VENTURE

In the gingerly cooled

and stiffening air, 

it has become so clear—

the bronzed sweetgum leaves

gently streaming 

from their slender trees, 

mellow and lonesome 

as the strain of a distant 

solo violin,

have wended down here 

just to rehearse with us—

in a generous preview 

both of loss and 

of unsought accumulation—

the spareness 

and the mortal grandeur 

of winter's quietly 

coming dream.

WRONG SPEECH

You say 

words cannot wound—

this is part 

of your business model.

You insist that they last 

only in as much 

as the moment endures 

in a photo.

And it's true,

one by one, the odd syllables 

are spoken, 

with only the most current note 

striking in our ears.

And yet, somehow the last 

does not quite vanish (as it should) 

to make way for the new;

each becomes a stitch 

in a funereal suit 

you are sewing, 

a gaudy swoosh 

in the corporate logo 

which now threatens 

to outlive you.

THE SLIGHTEST

Remember, dear passenger—

it's never the huge gusts 

that maneuver our vessels 

ever closer to their shores;

it's wasn't those monstrous 

atomic blasts, 

or the exhalation of gargantuan 

authoritarian breaths 

that smashed and fused vast 

tectonic plates together, 

or ruffled-up the sea foam

of all seven oceans, 

or ripped to shreds 

every flag on the planet. 

Rather, it has always been 

the humblest puff 

of patient explanation  

that got us where we were going;

the kind words, delicate whispers 

and quiet, inconsolable sighs 

which have cracked granite mountains, 

stirred hurricane-winds into action,

and caused cumbrous hearts 

to fail—or else, rise to such occasions 

as would seem to the common chests 

which dared to contain them 

as far too enormous, 

too convoluted, too labyrinthine 

to have been the plain, inevitable results 

of such tiny perturbations.  

VOYAGER

Spider on the ceiling, 

encroaching 

on my brooding—

I have decided

I will let you live 

since you remind me, I too 

possess the ability 

to stay silent 

and remain calm 

in this upside-

down world,

which has taken it for granted 

that some would be willing

to risk everything.

SEPTEMBER CHORALE

The triplet caw
of a crow,
conducting from somewhere
in the gaunt September shadows,

keeps ruthless time
as our daily routine marches
into the ragged and
dwindling scenery.

We are not afraid
to take part in making
this wraithlike elegiac music.
We had rehearsed this;

cessation was expected—
the swelling 

of the vines foretold,
the acrid smoke of bonfires

as the cool dusks clamped down
harder and faster,
with the thud of a grand
piano lid.

THE COMPRESSOR

After spending the morning 

dawdling in the kitchen, 

you cannot help but 

come to resent 

the frequent engagement 

of the fridge's compressor...

How many of these things 

are running in the world, you wonder 

and quickly Google the answer—

1.4 billion plugged-in refrigerators;

1.4 billion spinning motors, 

cooling milk, meat, raspberries, cucumbers...

savagely burning 300 million year-old coal... 

perhaps to preserve the priceless medicines

which save the lives of countless strangers.

How is it, then, 

that you could still think 

one off-day, or one idle hour— 

one unclean utterance, 

or even a single undisciplined breath—

doesn't matter?

MY SHADOW

I am not bragging, 

but the self-thrashing 

exercise 

which I still find 

the easiest 

is

staggering west 

beneath sun around 

noon, because 

no one 

around me is 

likely to notice

how huge 

and how ponderous 

the burden of sin 

I've always been 

dragging behind me

has grown since 

the last time I 

managed to 

run across my own grinning 

skinny black 

corpse in the 

road—but ignore him.

MANIC MANEUVERS

I woke this morning groggy 

but surprised at having, 

sometime in the night, opened up 

an old cut on my pinky. 

Small dribbles of dried blood 

smeared my cheek and pillow case, 

made uncomfortably sticky my sheets and bare 

chest, even my hair and underwear. 

What sort of ungainly 

or manic maneuvers 

had my unsupervised body 

undertaken? I wondered. 

As I began to run the shower, 

I shuddered to think, while I sleep, 

of all the unpopular places 

my unpoliced, renegade 

fingers must travel—

all the old faces, the awkward, 

sentimental, silent embraces 

these foolish hands must 

dare to reach out for, 

which, upon waking, 

I'm certain they'd never 

wish to be caught dead holding.

SPECTRA

Greedy for pastimes

and clicking through all of the options online,

I'm wondering—where do I fit

on this spectrum?

We like tell ourselves life is long. 

