ON THE EIGHTH DAY...

the sun rose (again)

in the sky—

yellow 

by way of its core 

of burnt orange 

and a momentary 

burst of that 

born-again magenta—

and, for the forth 

or fifth time now, 

it shined on Earth warmly; 

the same perfect circle 

of flame as before. Only,

presently, little things 

about that disc 

began to nag Him: 

the worshipful ardor 

it seemed to inspire 

in the populace,

and the over-simplistic 

inanity of its shape. 

And then, of course, 

the height, and the 

prodigious weight 

of the very idea 

of "day after day"

began its true dawn 

in the sky 

of His mind, 

and He suddenly kind-

of wished 

He had drawn 

the whole stupid thing 

in a much 

different way.

PERPETUAL MOTION MACHINE

Even after 

having lived here 

for years, 

there's only one 

absolute 

truth I can claim: 

the walls may 

not change, but I'm

never the same. 

Like some incipient 

larva—like a pupa 

I climb, 

blind, toward 

the guileless spire

of modulation:

a feeling with no corners,

never known, 

only felt-for.

Until one day, I'm up here 

on the roof 

of this place, 

with the feeling 

I could love everything 

in the space:

all the carbon 

and oxygen; 

every lump, every groove.

But not too much—

I'd only love it 

just enough,

because that way, 

there'll always be 

some stuff 

left in the 

tank when I make 

my next move.

I ADMIT I HAVE A PROBLEM

I know I'm 

fastidious, 

and that this 

is an attack—

but I hate it 

when people say things 

are "like crack."

It's like—everything 

in the kitchen, 

on the menu,

on the planet  

is like that; 

it's repellent 

and degrading 

to addicts,  

and I've had it. 

In fact, 

it's doubly dismaying 

when I track 

my despondence, 

because I've never before

found my attention

so absorbed. 

I mean, even 

the specific 

way in which I 

just can't stand it 

is a feeling I 

seem to want 

more 

and more and 

more of.

NONACCEPTANCE

Seeking much more 

than some artistic

license, it's 

always the young 

who are zealous 

and wanton 

and so frantic 

to stoop down and 

scrape away the letters—

not to mention 

reshuffle, tweak, and 

goose the hallowed numbers—

which are written 

even now, in the eye 

of the mind,

on the definite surface 

of some melancholy stone.

It's not that they don't know 

the chaos 

that awaits them; 

it's just that their default 

is to fill the world 

with noise;

to keep the story going;

to modulate thin air;

to keep the all-night 

party raging 

on both sides 

of that innocuous, 

horizontal dash

which is so 

claustrophobically  

sandwiched by the finite, 

but which seems 

to bloom

without its referents

and, itself, wants

only silence.

"PLEASE STAY ON THE TRAIL"

It might really be true 

that the landscape

of your life 

is much less 

well-defined, much grander 

than you realize;

that the mind, 

for instance

is a territory so vast, 

you can always close 

your eyes and just 

go where you like—

but what good is 

such talk 

when all your exploration 

is suggested, pre-planned, 

and confined 

to the sidewalks? 

For all you know, your brain 

is a rip-roaring,

interstellar band

of wise and benevolent 

time-tunneling 

space aliens;

and your body, 

perhaps, is a 

harmonized tangle

of vibrating, 

proto-conscious, 

intergalactic superclusters—

but such grandeur 

hardly matters when 

everything you are 

is sent fissuring

off on its 

limitless way

to a vastness so 

definitive, allowable, 

uninteresting.

ARGUMENT FOR INTELLIGENT DESIGN

In a city so neutral 

and so starved

for space, 

it's incredible 

to chance upon 

one redolent rectangle—

perhaps tucked away 

beneath a magnolia 

or crabapple—

in which breezes 

spread their wings between 

a company of tulips,

arranged there

like a jazz score—that is,

meticulously scattered; 

some pink, some white, 

others plum, a few 

fruit-striped.

And it's still-more 

outlandish to hear 

their swaying stems whisper 

as they nod 

their strange advice 

from that rarefied glade:

it likely doesn't matter 

which odd words 

you use to capture us,

 

as long as their presence 

is adequate 

to decorate 

and perfume 

some expressionless, 

barren page.

