NOT GUILTY

No Greek 

Republics got 

built on their 

wiles, true—but 

no Utopia 

or Paradise could 

do without them 

either. So 

hang your 

philosophers

and jilt 

all your saints—

their self-

flagellations, 

their rhetoric 

and pedigrees; 

unlock 

and open 

the death 

row gates. Poems 

may not be 

harmless, but they are 

no one's 

enemy.

COME CLEAN

After years 

and years of being 

steeped 

in the stuff, 

incompleteness 

has begun

to feel like 

an addiction. 

How could you even begin 

to revise 

these pitifully brief  

and rough 

outlines 

of feelings? 

Where is that hand 

which 

your hand 

was designed

(or at least 

had been counting on 

the vaguest 

plans) to touch?

Admit it: you're 

entranced  

by the voice you've 

been using 

to posit all these questions—

stoned 

on surprise, strung-out

on recognition—yet, 

you're helpless to resolve 

to dispense 

with these fictions, since 

you're trembling

even now, at the threat

of a decision. 

ZOMBIES!

With respect to all 

the vampires, poltergeists,

bogeymen hiding 

underneath the bed—

the far more uncanny 

and terrifying prospect 

is just that 

the dead 

should forever 

remain dead.

While the living, 

so helpless-

ly tied

to persistence 

should recoil 

at the brutal way

inertia 

is conserved

and mindlessly 

continue 

to stagger on

believing.

TEMPERAMENT

Try as it might, 

your consciousness 

is never 

bare. Pernicious 

or otherwise, you can 

always find

a mood there—

some preexisting 

atmosphere, 

some disposition 

must envelop it. 

Just as 

vagabond clouds, 

hung like whims 

in the sky,

appear so light 

and variable, 

unassailable 

and high—so soft, 

and yet 

so permanent 

that they themselves 

weren't built 

to notice

the barometric 

pressure 

put upon them by 

this planet.

AN AFFRONT

Could anything 

but an actual

slap in the face

really be 

equivalent to 

that provocation?

Motivations 

and deeds present 

much 

to discuss—but 

is any action, 

vindictive or kind, 

truly tantamount 

to sensation? 

Could words, 

however tenderly 

or shrewdly 

inclined, 

ever stand-in as 

a double 

for feeling? 

I mean, take me 

for instance, 

taking the time 

to methodically, 

formally, earnestly 

write this—better yet,

take you, who just 

blew precious 

seconds reading?

RESTITUTION

Light, piercing yellow 

through the rowdy

kite-blue wind—

wind on which 

surfs the slightly 

succoring smell 

of fruits turning 

sour, and of leaves 

decomposing. 

Impressions—these 

sensations which you 

see, hear, and breathe—

are more than 

a bit like the glut 

of spare change 

which clatters in your 

pocket as you 

saunter though the scene.

That is: 

they're not more 

than useless lumps 

which rattle their capacities

away in your brain; 

sooner or later, 

they must be 

extricated—passed around, 

exchanged 

for favors—

in order for them 

to matter.

IN TRANSLATION

Though it's late 

in October, 

and a chill rides the air 

like a blue note 

which flattens out 

the sonorant chord of sun—

and everywhere, 

mangy trees blush 

to have realized 

how long they've 

been slowly, but

before your eyes, undressing—

some afternoons, 

when the slanted light 

is strong, 

you still can hear 

the frazzled hum 

of bees in dry roses

and the high-pitched 

and quickly 

repeating melody 

of the sparrows 

who sing for the meals 

they're now missing. 

And on days 

such as these, you can 

grasp without guessing 

the meaning 

of the enigmatic 

song being sung 

from the bushes and trees 

without knowing 

the lyric: 

the world does not 

wait, and life 

is not long—but it is

still, somehow, quite 

drawn-out 

and exhausting.

NO ARGUMENT FROM ME

You may well 

and truly say 

that this world 

we're both trying 

to navigate, 

like a stallion 

who craves 

the staid strictness 

of the bridle,

is in pressing 

and desperate need 

of defining—

that apt, potent arguments 

and well-

turned phrases 

shall one day tame 

the morass 

and the tumult 

that quixotic and two-

faced experience won't.

Why cast odd lots 

with promiscuous 

thoughts?

Why stitch a sentence 

with the thread 

of mixed-up feeling?

Why write down 

anything ambiguous 

at all? 

