LIGHT CONVERSATION

The question 

is always:

does a whole thing 

exist? Or 

is everything made

of pieces? 

Those photons 

(in the billions)

lightly flitting 

against your delicate 

skin right this 

minute, for instance—

are they just

an extension 

of the sun?

Do all the stars 

in the heavens, 

for that matter, 

as buttons 

on the same jacket, 

really deserve 

to be called facets

of the same thing 

which, 

by its own volition, 

of its own 

good graces, 

and ceaselessly 

in its entirety, simply 

reaches? 

LATE JUNE POEM

with a shadow that grows 

like mold

and a shudder that passes 

quick as snakes 

through the dingy buildings 

and tired piles of construction dust 

the sharp cold rain, 

for one stupendous moment

peels sideways through the city streets

and soaks you 

cleanly 

through your shirt―

and after, under clammy hair 

and orange-yellow skies, 

you're surprised 

and delirious to find you're 

alive 

and unhurt.

FLAGELLATE

Somewhere inside, you know 

the ground 

you meander around on

is practically vertical—

but you 

don't really.

Really, you think 

you're on top of things, 

you think 

you can hide, you can run;

you think you're stuck

or sinking. 

But none of these 

circumstances 

makes a lick of sense from 

the superior perspective—

where, 

no matter what you do, 

no matter where you go

or how you live, 

you're an infinitesimally 

tiny protozoan 

faced with the prospect 

of certain grim death—and yet

there you are clinging 

to your crucible's face 

and lashing your flagellum 

with the strength 

of a billion 

neutron stars exploding 

and to the amusing—

perhaps maybe even 

a little inspiring,

but highly illogical—

thought

of surviving.

THE PROBLEM WITH LOGICAL POSITIVISM

Would you be 

surprised to learn 

that every furtive freckle 

held like a secret 

in the innermost petals 

of one particular pink-white lily 

might map exactly 

onto the stars 

of a certain distant constellation 

visible to seafarers 

in the Arctic Ocean each December

and born nine billion years in the past?

Or would you be 

even more impressed 

to know that 

no one has ever inspected each one 

in a wretched attempt 

to rule it out?

AGE OF REASON

It's inevitable, practically 

iron-clad as gravity: 

one day, you 

will speak the truth,

and nobody will listen.

We tend 

to call this kind of 

lawful obsolescence

senility—but really

you're not crazy;

it's just that the words 

you'll be using 

to compose your confession

won't mean anything 

to the creature 

who's guarding you—

let alone to the warden 

of the prison.

STAY SWEET

They say it can only pay

to stay on the sunny side 

and always assume everything's 

going to go your way. 

Why even think about that day 

when your car will not start

because, last night, the rats moved in 

and chewed your engine wires to bits?

In just the same way, 

you've got to keep waking up 

and insisting on using your 

heart to make the key decisions,

always presuming

it hasn't yet rotted—like a June peach 

shrinks around its 

pit—in your sleep.

NO END TO THE ENDLESS

Just when you think 

you can't lose 

any more luck,

when the worseness 

of things 

cannot be increased—

when you're as soaked 

to the bone 

from the oncoming storm 

as you can possibly be—

when you think you've lost count 

of the number of pain receptors, 

multiplied by the versions of you

in alternate universes—

something as simple 

as the distance 

between 0 and 1 

verses 1 and 100 

expressed in integers  

rises 

like another moon 

in your brain

to remind you: 

there's no end 

to the endless;

infinities 

can yet be added 

to infinities.

And even though the realization 

doesn't go 

any deeper, 

you cannot help but 

realize it again 

and again,

as you gawk 

at the endless sky 

and the boundlessness 

of your hopelessness 

increases.

AUTHORITIES

They used to say—

surrender your life 

and your life 

will never end.

Now, we know better 

than to let the feckless 

speak for us. 

We have leapt into being 

like the tip

on a match,

taken back 

the present tense, 

and perished 

the thought of living 

forever.

I don't know how I should 

feel about this yet,

says the militant head 

at the tip of my neck. 

Or—I don't want to go. 

Or—let me say that again.

I trust this oracle's 

intimations are correct

though no part of me as yet

can say how.

ANXIETY IS THE DIZZINESS OF FREEDOM

So what's the matter 

with a will to live 

which is fixated only 

on the very 

next thing?

Would it really be a shock 

to discover 

your heart was a horde 

of butterflies?—

No wonder, 

the way it lusts 

and flutters 

and longs to play

(even though it knows 

for now, it is still 

on the clock).

I have always 

had a hunch 

that my mind 

is lopsided—but

in that primly aesthetic way,

like the limbs of a tree, 

which are perfect for climbing—

and that my attention, 

when gone astray, 

is thrilled

to be so out-to-lunch,

counting the trills 

of leaves in its branches, 

getting up to 1,

losing track—and then

starting over.

STATUTORY

At this juncture, 

the thing in itself—

without smell, taste, or color 

may be genuine, 

but it 

just seems improper. 

It's like reality 

is that despicable defendant 

who says, maybe 

our particles 

were asking for it:

the way they gave up

their positions 

and velocities 

so easily!

*

We can't go on like this, 

seeking clues to the case

on brand-name tags, 

reading metaphors

like fact-checked newspapers,

with our collective sense 

of wonder so 

plainly exhausted.

We give up! 

Dear doctor, dear expert,

just tell us, already—

what is the spin 

of the electron 

responsible for this tantrum?

Who's odorless, tasteless, colorless physics 

are at the center 

of this intractable catastrophe?

NEW JOB

With little else to do 

I still choose to look 

around the city 

at condos, cars, 

concrete, 

wires—all repeating.

