THE TRAGIC HERO SOLILOQUIZES

Not infrequently, there are evenings

when every light 

is green 

on the bleary 

return-trip 

from the place I was meant to be—

which is a way I have

of knowing 

that I'm a whole universe,

but I always, 

impossibly, seem to be trapped 

inside another universe. 

SUMMER BREAK

Finally, the sound 

of children

flooding the post-rain park, 

squealing 

at earthworms, eager 

to learn things.

ODE ON THE LACK OF A GRECIAN URN

I don't know 

about quietness, 

but I'm sure

when formlessness 

divorces its brides, 

it never says

goodbye; 

it just whispers

an empty

see you later.

Okay, so

maybe beauty 

isn't truth,

but sometimes, it's 

truth's and my 

mediator.

GHOSTWRITTEN

Instead of composing,

I've been sitting 

in the kitchen, 

listening 

for silence, but hearing 

myself think

that just 

doing nothing 

is a kind of action,

and action 

is a kind

of music.

JOB DESCRIPTION

Is your hobby 

to take 

note of things?—

is that phosphorescent sheen 

of night clouds rimming 

city skies 

greener 

or bluer than the evening 

before? 

If the time it takes 

for the furniture 

to grimace, or 

for every flower 

to earn its

own word—

and each word, 

all the time 

it requires 

to mean—

then, you might qualify 

as our key change, 

as our modulator,

as that flat sixth 

which transmogrifies the mode 

of the day;

redresser 

of all 

status quos, recoverer 

of songbirds—

over 

and over again, 

but always

in some 

new way.

SELF-DEFENSE WEAPONS

We all like 

to think we've 

closed the book 

on such studies, but 

could it be 

that, evolutionarily, 

the "purpose" of these 

tongues was 

not so much 

to speak 

as to 

tunnel themselves

firmly 

into our cheeks

as we 

effortfully cultivated 

a relationship 

with our melancholy 

which allowed us 

as a species 

to never mean 

what we feel,

to feel only

what we know,

and worst (read: most 

advantageous)

of all—to never know 

what that means?

DELIMITED

It's just as I thought: 

this evening's 

dim tide,

mauve-gold and 

unfolding
gradually before me, 

at last reveals 

not bewitched bliss

but tranquility—

to be just one term

of a sprawling 

equation—

to humbly read 
proofs until 

glumly convinced

that absolute 

anything 
does not exist.