FIRST THING

It's a curious fact

that, first thing

in the morning, 

all who re-arrive, 

at that instant, 

to their bodies 

swear that they know 

what it's like 

to be old, when

simply by finding themselves 

there 

all together

(whether or not they 

voluntarily chose 

to rise; 

whether to an impish sun 

blithely spilling its brightness 

on water, 

or to the muted 

pall of rain out beyond 

their windowpane),

the riser doesn't just

bear witness to the dawning; 

they participate in it,

comprising, with a 

yawn, the very essence of startling 

re-arrival:

just for a moment, 

to have done 

nothing wrong, since

every shining thing 

is young.

PROVERBIAL JIU-JITSU

Never focus 

on arriving (it seems 

that, somewhere, 

you have heard this);

what's important 

is the journey. 

But I'm curious 

what some of these 

dingy paths—

these choked 

city streets, oppressed 

with traffic, for instance,

or the dull 

late-March sidewalks, 

all rimmed 

with debris 

and depressing, 

headless tulips—yes, 

I'm curious 

what these sorts 

of passages 

would say about that. 

Might they, in fact 

countenance 

a difference between 

our striving and 

our need 

to stride? My, how 

excessive, how quick-

ly complex 

the simple physics 

of our drive 

for contentment gets.

ADOLESCENCE OF THE COOL

If your intent 

is the preemption of all 

dissatisfaction, 

the least 

appalling method 

is unwavering faith 

in the bulwark 

of concealment.

For instance, always 

keep your face 

downcast 

while you hesitate 

to ask,  

and keep your hands 

shoved deep 

in your empty front pockets 

whenever you 

chance to go out 

in a crowd—

that way, no one 

with whom you interact 

will suspect 

that your face can relax 

and your hands 

will unclench 

only when warmed 

by the amicable friction 

between 

the obviousness

of your disappointment 

and obliviousness 

of its lack.

FACTUAL SPRING

"Truth" 

is a word 

whose 

pronunciation 

is begun 

not with 

a plosive tensing 

of the tongue, 

but with an act 

of observation:

of the apple-

cheeked school-

children 

streaming 

through the park, 

as new snowdrops 

and crocuses 

 

pockmark 

the hard 

mud there.

And it ends not 

with a fricative 

rush of voiceless air, 

but somewhere 

in our hive 

mind's eyeless 

access to perfection: 

a bitter-

sweet winter 

as it dies 

upon the Earth

precisely and 

exquisitely as it did 

in our dreams;

the realization

that nature 

is composure itself:

the next day 

just laid 

bare and plain,

the way it plainly 

has to be.

WITHERING CRITICISM

Ironically, it's

the accommodating 

taste of old age—

all the wild 

notes, now dried 

and stiffened 

into spare

and sweet 

and handy truths—

which deigns 

to reject 

as inadmissible

the impetuous 

rudeness, the acerbic 

gall  

which wreathes 

and tinges the still-

recallable  

eyewitness testimony 

of youth.

ANTECHAMBER MUSIC

Little violin I'm 

hearing, singing 

in the distance:

despite what I imagine 

to be your sturdy, 

hollow hull 

and those two fantastically 

feminine, swirling-yet-

resolute, f-shaped ear holes, 

I suppose you're 

really nothing 

like a skull—

or, for that matter,

an envelope 

stuffed with some 

brutally honest letter. 

No,

to me, at this 

moment, you are more 

like a shelter—

 

a dark and dusty 

room in the cellar 

where exactly one

determined writer 

and his husk 

of old desk can 

just barely fit 

(provided he 

sits hunched 

uncomfortably enough)

hoping to scribble 

out a new and 

desperate poem

frenetically inspired 

by your abstract, 

distant singing, 

enchanted by 

melody's lack 

of a metaphor, 

and fantastically 

alone.

TABLEAU

It's time to speak 

up about this: the perfect 

illustration 

does not exist. Just like

unfalsifiable 

hypotheses can never 

be tested. The best—and

in point of fact, the most 

extraordinary—

scene we could imagine 

would have to be 

something like 

an airport at night: only

criss-crossing runways 

of featherweight particles 

of radiant light; a scaffolding 

for creamy, contra-

positive shadows, 

and for silences

of pure white—as opposed 

to that black variety, since 

every soul living 

is already staring so 

hard at that kind 

twenty times 

a minute—every time

they blink their eyes.

BULLSEYE

The most extraordinary thing 

that our eyes 

will every see 

has got to be 

plain old 

rotational symmetry. 

