Wednesday, October 9, 2024

DERRING-DO

If you're 
reading this, 
you're falling 

swiftly 
through midair;

each word is
a cloud 

which first sounds 
like a mattress

til you blow 
right through it 
without slowing down.

But the good 
news is

there's a turn
at the end 

which is rushing up
to center itself
under your fall—

not with 
the pillow
of relevant info, 

but the small 
silk-soft 
pleasure 

of knowing 
in an instant 

that a poem
can support you
after all. 


Tuesday, October 8, 2024

SIMULATION THEORY DEBUNKED

The thing 
about our blandness 

is: it's bafflingly 
excessive. 

Like fictive hoards 
and digital legions 

of viruses, ghosts, 
angels, demons,

we admit 
to the possession 
of indistinct features—

but still
ten billion of us 

feel so mournful 
and desperate 
at this realization 

that in no sense 
could we ever be 
meaningfully convinced 

that we're 
figments—

or ciphers 
whose curves dance 
on pages—or bits 

of some childish-
ly alien intellect

which transmit 
their zettabytes 
of light-

hot confusion, but 
don't really exist.


Monday, October 7, 2024

TESTIMONY

As if turning on 
and off 
and on again 

was a baptism 
or holy communion, 
I saw

the city lights hesitate, 
hold back, 
deliberate 

and melt 
into the twilight, 

lending gravity 
to all space, 

frivolity 
to time. 

*

Alas, no description
is so well-formed

that it doesn't come 
with tight

little sparks 
between words—

electron gaps 
that cannot be constricted

but which cause one 
to wonder,

as one's default image 
of sky is recovered 

what on Earth 
happened there? 

And by what light 
was it depicted? 

Friday, October 4, 2024

THE COMEDOWN

For just a few 
seconds on a 
long enough drive, 

the sky is 
purple blue—

the clouds, 
a still plateau 

of dark but 
luminous folds—

not unlike 
the view

of a rose 
from the inside 

a day or two past 
the thrill
of full bloom.


Thursday, October 3, 2024

LET'S PRETEND

When you were young, 
did you ever 
make-believe 

you were a loving mother? 
Was a wonderful 
mother ever 

not the perfect cover
for the God 
whom you adored 

but whose name 
must not be mentioned?
Back then, 

did you wonder 
how a few scraps 
of bread 

and a muttered amen 
could stand in 
for your redemption? 

What about now? 
Is a tender parent still 
a punitive savior?

How does one thing 
come to mean
another? 


Wednesday, October 2, 2024

TAMING THE TONGUE

Do you say 
you prefer 

music 
without words—

placid ponds
without their ripples—

innocent 
and easy 

to guileless 
and simple? 

What if
there is no pond 

on this Earth
which is deep enough

to conceal 
from our trawls 
the worst 

synonym 
for profundity? 

In that case 
(or in any), 
how do you explain 

your refusal 
to engage 

with the roiling pot 
of your least
attentive thoughts 

to your most 
demanding company? 


Tuesday, October 1, 2024

COMPLICATIONS

How is it 
that one sentence 

can both begin 
and end 
in the present?

Equivocally 
speaking, the past 
has been evacuated; 

the future will 
allude us.

There is, in effect, 
nowhere left 
on the page

to aim 
and vent 

our indefinite, 
limitless rage. 

*

We've all heard 
of suffering for fashion, 

but what happens 
when you become 
too attached 

to an impression—
a light mirage 
which is high-functioning,

a mascot 
of the marketing genius 
pulling out all the stops? 

Accommodating 
or not, 
every translucent bubble 

sooner or later 
pops.