SPOILS

Consider 

the grimness 

of the situation—

no word ever

wants 

to be written. 

Every hellish 

minute at your 

computer 

is a clammy net 

thrust into 

roiling waters,

each sentence, 

a pitiful 

pittance of wealth—

a haul of 

foul scraps, and two 

wriggling fish 

who'd much sooner 

take their grim 

chance in the depths 

than suffocate here

in the name 

of a hunger 

you just could 

no longer keep 

to yourself. 

HOLDING BACK

Wise men say: 

only fools—and so on 

and so forth. 

Wise men also say:

time only flows where the 

entropy grows. 

But the hardest part 

of holding back

is knowing 

we cannot speak away 

that numbness 

which disobeys the lungs.

*

Prove you were here, 

they say. 

Sign your full name 

to this statement.

And date it.

*

All the words come 

with such blinding halos 

we cannot make out

the context in the background.

But where talking  

cannot solve the problem

who are we, 

the blind, to insist

that listening 

should perform that trick? 

MANIFEST DESTINY

Because true ambition 

cannot be grasped 

by the fingers;

from nowhere on earth 

are the stars 

getting closer. 

Only here and there 

a few shiny trailblazers 

still grow richer, 

look younger, 

get laid.

*

Because true darkness 

is when 

nothing gets reflected; 

not even 

ignorance.

Not even shame.

* 

Because true metaphor 

is sadistic as a

Star Trek transporter—

how willingly 

its users will

murder the tenor 

for the sake of driving 

a dangerous vehicle 

breakneck

to its destination. 

TROUBLE

Across our tensed cities, 

even the silence

gets oppressive-

ly loud.

Between gusts 

and honks and 

slithering filaments—

there rises, not rebellion,

but the bizarre 

rush of deafness. 

One cannot cup 

one's ears 

to shield them from this

invisible rush—

this turbulent 

lack of so much

which claps close around, 

yet booms far 

from profound.

How quickly

the head becomes 

clabbered, 

tumescent 

as a wet sponge, 

thick as it now is 

with the dumbness.

CONTROL

This is never far 

from the tip 

of my tongue: 

I would do anything 

to keep myself 

from dissolving. 

But perhaps this 

is wrong. 

Perhaps bliss, 

as we know it,

is the feeling 

of being 

tossed—

a warm lozenge, 

pink 

and sweet, 

lost to the gray heart 

of a cool salty sea.

*

Lately, I love 

to catch myself

being in the wrong.

As if 

winding up 

naked in a bad dream 

were proof-

positive: 

any narrative 

which recurs 

is controllable—

can be 

soothing.

ABSOLUTE

Some don't believe in 

tables and chairs. 

They insist—

objects of solid matter 

are not really there.

It's plain on their pages

the atoms 

are empty;

their electrons, 

just spooky;

and quarks are like actors 

struggling 

to stay in character.

Curiously, such sages

never question

the forces—

nor the fantastic contemporary 

invention of 

their choices.

STILL

1.

You'll never believe 

the dream I just had: 

I cannot remember 

the details—only that

in it, every action's 

relationship to stillness 

was spectacular-

ly exaggerated. 

2.

Let's just say, 

for the sake of 

the argument, 

the universe 

is made of strings 

that vibrate;

the knot 

of my guts 

might still sing 

"so what?" 

when it's 

strung up above 

the toilet.

3.

If space 

is available,

it must also be retractable.

If time is passing always,

there's no place 

for now and then.

(It has taken 

our prolapse-prone 

organs of attention 

how many 

bleak centuries 

to figure that out?)

Yet, I hardly ever 

get excited 

just to know  

I love you still

as much as I do

when I look forward to 

loving you again 

sometime soon.

FEBRUARY POEM

Even from 

their breakfast tables, 

midwesterners can see—

the errant confetti 

of snowflakes 

and jaunty stripes 

of icicles dangling 

their lambent tips 

past kitchen windows, 

obliterating symmetries 

and betraying opportunity's 

surprise birthday party.

Without getting closer, 

they know 

 

the eccentric 

signature of fresh snow;

no crown, but a sturdy 

coronation blanket;

entropy's indomitable 

evening-out;

the invitation to celebrate 

every as-yet

unanswered question.

PAST MASTER

Never pure intrigue. 

Hardly only 

apprehension. 

But always 

this tedious 

mixture of both—

morning by 

evening, 

room 

by room: 

the light stalked

by gloom.

A long 

and ambiguous 

sequence 

of chess moves. 

Gradually, I  

castle toward 

the border

of uncertainty—

or maybe, 

uncertainty hooks 

toward the center 

of me.

MACHINE LEARNING

What if—

all in a legitimate

column 

and each, 

necessarily, 

founded ineluctably 

on the dominating 

crown of what 

sat there before—

every 

single 

one 

of 

these 

words 

is 

wrong?

*

Don't you agree? 

Wouldn't that 

be almost 

just too hilarious? 

*

No pressure. 

No pulse. 

No discernible 

difference. 

No sense.

No response.

No follow-up 

attempt.

Whatever was meant 

by self-

ness

and self-

expression, 

the Intelligence 

on the other end 

of the phone can 

only guess.