And in that case, 

I only 

can sympathize 

with the grit it must take

to paddle your mind 

down such a sinuous

rapid as this—and, 

in clear, direct answer 

to the question 

you posed 

in the preceding 

stanza a 

moment ago: don't. 

FIDELITY

Under these autumn 

trees, wishing 

(as they 

must be) 

that I could just 

reach up 

and touch 

the sun. 

What are 

the chances 

for anything 

sentient

of feeling 

any ardor again 

before 

next April comes? 

Yet, this 

was the contract, 

the bargain, 

the job:

to respect 

the inevitable 

coming of dusk,

to laud it 

as much as we 

esteem the dawn—

for duty

is no more 

or no less than 

these branches 

shedding, 

jettisoning children 

on the lawn—

dying, 

a whole lot less quickly 

than slow,

 

to grudgingly 

let 

whatever feeling 

comes next

(even though 

they won't be here

to see it) get 

born.

ARGUMENT FOR COMPATIBILISM

Even in circumstances 

beyond our control, 

we are able to do 

without believing 

what we're told.

Though we dance 

like marionettes 

who were 

commanded 

to their poses, 

we nonetheless 

rise up and give 

the audience a

damn good show. 

You may yet ask—

ought we not 

be troubled 

at the thought 

of our mouths being 

opened and closed 

like hand puppets 

made of old 

athletic knee socks? 

But the answer 

depends upon whether 

or not 

you resist feeling 

pushed 

and then pulled 

to admit

that, even if 

each line has been 

meticulously scripted, 

it's completely 

up to us 

which how much 

passion we'll 

perform it. 

THE BEATEN PATH

All children come 

into this world 

beautiful, 

but none maintain

the mantle of that

stainlessness, 

and though all 

become sinners, no one 

leaves original. 

There is no expression 

on the newborn's face,

no gesture

or posture which 

cannot be crowded 

into place—

like the rumpled flesh 

of a peach 

around its pit—

by the endless 

procession of weeks 

and semesters

and the made-pretty 

speech of old, crook-

backed instructors 

who never could

themselves imagine

any other way 

than to squeeze 

any artlessness 

or ignorance away

in those punishing 

vices called practice 

and habit.

JUST SO STORY

There should be 

more room for 

equivocation. 

Forget about 

salvation—

what the world 

needs now is a little

protection—

cover

from the letters

falling fast 

from the best 

of good books, 

not as words, but rocks—

not bare facts, 

but hard ones—

and not even 

big ones, which at least 

make good anchors, 

but pithy 

and dense things

like the pit 

in your stomach 

when you hear 

how the preacher 

pummels and bruises 

with his shibboleths 

the tenderest of truths 

to a powder:

that ambivalence 

exists 

and conviction 

blackens easily; 

that power 

and obscurity 

are tides 

which move the Earth;

our wavering, 

perplexity, 

and doubt 

all runneth over. 

REVISED EDITION

Good news: 

a fix 

for that hitch in your 

get along 

has been found: 

turns out,

someone had 

drawn the picture 

backwards 

and upside down; 

turns out, 

the delirious, 

terrifying bliss 

of an omni-

benevolent heaven 

was not only 

under your skin 

all along, but 

nested, entrenched, 

embedded—

tangled 

in the protein strings, 

installed 

in the best and the 

shoddiest corpuscle. 

In light of this, 

perhaps it 

makes sense 

why you never felt 

the least bit at home 

in your thoughts—

perhaps all along, 

you never were 

homeless, 

not even once. 

Because 

you were living 

in your body. 

JUST THIS

There's only one moment

amid the sun's 

assent each morning 

when everything visible 

briefly shifts 

from inscrutable and dim 

to explicitly 

exact—

when the backlit 

bricks of old, sharp-

angled buildings 

blaze to relief in 

the quickening temperatures

and the recondite 

flight paths 

of a few sparrows' shadows

snap, in mid-air, 

to Euclidean circles

as, measured and lucid, 

a clean, far-off 

bell clangs 

and cracks, 

in the instant, that 

ambiguous illusion 

that I 

and those distant rows 

of smooth, ruddy buildings, 

and those birds, 

in their legible, 

uncomplicated flight

had ever 

been anything 

more than 

just this together: 

here—

and so hungry 

for our share

of the light.

PREREQUISITE

To begin, close 

your greedy, 

ravenous eyes, 

and look 

for all the ways you've 

been abusing

the sky—taking it

for granted 

that light 

would always find 

your feelings, 

that your world 

would always 

have a ceiling. 

