked pale 

and thin—and impossibly 

nude. 

THE WORK

As great stacks 

of starlings ride drafts 

with the speckled 

dust of dead 

suns on their backs 

down to muddy earth 

to needle for worms 

among crumpled 

leaves and 

cigarette packs—

so, feather under feather 

or shingle over shingle, 

do I extend 

those same acts 

to which I'd attended yesterday. 

Life dovetails 

this way—

sprints of elation 

commingle

with creeping death, 

torpor with 

the sun's caress; 

I cannot hurry, 

and I cannot rest. 

ELEMENTS OF STYLE

History may 

be a text block 

of narrative, 

but day-to-day 

life feels more 

like enjambment: 

some snatch 

of it starts out

making sense—

then it doesn't—

then it 

does again, 

looking back. 

*

Destabilization's constancy 

somehow leads 

to satisfaction 

if, and only 

if, it's temporary.

Picture willingly 

submitting to 

the opiate of sleep 

without presuming 

(from experience) 

you'd later 

overthrow its tyranny. 

*

The reader and the writer 

must meet 

in the mirror—

must combine 

to create the totality 

of feeling 

so desperate and dumb 

for the pleasure 

of completion, yet

filling up further

and faster 

with regret 

the closer 

to the end they get.

INSIGNIFICANCE

What is the word 

for when we mean 

to say nothing? 

Curious 

how the winnowing 

of choices 

appalls us 

when it comes, but never 

leaves us furious.

Just as the hub 

of the spinning wheel 

lacks motion, 

at the nexus of all feeling,

where no expectation 

or desire is detected,

perhaps even concepts 

like distinction 

lack a difference;

of course, it's 

a moot point, since 

in the end, it isn't—but 

that last gasp for expression 

could be said 

to be either 

nonexistent 

or unlimited.