If all of this is a construct,

that's not so bad; 

at worst 

it's replaceable, 

and at best it's all mine. 

The responsibility 

is that of a 

solitary oyster, but the reward 

is that of a pearl.

Each word I form

is its own moment, 

poised at a starting line—

I touch my mind 

to the earth and originate 

the world;

then, I move my body 

through the space, and it organizes

time.

IMAGINARY

O, how we all like to talk 

in low voices

in front of large paintings—

or gawk at mountains 

burnished with sunlight

and exclaim 

we've been struck

by the elegance—

but this cannot be right.

For true beauty 

would not ever 

put words in our mouths 

or smiles on our faces;

It could not look

so familiar.

When it appears, 

it must appear

for the very first time;

it is not a construct 

bridgeable by simile. 

Neither could it be recognized,

for it is not returning here.

Beauty is as stardust—

it belongs only 

where it has come from—

never our midst, 

always somewhere else.

MEMORY IS A SKILL

Perhaps the sparrows

sitting up on the sagging 

wires above us

are neither praising 

nor blaming the day; 

maybe they 

keep making noises 

which are incomprehensible to us

because 

we keep expecting 

criticism.

*

For me, it's fun to talk 

about the weather 

with a neighbor

the way it's fun to play a game 

of Simon:

every contestant 

down here 

is in a fierce competition  

to put abstractions 

such as 2 and 2 

together—

just like every 

brutalized animal's 

pleasure center 

is still a sucker 

for a little pattern 

recognition.

PASTORAL

With humidity 

on the decline, 

perfectly occasional 

cumulus clouds linger 

like doubts 

in the purest blue skies 

of a PG movie afternoon.

Not so far away, 

from fire and rage 

and fierce needles of rain

every man-made angle on the street is 

kissed and gleaming;

even the oncoming faces 

seem as if 

they have only just now appeared—

yet still, they look so familiar 

I'm afraid

I must be dreaming.

SELF-TALK

There are mornings 

when that wild flutter 

of breeze 

which ruins the most delicate flowers 

defines for me 

the whole situation—

I shudder to think 

of my humblest requests 

being rejected, 

of such beauty hinging 

on such finitude.

I want to say 

to the bluster—

do your worst 

and 

I'm no prude—

but I too have these lapses 

where I talk a streak, 

black-and-blue, 

but I'm not sure 

what I'm asking.

It's like I become my own 

colonial power 

and my body

no longer understands—

let alone

respects 

the mother tongue. 

CATCH 22

The teacher who said—

never begin 

a poem with 

"I remember"—

must have been 

exaggerating;

since now, all you can recall,

having ran 

rings around the world

and understood nothing 

as profoundly as ever, 

is waiting 

for the day's shadows to come

and completely cover 

your losses.

You were desperate 

to record

the exact syncopations 

of bricks and flowers, 

sidewalks and foliage, 

rising and falling,

almost like a language

in which someone had been

trying to pronounce your name correctly. 

In that moment, 

you only lived 

and breathed to preserve, 

so that another 

might understand in the future, 

how, just before 

the evening storm,  

those incessant bird calls 

sounded 

all the sweeter 

for having nothing whatever 

to do with you

or your urges.

PROCESSION

Life, the particle 

physicist says, 

is really just a process.

For the novelist, 

it's more like a faulty premise 

that goes on 

for as long 

as it can sustain 

an audience.

But both parties 

will insist, 

for a process to be real 

it has got to be 

witnessed. 

*

The truth is 

we don't want any so-called 

god-particles to exist; 

we don't want people 

to be made of pieces.

It's easier to posit 

god-forces 

and believe only 

in the invisible absoluteness 

of uncorrupted action.

Generally, I agree with this. 

Most days, 

I feel a lot less like Jesus

and a lot more 

like the force 

of Inertia itself—

so determined, 

no matter what 

I'm processing

(or not),

not to be interrupted. 

WORDS WITHOUT DEEDS

When what you took for angels 

were really made of pixels, 

it is probably time 

to wipe the drive and start over. 

When immediacy  

has been recruited, 

the present moment 

must be in retrograde.

Now, the shining algorithms blaze forth 

with a light that can never be extinguished,

curating all the white 

space that remains.

Was that last swipe an unconscious choice? 

or merely one of desperation?

because there no longer is any 

in-between. 

"Behind-the-scenes"

now describes a way of feeling.

Everything feels deliberate, 

even when it isn't.

Everything, even the present

document included, 

once came from the same 

fatherless nothing.

TOWERS OF BABEL

Now, the last chapter 

has finally come; 

last chance to grab an arm 

and dance 

to the last song 

before the DJ

hauls the milk crates 

back to his van. 

Standing silently 

off to one side

and feeling  

self-conscious is

no longer a plan.

*

Every gesture has been inverted; 

all forms of inertia 

are now being called-out 

as bullshit 

or subversive 

or complicit 

or performative.

Turns out, collusion, 

not creation

has invented this world;

even the Prime Mover 

has been caught 

on that space telescope camera 

with his hands in his pockets 

and designs 

on some girl.

*

And to think—

all humanity 

once 

spoke the same language

and

was punished 

for its insolence.

UNDESERVED

In lieu of flowers,

it might be 

gracious enough 

to consider how

right now, 

pure light 

from the end of the universe—

weightless waves

from nowhere—

are on their way 

here 

through the nothing 

that's there.

And yet, 

you and I can 

still get distracted 

by the words

like ads 

for what we don't have;

we will quibble 

about the shape of space 

like the fit of a new shirt 

and refuse to die 

without having first 

equivocated  

about the pedigree 

and color

of the nectar 

that's refracted.

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.