Wednesday, June 23, 2021

STAR PHASES

1.

Each instant, undaunted, 
a new future rises, 

then falls, exhausted 
through the present 

into the hole 
of the past it imagines.


2.

If I'm sure of anything, 
it's that stars don't "align"

without the scrawny perspective 
of the bleary-eyed night-worker.

And if they ever touched? 

That wouldn't just be 
a disaster.

More like 
the industrial 
factory that makes them.


3.

Somehow, what once was broken 
may be briefly reassembled 
at the death of the sun;

eons of discord, suddenly inverted,
could become
a pop song. 

And a pop song 
could be a life 
in its sum—

bursts of transient 
color, sound, 
and temperature; 

so far, you're 
not less—and hardly
any more.