Friday, January 29, 2021

DEVELOPMENTS

A middle-
distance image 

of Earth 
from the Hubble

is now 
the stock background 

on your 
third-best computer.

*

The speaker 
is a device 

(formerly employed
by the speaker) 

now used 
to pass guilt 

through a faultless
bath of chemicals.

*

Just keep 
putting words down, 

one 
after another.

If you're wondering 
whether you'll 

finish 
before you leave here—

don't worry; 
you could never.

If you're 
wondering whether

you'll leave here 
on schedule—

you couldn't 
not do that; 

so far,
it's impossible.



Thursday, January 28, 2021

IDENTITY THEORY

The judges,
rimmed around the outer 
reaches 

of Whatness,
all agree: 

unanswerable questions 
related to How

will receive 

no additional points 
for originality. 

*

Fortunately, 
the way congruity works 
has been 

grossly 
overdetermined—

a blind selfish 
gene 

and an all-seeing 
eye 

will eventually 
combine forces;

the unaccounted-
for moment 

nevertheless arrives 

when "there"
and "here" 

drive distracted—
and collide.


Wednesday, January 27, 2021

LIVING THROUGH

When we're not 
teaching children 
"birds of a feather," 

it's because we're busy
watching television—

or whichever 
events currently 
aggregate as such.

You won't want 
to miss a second

of the 
currently trending
"When Opposites Attack."

*

Listen up. Listen in.

A critical-
mass viral 
load of new pronouns 

can 
in rare instances
be followed 

by the uproarious 
and involuntary 
expectoration of verbs. 

Might as well 
try 

to keep the sun 
from rising 

as dare to dam 
up the loud 

laugh of semantic 
drift.

*

It is difficult, 
but not 

impossible to imagine

never having 
to live

through any of this
again.


Tuesday, January 26, 2021

TRICK

Listen. 
You may think 
that the poet—

stuck as he is 
with the rest of us 

in the dark rough 
and curtain-thick folds 
of this rhetoric—

is about 
to make 
his excellent point;

but did you notice
how this sentence—

now scored
with myriad nearly
invisible rips, 

now asway 
with its slow-mounting 
stacks of peaked apexes—

has gradually 
begun to slip, 

like brass handcuffs 
off the slick 

and duplicitously 
bent-back 

wrists of 
the magician?




Monday, January 25, 2021

VULGAR TONGUE

How is it
the faint insinuation  

of resemblance 
is seductive,

but 
the brute fact of sameness—

two self-
similar peas 

trapped in the 
dark of their

literal pod—smells 
to our noses 

more than a little rotten?

*

Do you find these 
kinky similarities 

of language 
troubling

or attractive?—

or have you been sucked 
into the paperback-unstable 

romance 
between them both? 

*

Perhaps rhyme 
is a cup of sugar 

one word 
lends another.

Perhaps it is right 
to attribute 

meaning 
to pattern—

or perhaps 
it's merely pretty

common.


Saturday, January 23, 2021

CONVENTION

Some who have 
come to this 
convention may insist 

on its elegance, but 
others say 
the universe 

is a pretty dismal
place—the lack of its 
oases, not to mention 

vending machines
is distinct,
there's no way to tell 

which of its poorly maintained 
territories you're 
idling through,

no way to reserve 
your place in line
or avoid all the signs stating

"closed for improvements,"
no views from the middle,
no WiFi signal,

all that debris 
where the
exits should be, 

all the waiting,
all the lost travel days, all 
the wasted space.


Friday, January 22, 2021

NOT

If matter 
consists 
of atoms, 

and atoms are built 
from a nest 
of six quarks 

arrayed 
in all possible 
locations in space,

and space 
is made of infini-
tesimal points—

each point, 
a need 
which has been blocked

(that is, neatly pinned-
in on all sides) 
by a lack;

why, then 
all the plaudits? 
It makes a lot of sense

for us 
to persist—does it 
not?


Thursday, January 21, 2021

TAKING ADVANTAGE

The way it works is 
Winter
now gets sold 

in a two-pack, 
along with 
Xmas—

to keep the 
consumers 
from realizing 

they've been 
sentenced again to its 
prison.

*

And the reason is—
we're so apt
to confuse 

the sensation 
of warmth 
with the sentiment.

The sun 
dawns small 

over snow-
coated fields,

and we'll still say—it
"came back."



Wednesday, January 20, 2021

EUREKA

Watching 
bombs fall 
over 

internet connections, 
we turn 

to computers 
and post "nothing at all 
is shocking." 

Yet the fact 
that we are able 

to understand
one another

but still sound 
like ourselves 

comes as no 
small wonder.

*

Which is harder? 
To spot 
the cliché

or explain 
away the jargon? 

They used to say 
a stitch in time—

like a spine—
goes unnoticed 

til the moment 
you pull one.

But eminent Psychologists 
of today 
have suggested 

that old shout 
of Archimedes'

was leveled 
in agony—not 
in epiphany. 

*

Hey there, mister moon. 
How soon is 

too soon, I wonder

to have ended 
up where you'd begun? 



Tuesday, January 19, 2021

TINY ROOMS

Am I merely being 
sarcastic 

when I say I'm self-
critical? 

Never mind. 
Let's all play Twitter 

or 
Emily Dickinson?

It's harder 
than it looks 

to cling 
to spontaneity

to remain caustic 
in gray-scale

and every minute
to beget a little stanza

about how 
money language 

memory love 
family—

even grim death—
can each

fail us 
so thrillingly.




Monday, January 18, 2021

BLACKISH

Put down 
the words

and back 
away slowly.

Whence 
this manic greed 
for assertion?