For it's practically unimaginable 

how our

faulty geometries

could bolster so much

swagger to a

negligible point. 

And in the end, isn't it 

nothing short 

of heartrending 

to watch, from 

the boundaries, how much

everything's changing 

so precisely on the premise 

that there's one thing 

that can't?

TO A BRUISED CHILD

I know you 

think you're made 

of parts, 

but really, there is just 

this body. Trust me:

fragility,

stiffness, 

malady, 

melancholia—

as you earn 

each gold blip of 

bewildering world, 

these shall be 

your duties. 

And I don't mean 

irksome obligations;

I mean

taxes you must pay 

on the beauty.

BEAUTIFUL WORLD

        春の風 

        桜舞い散る 

        美しき世界

                -ChatGPT

Ten minutes 

from now (or possibly 

fewer), 

the large language model 

chatbot will speak 

Japanese; 

it can conjure you 

haiku in the original, 

if you ask it to—

and you don't 

even have to say please.

But what does it mean 

to extrapolate 

from this?

And how 

do you repay a small

favor to a computer? Perhaps 

just by pondering 

the possibilities.

AMENDMENT TO WILLIAMS

Even in the hands 

of such a 

parsimonious doctor, 

form will still 

degrade 

and meaning 

must concentrate—

if only due to time's 

harsh-but-

vigorous erosion.

Such mutable things

as wheelbarrows 

and chickens 

might likely seem 

superfluous 

a chastened century later, 

and will never escape 

the omnipotence 

of erasure.

If he somehow 

knew then

all that we've

forgotten now, 

his most profound 

work, from beginning 

to end, 

might take up 

one line 

and read: 

"so much depends."

MINUTIAE

It seems almost 

ridiculous how 

all of life's particulars 

stubbornly refuse, 

over time, to refine—

how blood 

and saliva don't distill 

like a wine—

how frangible 

stem cells don't 

collapse, they multiply. 

But at least we catch 

a break when all the dots 

start to connect, 

and all of those 

stubborn, hard knots 

where life's events 

soon will get 

fused to our biased 

remembrances of them 

eventually combine, 

and then cement 

into a spine—

from which long, 

nervy pipes unspool 

and start winding

with generous 

thickness through all 

we now are 

to structure and 

nourish and, eventually, 

to animate 

some overlaid 

insouciant part, which 

didn't used to be there 

into a piece of 

appreciable art.

TERM OF ART

The way in which darkness 

will twice

bookend day—I suppose you 

could call that haiku 

if you chose to. 

But haiku itself 

would never 

give away 

the name

of streetlamps 

which cast creeping 

shadows through park grass,

or the blueness 

of evergreens 

against skies' rising bruises—

least of all, 

of deftly transposing 

aromas 

as one mug of tea  

warms the countertop

and cools.

BAN THIS POEM

On one hand—

just a slight series 

of deftly pitched words, 

flung with 

just the right spin to affect 

a sly curve 

could, irrevocably, 

destabilize the world. 

Then again—

on the other, it's probably 

safer by a long shot, 

to haul off and 

send discourse 

running in all directions 

than it would be 

to ever risk coming- 

off as lazy 

or too slow, or late 

to the party, 

or cagey—or worse, 

some deceptively 

benign word 

like—injurious.

FINALE

        (for Hammerhands.)

So you no longer want to 

play music anyhow—

for what music 

could coax renewed 

substance from shadow,

or transcribe absent echos  

to original score,

or soundtrack 

winter's deaf, blank 

finality of snow? 

But somewhere deep

in the twitching 

of muscles;

in the shadows 

where capillaries drum 

along bones;

in the labyrinthine swirls (as 

a seashell 

by the ocean) 

of the exquisite folds 

of the inner 

ear, you notice:

that as long as 

you're able, by 

definition, to persist,

you can never 

bear witness to such 

suitable silence—

through each triumph 

and each stillness, 

in greatest 

gratitude and grief, 

your delirious, 

lunatic heart 

will keep repeating 

the only note 

it knows.

APOTHEOSIS

When we 

can't kiss, but can still 

quietly walk 

around the perimeter 

of this indescribable 

feeling and listen—

when it seems certain 

that no room is left 

in the inn

for the bigness of the 

thought we've been 

trying to hold in, 

but still, there 

are a few 

rickety windows

we can reach and fling 

open to let in 

some air—

when we can’t find words 

for the despair 

which devours us, 

and yet, it doesn't feel 

all that capricious 

to sing 

with some friends in 

a bar about 

frivolous things—

that's when 

we're finally ready 

to admit 

that there's no 

rationale, but 

it must 

stand to reason:

we can probably live 

without the touch 

of true meaning,

as long as there‘s 

the feeling.