TIME TRAVEL ETIQUETTE

It doesn't matter 

how smart, how 

famous your are—

the beguiling (if 

a little bit awkward) thought 

that time doesn't pass 

unless there's some 

consciousness there to measure it 

still doesn't give you 

what you actually want―

which has always been, 

namely, to make it 

run backwards. 

In order to do that, 

you must do a lot more 

than streamline your postulate; 

you have to 

dismantle it—

refine your hypothesis 

our of existence. 

And the only way 

to do that is 

to embarrass the turmoil 

and lawlessness 

of the present 

by performing 

a series of 

disciplined actions. Yes,

undo the future's 

holy mess 

by unbinding your definite

unruliness;

make it your mission 

to impoverish chaos:

make your bed 

and wash your dishes. 

INCOMMUNICADO

As you probably know 

just from living 

a life so 

flush with 

perfect strangers,

isolation needs little 

by way of space 

and distance,

and it won't require desert 

conditions to grow. 

But to explain it 

in their midst invites 

the pain of contradiction:

as much disdain 

and jeering laughter 

as silence and seclusion. 

And yet, to ride it 

out alone is 

tantamount 

to the same 

indiscretion,  

like trying to plant 

a minuscule seed 

and somehow 

cultivate 

an ocean.

REPUGNANT CONCLUSION

At the cellular level, 

the fact of 

our discreteness 

looks a 

whole lot less

delicate

and a lot more

distressing. 

Deep down,

its exactly 

our opposites

which attract, 

but it's also 

that indiscriminate 

mishmash of uniqueness 

which makes us 

so buoyant- and 

exquisitely alike—

in so far as 

it keeps 

each of us 

repulsed 

and miscellaneous.

DACHSHUND

In deep tunnels 

of piled comforter 

she would burrow at night 

and sigh—as if 

all of the love 

which had ever existed 

could abide its 

tacit prison 

and would continue to live 

where the greatest 

heat was. 

Now, when I'm 

oftentimes chilled

and alone 

as I slip 

between considerably 

thinner sheets, I think

maybe her misapplied 

instinct was right:

maybe it could—

and maybe 

it does.

ENLIGHTENMENT

The mercurial 

sun—at a quarter 

to summer—is less 

of a beacon 

than an orange 

flower blossom—

drifting

in skies 

the character 

of shallow water, 

and taking 

so awesomely 

slow it's 

unfurling, 

as if 

every careless corner 

of its petals 

were laughing 

in the faces

of all 

those rigid,

meticulous clocks 

we've so ill-

advisedly

commissioned 

in its honor. 

WOODGRAIN

On an April afternoon, 

the light gets so 

smooth and even 

that it seems to 

caress every

detail from the world. 

It's actually 

quite strange to see;

suddenly, 

every grass blade, 

every toddler in the park, 

every old car's patina—

which should be

ringing out with its 

own special clarity—

takes the shape 

of a wave; a faint pattern 

in wood. 

No object is separate, 

and so, no thought

is possible.

But it's over in an instant 

as the sun 

changes angles, 

and the moment 

disappears, as it ought

(as it must) 

into the steady, 

fraught, and 

atomized sequence 

of my routine 

reflections and habitual

to-do lists.

READY OR NOT

Birth, crisis, 

catharsis, death—this 

is how 

history 

happens to you. 

It may be true 

that our consequences, 

though unknown 

and intangible, still apprise, 

still linger. 

But what good are 

possibilities 

when none of them 

is free to use? 

It may also be true

that the universe 

is some beautiful, delicate, 

multiplistic lattice—

but a spiderweb 

viewed from an improper angle, 

is either invisible, 

or else 

nothing special. 

REAL TALK

Turns out, there's a 

wrong way 

of telling the truth. 

The truth is, truth 

is not meticulous, 

and is never 

parsimonious.

The truth is,

there are always 

many different 

ways it could have 

gone between us—

and what you think 

is your construal 

of our stilted last kiss, say,

or my staunch refusal 

to wave as

you were leaving 

is not the full 

story, but a 

punch-up in revision.

