Thursday, May 28, 2020

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.