ALLEGORY OF THE CAVE

When I close my 

eyes, do I still 

exist?—perhaps 

in Plato's sense 

that a shadow exists:

both 

in the absence 

and because of 

the light? And

in my diminished state, 

will I fear 

the brave sun, who, 

despite 

the benevolent 

look on his face, 

shall not be denied, 

long-deceived, 

or obscured? 

In the dark, I can 

feel the right and 

ruinous effulgence 

of the voice of that star, 

which is above 

all admonition,

like a thunderbolt—

cracking huge blocks 

of form and matter 

extant in my mind 

into slivers of 

this essence, 

which I, 

thus accosted, must

open my eyes 

if I ever hope 

to measure. 

LOGORRHEA

We have it 

on good, if somewhat 

tacit authority—

we can even taste it 

in the fear (which comes 

drizzled in lust)

constantly secreted 

by the tips of 

our tongues—

that some perilous, 

inky, imperious 

blot 

should inexorably appear 

at the end 

of every sentence.

Life's labor, then, consists

in approaching 

this limit,

as doomed stuntmen 

who ride for the edge, 

but don't hit it—

until we crash 

and wreck 

that babble tower, 

with silence 

as our penance.

THE PERSISTENCE OF MEMORY

Art may 

instruct us

in so far as 

it doesn't. 

The most striking

brushstrokes

or words 

of a poem 

are, at best, crumbs 

of dust

which the weakest shaft 

of errant light 

that meanders 

though a window 

may seem, for one 

bright moment, 

to transpose

into a road—

but the end of that line 

is a cul-de-sac  

where we loop

through the circle 

of knowing 

what we knew 

as the marvelous friction  

of that fraught recollection 

warms some frozen

feeling back.

FORGET ABOUT YOUR TROUBLES

If your cares won't 

collapse, and 

you can't 

get to sleep,

instead of 

the cheap stuff 

like blessings 

or sheep,  

try counting 

the billions 

of other people's 

eyelids—

those delicate, 

intimate, 

crepe paper-

textured things, 

careworn 

but dignified 

as a second-

prize rose—

which, up to

this minute, have 

crumpled 

and closed—

not reflexive- 

or self-possessedly, 

not in brief or 

by design, 

but both helpless- 

and definitively:

for the very 

last time.

BOXELDER SUTRA

Roots that dig deep

enough to feel 

the heat of hell,

and tips that reach 

to scrape the diamonds 

undergirding heaven;

appendages which shake, 

bend, and 

quiver themselves to pieces 

 

with the littlest hint

of oncoming wind, 

yet which always resolve 

to remain spread 

wide open 

and stiff 

in the pose of 

perpetual giving;

but above all, 

a fierce and 

obstinate reluctance 

to admit 

when you've been killed

and abandon your position, 

and just as fierce 

a willingness  

to come back 

to life in six months 

and forgive.

All of this—

and nothing less, 

and all of the time, 

and all of your life—

is what it will take 

if you ever expect,

in spite 

of the callous 

vicissitudes of seasons,

to stand in the dirt—

and the light—

and to live.

WELCOME TO UNCANNY VALLEY

I guess this is progress—

finally, I've begun 

to wonder 

what I'm supposed to do 

with your pictures.

After all 

these years, your face 

still looks the same to me, 

whereas I'd swear 

up and down, I'm so 

very much older 

even than I appear 

in the mirror 

at this moment—

old enough, at any 

rate, at least 

to understand 

how the pieces of us 

which might still interact 

are far 

from the proper or 

obvious suspects. 

It's a bit like 

how the instrument 

which is responsible 

for singing 

is itself, in practice, 

mysteriously silent—

and the similar 

mechanism by which 

the song's witness 

is compelled to linger 

there and listen, 

while equally 

primitive, is completely 

invisible—or at least 

remains very

ingeniously hidden. 

TESTAMENT

When I make a point

to say it, does the pathos

of a half-moon 

made of crinkled-

but-unblemished paper 

in a sky 

of ink make 

sense to you? 

My guess is—the linguists 

were wrong 

about the world we interact in 

being really made 

of grammar. 

But perhaps, 

what there is 

is a pyramid 

of syntax—a chain 

of command 

in those words

which are good—

a hierarchy 

of all those

mysterious phrases

which swirl and tumble 

and jockey 

in our chests 

like still-

forming pearls for the 

chance to be expressed—

yet which 

cannot be grasped 

or appraised, just 

understood.