In fact, it wouldn't be untrue 

to say 

that the facts, 

factitious as they are, 

cause the truth 

to withdraw—

and that, usually,

it would bring us much 

closer to veracity 

never to talk

at all.

THERE'S A LIMIT

I'm starting 

to think that infinity

is a hoax,

having certainly 

never seen it in this star-

deficient cosmos 

(where the precious 

few which we 

can still spot 

have long since 

exploded 

all alone—and

in silence). 

And god knows 

there's no end to 

the obnoxious 

finitude of our bodies, 

where, once, we were told 

we'd find 

unlimited wisdom, 

but where the only enduring 

or unbroken thing 

is the shallowness 

of our need to be 

reborn once again 

to this mean, 

and this cramped 

and diminished situation, 

so that we can 

count up from scratch 

now and then 

all the loves lost

and the pain 

we can stand

using just 

our two hands.

INFORMATION THEORY

Say what you will 

about the trickiness 

of algebra

or the tedium

of arithmetic—at least math

always works.

The signal's

always digital; calculation 

never hurts. 

One cannot, by 

contrast, say the same 

about words. 

Our metaphors 

are scabrous 

and charmed as quarks, 

and even pleasantries, though 

sugar sweet, can overheat 

and burn. 

At least our 

best equations can 

dissect these loaded terms

into disembodied

letters bent on 

formulaic certainty; 

our sloppy questions

of what is (or maybe isn't)

only serve 

to add duplicity

to this world—confabulation

leaves us lonely.

BLESSED ARE THE MEEK

Listen: mildness 

is not a deficiency; it's 

a resource. In fact,

if its concentration 

on Earth should ever start 

to lessen,

you must 
(gently) endeavor 

to make up the difference.

The most patient way 

is, day after day, to simply

keep singing—

emphatically articulating

(albeit with a lenient, 

compassionate tongue)

the great mystery
of how it can 

even be at all 

that even 

your despondency 
is a warm and tender thing,

since, to be truly
outraged, or vindictive,
or afraid

posits, at its 

center, a 

resonant relation—

a harmonic 

communication

with every other feeling.

EASYGOING ALIENATION

Sometimes, I think 

(with regret, yet 

not unhappily) how it's 

ubiquitousness—

sheer omni-

presence that's the problem.

Take, for instance, 

in a city so big—

in an early 

spring so

noncommittal—

on a morning 

so vague 

and lousy with rain 

that it's basically 

indistinct from 

yesterday evening—

the bleary soft 

comfort of 

battalions of emergency 

sirens' steady 

wails, abstractly far off 

in the distance.

MELLOWER HOMES AND GARDENS

Goodness, 

they say, in time 

always blooms; 

and all evil 

has a root, 

so it must, 

in turn, have its

blossoms too—

but just how much more 

precious 

and exotic 

are those seldom-

acknowledged flowers 

of simply 

not caring much 

one way or the other?

How fresh 

is the fragrance

to the weary perceiver 

of that perennial 

which pops from a 

stem of no preference?  

After all, it's so common 

to grow savage 

and dishonest—

so garden 

to do the right thing 

in every single circumstance; 

but it's exquisitely 

rare (if not masterfully 

complex)

to grow past 

all inclinations 

and too fast 

for all opinions 

after years 

of cultivating, in the 

diffident sun,

the prize-winning art 

of neither 

offering assistance 

nor ever doing any 

specific harm 

to anyone.

ADVICE FOR WRITER'S BLOCK

Start listing state capitals.

Or better yet, 

go out at night 

and count 

the constellations 

whose names you 

used to know.

The assignment is done 

not when you've named 

the last one, but 

 

only after 

some kind of 

dawning comes.

*

Phone a friend; 

explain to them, 

in no uncertain terms, 

that it's no use—

that a poem 

can't fix anything 

that has happened—

that no music 

is pure enough to rival 

the blackbird's—

that delusion

is sometimes 

the truth. 

(From there, simply let 

the conversation 

rabbit hole.)

*

Just get 

the ball rolling: 

try confiding

to a virgin page 

how it can possibly 

be the case

that you know 

in your heart 

that there's 

no such thing

as a soul.