But really, desire is so much longer.

So many days, I have sat quiet and still 

as an idling car, helplessly watching 

its frightful tail of quaking black boxcars 

thunder through the crossing.

But it's no use wondering 

when I might be free 

to unite with that dream 

in the vanishing distance.

Every morning, I have one motivation,

and by evening, quite another;

and I've never once gone to sleep wishing for 

the same virgin soul with which I wake.

NO OCCASION

All my life, I've made things 

for no occasion, 

without giving a bird or bush 

for their practical use.

Thinking back on it, 

so much abstract ideation 

sounds perverse.

Has any one particular poem, 

one song, one sentence, 

or one verse

ever really improved the world?—

as opposed to 

merely improving 

a few of their perceptions—

say, for instance the color 

or cultural-historical significance 

of the flower 

they were holding 

out to that world in question?

But now, I'm confused;

for it sounds, 

in my recollection, as if

even the most ambiguous 

or off-season of these symbols

has shown 

how there's really no difference 

of substance

between the two.

THIS IS NOT THE LIFE YOU CHOSE

Outside, it is raining. 

It isn't yet evening; 

but to you, the hour feels thick

and inevitable, like evening.

Weren't you going to leave the house?

Groceries. Good bread and soup

aren't just going to show up—

at least, not nearly 

quickly enough—so 

as always, sooner rather than later, 

you will have to choose.

Dryness. 

Satiety. 

Two forms of comfort.

By pining 

over either, already you realize 

you are losing the crux 

of them both.

IN THE END

What if you saw your most 

difficult choices 

packed like pickles in a cloudy jar? 

Slimy, wart-pocked, shriveled by salt-brine, 

they too have not seen the light 

of the sun for a long time. 

See how you almost pity these catastrophes, 

now that they appear weightless 

and harmlessly sour, now 

that they no longer remind you 

of who you are? 

Notice your mouth even start to water a bit

as you consider their time-accrued flavor—

balanced up tight against 

savory meat and sweet carbohydrate,

and no more harmful to you at this point

than a little too much garlic 

on this last summer night.

PERFECTLY AT HOME

Waking up cold 

and alone in the morning

to the rumble of trash trucks

as they belch and clamor 

their way through the 

too-skinny alley,

I keep my eyes closed 

and feel, for a moment, as

perfectly at home 

as a mirror does 

while it's hanging 

in front of no one. 

HIDE

Under sun 

under stars 

under rain 

root vegetables—

fields of them, 

hideous things—

hide 

in the tremulous cool September soil 

like the face 

of a master 

inside his painting 

growing, siphoning, absorbing, 

waiting—

like you have 

and I 

did—as schoolchildren

for the soon-to-come time 

when we might meet 

the sky 

and their hands

unafraid

and finally 

be worth more 

than our weight.

INSIGNIFICANCE

These days, 

I hear a lot of voices, 

all of which sound

a bit like mine, 

saying—hush,

it is not trivial 

to let your hair grow 

just a little while longer, 

to reuse this Ziploc 

a thirtieth time,

to give to the spider 

a push to keep living 

by placing a sheet of notebook paper 

beneath its spiny appendages. 

I am not alarmed 

by the bleak minor key 

of these directions, finding it easier 

and easier to listen; 

The catch is—

there is only one lifetime 

and yet, there is 

so much of its vastness

to excerpt 

and to favor.

FROM AUTUMN

Chalk it up to bitter-

sweetness—how

end-of-the-line, 

for the green things, 

always means 

a flowering.

IMAGINE

Setting aside that song 
of John Lennon's, 
let's imagine (for a second)
there is a heaven—
one hundred and seven 
billion individuals: 
blissful, well fed, 
well met, and well protected; 
no crying at parties or 
sexual tension;
no one undervalued or 
starved for affection;
none struggling 
to thrust spears 
tipped with pressure-
heated viewpoints
against the pallid weak flesh 
of ignorance, nonchalance, 
hate, and discrimination;
no misanthropes striving 
against existential 
doubt or cultural oppression 
to create meaning 
for themselves or inflame 
their generation. Go ahead,
imagine it. I wonder
if you can 
without feeling upon 
your lips and your hands 
the cold kisses 
and limp handshakes—
without seeing and hearing
tasting and smelling
all the beige paintings 
and slow boneless dances, 
the bland food and sad flat 
champagne in glasses, 
all the tuneless
songs they'd be playing, 
and the pages and pages 
of flowerless, moonless,
childless, useless 
poems about amity 
you would get.