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.

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.

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.

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?

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.

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.

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?

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."

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? 

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.

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.

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. 

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. 

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.

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?

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.

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?

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.

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.

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.

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. 

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.