PRETTY BIG LEAP

The trick is 

to run

and jump off the cliff—

not at the end
of careful deliberation—
but to start with.

It’s cold air’s bracing lack
of any guarantees 

mixed with the bright light

of improvised deeds 

which grows wings—

while they’re stunted
and suppressed by pre-
determination’s flop sweat
and the perpetual shade
of the well-
played victim.

And let's not 

forget: even when you’re
airborne, any 

post hoc rationale

or vindication
clips them.

HOW TO CONDUCT YOURSELF

Don't ponder. Often,

there is one way

to get through a thing.

Even
the electrons—ficklest 

changelings in creation,

born of (and

ever since, borne

along hither 

by) energy’s most ecstatic 

and spontaneous 

eruption—

will retire their 

erratic ping- 

ponging and laughter

to flow 

in soundless single file

down the insulated wire.

ONE IN A BILLION

     —after W.S. Merwin


On the last day of the world,

I would not want to know it.

Because maybe not realizing
how lucky you've been

is what burnishes one stupid 

little pebble on the beach—that is: 

only walking over your life 

day after day without bending down

to put it in your pocket
allows you to own it.

CONTINGENCIES

Ridiculous
how practical a surfeit 

of color is—

how fall’s glamour 

will strategically go

tripping on its own largess—

how a blanket

of gold leaves super-

sedes its inconvenience

and tends to do much 

more than beguile 

or interrupt us; 

it also 

just so happens

to shrewdly obstruct

our view of a future

wherein 

frivolous gluts

might no longer 

clog our minds’

gutters, trapping memory

and insulating

whatever loud

homunculi reside there

from the functional

knowledge and

intractable glory

of their own 

untimely deaths.

PROMETHEUS REWOUND

O, sucks 

to life’s vicious, quick,

steel-trap one-wayness! No,

I’m being
serious, though: how much

I would give

to be able 

to de-regret this

or cotton-off to that—

to take my self 

kindly by the sleeve

and lead him back 

past temptation to the 

crib—heck, or even 

to the womb again—

or at least, with the deft 

expertise

of a mother

wiping the spittle
from her
dribbling child’s chin, 

relax the world’s 

hinges from his neck 

to pre-impinge it

and release the stopped 

oxygen 

back into his brain 

to regain some sense 

of consciousness—then 

slowly un-remind him.

IN PRAISE OF HESITATION

          In modern wit, all printed trash is
          set off with numerous breaks and dashes.

               -Jonathan Swift, On Poetry: A Rhapsody


With all apologies
to Swift, here in post-
modern wit,

nothing’s rushed
to print that wasn’t
trash already—

besides which,
to equivocate
a bit in one’s thought—

or pause for a small 

pensive breath 

now and then—or

slam the brakes 

to swerve in an
orthogonal direction—

these 

are the best real-life 

CAPTCHAs we’ve got

to suggest—if not
prove—to the bots
that we’re human.

In addition: great
feeling takes
time, doesn’t it—

lest rhyme
should crash into
prim inane rhyme,

or rhythm get
tripped up by its 
gallivanting tongue?

I—for one—am siding
with Dickinson
on this one:

when I choose to
enjamb you with a
battery of dashes,

I am not
haphazardly
losing the plot,

springing some
contrivance, or even
just stalling—I am

half-drawing
drama's fresh 

stilettos from my cache—

and half-calling 

“time-out” and
lowering the sunglasses

to meet your eyes 

with mine—and assure you

I'm alive. 

DIET OF WORMS

Near November 

in the playground, now

surrendered to its rust,

grim crows
are the only 

ones dining out

on the wriggling
results of a low-
pressure front—

harbingers
somehow, of both
the status quo

and its heretofore 

heretical opposite: 

the tough reforms to come.