THE HISTORY OF AN IDEA

Before you were born, 

there were whispers—

there'll be whispers long 

after you're gone. Unreal things 

have a being all their own. 

But still you cannot yield.

Charioteers and chariots, 

fantastic winged horses, 

the real face of Plato—

are all, perhaps this 

very minute, wheeling fantastic

arcs across heaven.

You'll laugh, you'll sing, 

you'll write poems, 

but you know 

you can never yield 

every last part to this 

gorgeous nonsense. 

Each time you remember 

what doesn't exist 

you dip a little in your flight.

The turbulence

is not emotional. You agree

the horses of the gods are noble.

But until you plunge 

headfirst into the sea,

your disciplined heart

can never yield. 

And that's how you know

you aren't free. 

DOG STARE

When I have based myself, 

hideous and low, 

I have come to believe 

there's no word 

of unlove which she knows 

how to say.

But the thing I fear 

most is the sight 

of those eyes 

which lend me no humanity,

which shine 

not as mirrors, but as

flecks 

of fire shining;

their sheen 

is the brightness 

which clarifies 

without explanation—

the brilliance of 

reflecting nothing.

RENDEZVOUS

After all this time I've been 

waiting for you,

there must be something 

I forgot to do, but 

I cannot remember. 

Now, the birds say 

the season is new; 

finally 

the one long night is melting,

and the light 

has a temperate, 

compassionate weight.

Even on the darkened 

side of the street, that filthy 

clot of ice 

is dissipating—but I hate to see 

how it leaves 

in its wake 

a lot of debris 

from the previous December.

WHEN THE CITY IS CALM

When the city is calm, 

so is the truth.

And when the truth 

is apple-faced, 

snowsuited 

toddlers in the park,

crocus tips 

poked through dark frost-

stubbled mud, 

gutters thick with meltwater 

glinting in the sun—

the meaning 

is that word 

whose pronunciation is begun

in the act of observation

and ends in the

eyeless mind's access 

to perfection—dying winter 

on the page, as it is 

on the planet. This truth 

is the nature 

of composure itself: 

the situation plain, as it 

has to be.

PYRRHIC

Come 

March 1, 

among the weathered brown 

branch crooks 

caper browner-

still sparrows—

all beady black 

sun-eyed,

gum-

feathered, 

and spit-

firing 

their short hard sharp strong

tense lop-

sided 

victory songs.

SPOILS

Consider 

the grimness 

of the situation—

no word ever

wants 

to be written. 

Every hellish 

minute at your 

computer 

is a clammy net 

thrust into 

roiling waters,

each sentence, 

a pitiful 

pittance of wealth—

a haul of 

foul scraps, and two 

wriggling fish 

who'd much sooner 

take their grim 

chance in the depths 

than suffocate here

in the name of 

a hunger 

you just could 

no longer 

keep to yourself. 

HOLDING BACK

Wise men say: 

only fools—and so on 

and so forth. 

Wise men also say:

time only flows where the 

entropy grows. 

But the hardest part 

of holding back

is knowing 

we cannot speak away 

that numbness 

which disobeys the lungs.

*

Prove you were here, 

they say. 

Sign your full name 

to this statement.

And date it.

*

All the words come 

with such blinding halos 

we cannot make out

the context in the background.

But where talking  

cannot solve the problem

who are we, 

the blind, to insist

that listening 

should perform that trick?