*

Outside, 
blackish sparrows—

fluttering twig 
to twig in the 
bald lilac bushes

and twittering 
keep keep keep keep

threading their cold-
needled holes 
in-between 

last night's dream
and the 

insignificance  
of today.

*

Repeat a word enough 
times, you think 

(not unhappy),

and it starts to mean 
nothing  

or 
anything you need.



Saturday, January 16, 2021

OH GREAT

God is a circle 
whose circumference 

is nowhere. 

A circle 
which has no edges? No:

a circle which has 
all of the edges. 

*

Even in winter,
there are 
certain blind flowers

whose mouths are wide open,

but still
they aren't talking.

*

Oh great, now I am supposed 
to be jealous 

of a virus—
a virus which

has no self? 
But no: the center 

of the circle 
is everywhere.
this virus 

has all of our selves. 



Friday, January 15, 2021

INFINITE DENSITY

How can it 
be? we 

have no problem picturing 

a vast universe 
in which 

everything is lying 

and gradually 
drifting 

infinitely   far       apart?

Yet, 
whenever somebody 

starts 
to go on about 

the penetrability of bodies;

ornaments 
nested,

smaller 
and smaller, forever 
inside each other;

fundamental particles 
which only exist
when they're

infinitelyclosetogether—

we must 
blink back our anxiety, 

nod, and pretend 
that we 

understand completely
and don't 

have grave doubts. 




Thursday, January 14, 2021

DURABLE GOODS

What the world 
needs now is 

more quantifiable units 
of meaning. 

Happiness 
is cotton candy;
a garnish 

on reality 
which evaporates 
upon contact.

Love 
is a glittering, 
shimmering mirage—a palace,

a look 
to the middle distance 

that keeps 
receding in perfect 
sync 
as we walk.


Lately,
I'm more interested 
in durable goods,

unique handmade products, 
fairly-
traded, BPA-free.

Even as we 
speak, I'm 

entering my zip 
to calculate shipping.



Wednesday, January 13, 2021

BIG QUESTIONS

Progress is 
progress. The answers 
look correct, but

nobody is asking 
the really big questions.

Exactly what sort 
of information 
does love contain? 

Could the nature 
of our relationship 
survive a black hole? 

Can't you somehow 
just picture it—
me, still begging 

your forgiveness 
as the universe rips;

your assent, 
that eerie radiance 

smeared out 
like a sustained pitch 

all along the sensuous
song of a faint
event horizon?



Tuesday, January 12, 2021

HYPOTHETICAL

Only physics
could explain! I might
dramatically insist,

the strange charm 
which plainly
exists between us.

We are two 
synced electrons 
a supercluster away—

she bends, 
and I stretch; 
and she moans 

during sex, 
as I take
a bite of sandwich.

"You've never even met," 
my interlocutor 
would interject,

"this is all 
hypothetical."
But notice, I'd say—

as she perhaps
someplace stamps out
a slim cigarette—

how much 
it helps anyway.


Monday, January 11, 2021

SLEEPING DOGS DON'T LIE

What sort of 
human, however 
ingenuous, could claim 
never to be envious
of that platonic 
circle a dog makes 
when napping? 
Who—if she truly 
valued amity 
over everything—
wouldn't suppose 
a circuit so perfect-
ly completed
to be the pleasantest 
method for 
generating dreams?
What skinflint 
or curmudgeon 
wouldn't trade
in a second 
his most precious asset 
(be it gold 
or maliciousness)
for that dexterous 
capacity for repose 
that's so seamless?


Friday, January 8, 2021

MEETING IN THE AISLE

Not everything 
with two sides 
is political.

Take for example 
the light 

which seems 
to come
from above—

a cult 
to be worshiped

if ever there 
was one,

and a debt 
to amazement 

which could 
never be paid.

"Light is a particle," 
they say. And 
"Light is a wave."

But
it does not matter 
which—

or if
you believe.



Thursday, January 7, 2021

WE THE PEOPLE

Which one 
is more consequential

in the long run—
consciousness

or knowledge? 

We the people 
optimistically believe

to air even 
our slightest 
misgivings 

is eminent-
ly pleasurable. 

*

The glory-
hole newsfeed, 

crisscross-doublefucked
with suspicions,

is such 
a flattering fit 
on the algorithm!

However, the
live-streaming experts 
are quicker

and quicker
to remind:

in an atmosphere 
as noxious
as this one, 

we can hardly expect 
all our growth 

to look benign.



Wednesday, January 6, 2021

THE OBSTACLE

It's a thrill 
we get 

in our bones, 
this self-
loathing.

Not only 
to be part 
of the problem 

and to know it— 

but to rule over 
the revulsion,

to hold 
the solution 
so close

that it chokes, 

to slaughter the fatted 
calf of disgust—
as if feeding 

off the heat 
and the bile
and the friction 

of the swift 
and brutal 
murder 

of momentum.



Tuesday, January 5, 2021

ALTERNATE

To some of us, it's become 
far spookier 
to consider

that haunted houses 
don't exist—

all the shit
we never thought 
we'd outlive,

all the harms
we can't accept 
we've done 

away with. 

Monday, January 4, 2021

APPARITIONS

If you insist 
on believing 
the dead can persist 

in speaking to us, say, 
in the bedroom,
in the shower;

why do you doubt 
all of their precursors—
the mock-ups 
and the models—

prototypes 
which never got the chance 
to exist? 

Why should 
any such distinction 
matter?

After all, 
the money in your purse
has been chattering
for centuries—

calling to you
from a doors-
closing elevator,

stage-whispering 
to your ancestors
in an echo-y church—

but never once 
has the chance 
that these are the 
mere apparitions

of nothing 
talking to no one
been discussed.