IGNORANCE

To put the matter 

delicately, 

this world we inhabit 

is an out of work actor

that can itself 

no longer afford 

the price of the bliss

in which it has been living.

We are guilt-

stricken tenants 

who insist

we've tried everything—

talking in circles 

darting our eyes—

still this terrible 

hunger persists.

When the churches 

were still open, 

they used to tell us

we're being tested; 

now it's as if 

we're being bitten 

and tasted—eaten alive

from the inside.

MISCONCEPTION

Somehow, the flames 

when viewed 

on a screen

look even 

more listless, but 

even more reliable;

they seem both 

frenetic 

and discretionary 

at the same time. 

It's as if 

we're remembering

that suffering 

wasn't invented; 

it had to be invited.

We might well 

have been thinking—

If only our bodies 

were as plastic as fire! 

if only our minds

were that pliable.

MEMORY BOX

To think—I am now sitting 

thoughtless

in the same kitchen 

in which I 

will have been standing 

then 

after I have deciphered 

my very next words.

*

These strange loops 

and chickenscratch x's 

may take on a prescient significance 

as imperceptibly 

as a snail 

secreting its shell. 

*

After the frame 

is in place, 

it's so difficult 

to remember 

It hasn't always been like this.

How do we expect to compete 

with the nostalgic stillframed past? 

Looking back, 

even every failure and deficiency 

was just so easy,

so precious,

so perfect.

DOING EXISTENTIALISM

It's hard to resist.

Watching the news 

makes us go stiff—

makes us feel serious 

in the way 

stark poems 

or a Bartók quartet

used to.

Serious—

but not sober, 

like a sublime encounter 

with the terrifying existential 

power of the ocean;

the post hoc rationalization 

that nothing 

is personal, 

nothing is 

goal-directed,

nothing

is shocking

shocks us—

shocks us just 

hard enough 

to get off.

EQUIVOCATION

Are we not

appeased

by the flutters of melody

coming from the 

parks and gardens—

by those peeling-

open faces 

of the peonies, 

the savvy darts of spiderwort

foxglove, lily of the valley, 

by the broad flat open 

palms of red hibiscus 

rippling in the spree 

of late May light 

and breeze—

are we not so
completely relieved

and reassured 

by all of these

that we've 

utterly forgotten 

why it is we need

such a repeated
and urgent

reassurance?

THE WORK IS STRANGER

I used to think, 

along with most: we were simply 

playing our roles.

We were dynamic characters 

surviving hardships 

and changing for the better.

Lately I have come to suspect 

the work is stranger 

and less glamorous than that—

we are living in the time 

after the movie has ended; 

that moment 

when, up through the field 

of uniform black,

the credits come scrolling.

Suddenly, we are not sure 

which one of these strange collections 

of symbols we were,

and the audience all have different ideas   

concerning when it's appropriate 

to get up and go.

FEELS

If I'm being honest 

it feels like 

the end game 

has already passed us

but time is still 

of the essence. 

It feels like 

I've never been more 

self absorbed 

or less attentive.

Like, if I'm not 

at least trying

to control 

my own thoughts

I will probably be seen

as more than a little 

gauche—so 

in lieu of meditation

I've been practicing 

my penmanship 

in reverse: 

first I write lost

followed by is 

and then all. 

* 

Later on

I take a picture 

where I'm standing outside 

listening to traffic 

and feeling conspicuous—

it sounds less 

like applause 

than I had expected 

and more like 

the murmuring 

of an internet church—

how many followers do you have?