IN THE TIME REMAINING

Those words 

echo loneliest 

which separate us most 

from what we 

unfailingly 

refer to as 

"the world."

*

To be where the action is

means to stay 

the course; 

that is, there is really 

nowhere 

I am going with this—

the future 

is that harbor 

where the ship cannot 

exist.

* 

Yes 

I would settle 

for a vicarious happiness 

if only 

I could be sure

that yours wasn't 

plausibly 

more than a little

obligatory 

deficient

coerced. 

ZERO

If only nothing 

was missing.

if only 

nothing went wrong.

If only 

this longing 

had edges,

or at least 

corners you could hold, 

or perhaps 

fold in half-

circles,

or tear 

up, or turn 

over—then

you could let 

go of this

urge 

to be 

astonished 

and zero-

in instead on 

those numberless 

petitions

to make yourself,

first 

and foremost, just 

available. 

GIVING ADVICE

Most of the time, I 

find myself 

slipping away 

from what I'd 

begun to say;

the sentence

has become a 

party favor,

a small fortune teller 

crafted from paper,

a delicate construction 

dredged from the 

pocket of my pants

now flitting 

now unfolding

and flattening 

as the entertainment 

and suspense finally 

mount

to the crescendo 

of one 

of several 

pre-selected points.

NEXT LIVES

What exactly 

did we expect "it" and 

"self" have in common? 

asks the inside 

flap of the 

dust jacket, blithely.

Could these 

"selves" we had

have been any more selfish? 

will wonder 

the sarcastic 

investigators of the future—

the way they once probed the limits 

of the cosmic 

for banality,

and long-distance 

collect-called their 

underlying traumas,

and consciously hollered 

(without the faintest 

tang of irony)

into the theretofore tranquil 

"it" 

of dark matter.

VIRAL

Once, we are

children. Then, 

we're adults. 

But after those 

growths, some get hit 

with another spurt: 

the pronouns 

no longer fit; they've become 

a virus.

Oh perfect, 

they mutter. No sooner 

had all of these 

proteins 

learned to 

love themselves

than they up 

and turn

around to discover 

that there's 

no such thing as love 

between molecules.

But this doesn't bother them

as much as they

thought, since

they no longer think about

gratification,

and of course, there were

no such things as

selves

to begin with.

FARCE

Having long since 

grown nervous 

concerning 

what truths 

our eyes might 

be expressing 

when we aren't looking,

gradually, 

we have sketched ourselves 

into cartoons—whose 

frantic expressions 

are always 

good for a laugh, 

and whose 

grinning white 

skeletons might 

survive 

their own deaths.

* 

In the end, it was only 

the stillness 

that killed us. 

The only way 

we knew to head 

for home was 

in a hurry; 

on this fury (and not 

on our affections) 

did we depend—

we 

who would readily 

call ourselves "blessed"

to be 

all made up 

of tiny sentences—such as: 

Nobody's perfect. 

Stupidity tries.

This changes nothing.

Truth is, I lied.

EVENNESS

Even the great big 

eye in the sky—

a perfectly targeted 

ad for this moment—

is so fixed 

that it misses 

the rats asleep 

beneath your car hood.

*

Perhaps all this longing

is the distance 

between persons 

and their sought-

after objects

squared—

and divided by 

the breadth 

of counterfactuals.

*

None of us

is hopeless,

no one immortal. 

Between highest 

widest walls, 

there must exist a 

mostly middle.

Really, need I go on?

OUT OF BONDAGE

Shall we move on? 

Or must we 

keep going—

preemptively 

occupied—

over the 

same ground?

*

When 

god speaks, 

nature 

takes dictation.

And every letter, 

each curled leaf

stem and tendril,

must first be

deciphered, then 

cataloged individually. 

And all 

at the ceremonious pace 

of a glacier—

such that

any creature 

not of the proper likeness

shall perish 

before finishing 

the first commandment's

first sentence.

USER ILLUSION

In my dreams, 

there are 

situations 

and then, 

there are feelings—

an old dog's

barking 

takes the shape 

of isolation;

a great distance 

is crossed 

at the speed of 

self-disgust.

No small 

achievements

for which 

no one 

feels responsible.

But later, 

what amalgam?

what system's 

ghost? is left 

to wonder—

which one 

is prophecy,

and which 

a skeptical 

reconsideration 

of the other?

APPREHENSION

It seems 

many have come 

from miles around 

to admire 

this very fine 

line, which 

their efforts built—

between 

doing things 

for reasons 

and for 

reasons they won't 

admit. 

* 

After the thought  

has been 

set loose—

that the truth is 

our best 

efforts 

do not 

accumulate—

we suddenly find ourselves 

willing 

to negotiate.

*

Now, I realize

no single moment 

could have ever been 

good enough. 

Now, I know 

no kind 

of "now" 

has ever had 

a beginning.

The apprehension 

is a pleasant 

dream;

the mind 

is a rough 

neighborhood. 

DAY AFTER

Cold lumps 

of virginal milk, 

untold sheets from 

unmade beds,

torpid cumulonimbus 

crowds, which

last evening, jammed

a vanishing sky—

this morning, pack 

the illegible streets and

filibuster 

the ground.