Now, in this

manufactured dark, 

there's no canopy, 

no witness, 

no stars—

none of those twinkling 

coins made of silver 

which you heretofore 

used to believe 

were yours 

to name, to mine, 

and to explore. 

And to think 

of it—this 

is just a quick 

simulation 

of the way things 

really always were—

not reflective 

or generous, 

but not harsh 

or cruel or 

disparaging either. 

This 

is the necessary 

pitch-dark you are,

the eyeless 

fear that compels you 

to care,

the posture 

of the universe 

before 

you ever got here.

OF TWO MINDS

Somewhere out there, 

intervening pained 

and delighted

lies the softest

landing, otherwise known 

as confused.

As a new infant 

furrows her brow at 

our humming

or the tabby cat cocks 

his head left 

and meows 

while we vent 

the day's frustrations, or try 

to say I love you—

so too, do I

find myself, once 

in a while,

when I chance upon

some photo of a life 

long-left behind,

becalmed 

as a raft between two 

agnostic oceans—

marooned on that reef 

between anguished 

and amused.

BEST PICTURE

Despite its likely 

somewhat puzzling 

lack of romance 

at the end, 

after fade-

to-black, I should 

like to 

have it said 

that my life 

was a flawed 

but ambitious 

action comedy:

full of plot 

holes 

and second-

rate songs, 

and excruciatingly 

overlong—

but somehow 

well-paced, 

and all that while

braced by its 

penchant 

for quips 

and meticulous  

send-ups  

of hardship,

humiliation, 

bad luck,

catastrophe. 

DENDROLOGY LESSON

As the trees which stand

guard on each 

side of the street 

don't so much tarnish 

as burnish 

to flame-yellow, 

all of the neighborhood 

residents are invited 

to see, at one 

instant, the impossible 

mystery 

paradoxically inherent 

in their own 

continuity—

for, although the act 

of thought remains 

ruthlessly abstract, 

the picture, for once, is made

crystalline plain: 

like these, we may 

stand straight and 

stoically die 

in order to watch our 

way of life survive, 

knowing life-after-

sacrifice snaps 

to sheer certainty 

when the seed

of all futures 

is contained 

in today. 

NOW (OR NEVER)

To live life 

in the present 

sounds defensible 

enough, but 

in practice, 

there's really 

no such thing 

as that tense. 

Try as I might 

to gain purchase 

on the current—

by declaring, for instance,

that I am of the Earth, 

and always with 

the breath of its 

silty wind, I sing—

I still cannot help 

but wail 

about death 

with the loam in my 

throat from before 

I was born. 

Not to mention—

those glowing moments 

in which I hastened 

to make my nest

all dying too soon 

of their own 

poor confusion—

that carnage 

of each passing second 

only proving 

that existence 

was not 

but an artful 

delusion. 

  

PLAN B

Oftentimes, our finest

knowledge 

cannot be applied; 

the most crucial principle 

is also 

impossible, 

like traveling masslessly 

faster than light, 

or leaving a room 

before you arrived. 

As if we were selfish 

and self-

absorbed narcissists, 

some conclusions 

have peculiar habits

of suddenly, 

cruelly breaking 

it off with us.

And all we can do 

to rebound 

when this happens

is binge 

on such junk- 

thoughts as 

nothing is random,

and absence 

of evidence is evidence 

of absence.

ARTICLE OF FAITH

Intelligence

has the talent 

to bankrupt success.

Many who are 

smart are struck 

dumb by their abilities'

prodigious proclivities 

to sidestep 

what they want.

They build cottage 

industries 

on their fondness 

for refining 

their own postulates 

out of existence—

forgetting in the process 

that the mess 

is the monument 

and that every 

best guess is 

a valuable precept:

an experiment 

is a failure 

if and only if 

if fails 

to adequately test 

a hypothesis. 

NULL HYPOTHESIS

Those words 

echo loudest which 

alienate us most 

from what we 

discursively 

refer to as "the world."

But it gets a little 

worse for the claim 

of this thesis, 

for "silence"

and "process" offer 

little succor, either:

Once I've got started, 

there is nowhere 

I can go with this—

and to "be where 

the action is" just means 

"stay the course."

And yet still, 

I might settle for 

a counterfeit slice 

from the imitation 

pie of vicarious 

happiness

if only I could 

say that I was 

genuinely sure

that its having 

been offered wasn't 

more than a little 

obligatory,

malicious, or 

coerced.