Wednesday, December 27, 2023

DIVERTED

What became 
of our youth is 

too difficult 
to prove. Besides which, 

we who've grown
slower, smaller, colder

riding out the sleepless 
nights of answer in our rooms

now prefer 
the insular argot 

(and the comforting 
muteness which is 

sure to follow)
of riddles 

posed—then deferred—
to the truth. 


Tuesday, December 26, 2023

PETITION FOR A DO-OVER

As we go out 
to corral, in the nightfall 
of the year,

those actions we have taken 
to reduce the span from 
there to here,

those designs 
become spooked 
and careen away, rudderless 

as verbs 
without their
formal subjects—and so,

the last thing 
we see in 
2023

is our do's 
and be's and say's 
and repair's

revert back 
to frightened and 
feral infinitives 

and hook out beyond 
our dim, might-
obscured sightlines, til they're

subsumed 
in the hugeness of 
everywhere.


Friday, December 22, 2023

FINAL EXAM

Given your movement 
at constant velocity 

with zero acceleration 
through a frictionless environment, 

how long would it take 
for your circumstance to change,

expressed in the units 
of vision-times-horizons? 

If this problem's too 
abstract 

and you cannot 
do the math 

with just the pencil 
of your breathing and 

the paper 
of your death, 

please turn your slender 
attention instead 

to the width that 
you must travel 

in one year 
inside your head  

to get from the distance of lack
of forgiveness 

for every past 
clandestine sin 

to the point where all 
the judgements end

and allowance 
can begin. 


Thursday, December 21, 2023

YOGA SUTRA

Forget about 
the mountains and the sun 
salutations;

sometimes, just the fact that 
a morning 

could follow at all
from the depths 
of last night 

already feels like  
a pretty huge stretch. 

How 
and why fleshy 
orange crests horizons 

is a posture 
these bodies aren't built 
to know,  

though we practice 
like a guru possessed.

But who among us, 
all the while, 
isn't posed 

as a child—lying 
doubled-over prone 

in pursuit 
of what wisdom is held 
in our breath

from our 
birth until our death?  

Wednesday, December 20, 2023

THE BEGINNING IS THE END, AND THE END IS THE BEGINNING

It is time 
to admit we've gone broke
on the asking.

The intervals between "How 
could this happen?" 
are collapsing. 

Now that we know 
these pains to be ours, 

what shall we 
go out and do 
with the recognition? 

Instead of 
false lights, could we turn on 
the darkness? 

Should we lean 
on this hardness? Commemorate 
the solstice? 

On the longest night possible, 
it's a luxury to ponder, 

to walk through our own 
well-lit darkness, 
and to notice 

how much we will cherish 
all the outrage,
the awkwardness—

even the cruelty  
and callousness of lovers

after the last 
lovers' quarrel is 
over.


Tuesday, December 19, 2023

HERE AND NOW

On Earth, the bare facts 
are about as scarce 
as moon rocks:

ambivalence, 
uncertainty, 
disinterest—all exist;

bewilderment 
runneth over; rage and horror 
are the grist. 

So, with far too much
to pray for and not enough 
worth saving, 

let us hold off 
on salvation, and instead 
solicit grace. 

For, though we don't 
deserve a pardon, 
we may 

get a salve 
against our self-
loathing. 

We may not 
transcend this world 
"body and soul," 

but we might walk 
around in it 
"body and clothing."


Monday, December 18, 2023

NO SUCH THING AS A TACTICAL RETREAT

Never 
pure tedium, or all 
apprehension.

Always this thought-
provoking admixture 
of both. 

Morning
by evening,
corridor by room, 

like a cunning set
of chess moves—
like the light 

is stalked by gloom— 
I can see that I 
must castle 

at the border 
of uncertainty—
only, 

truth be told, 
I have no 
exit strategy

should confusion
or mistrust choose to 
dispense with all the subtleties 

and tunnel 
right under 
the fortress of me. 


Friday, December 15, 2023

SUPERFLUOUS

Too much 
beauty, when viewed 
all at once 

is perturbing 
to the eye—and to the brain, it 
makes no sense. 

In order to survive, we must 
believe it's 
unessential—

that, really 
all along, it's just 
the ether versus us. 

But of course, 
that's wrong; it's 
this whole outlandish 

phantom of a place—
this concussed and chaotic 
fever dream of a vast

expanding universe— 
which endures and is truly 
monumental, 

while the poor 
human actor who 
fritters and struts 

is, at best, unimportant, 
and at worst, 
gratuitous—born to 

gross, uncertain 
luck, then disappeared 
just as mysterious. 


Thursday, December 14, 2023

ISOCHRONAL

Though at times
it seems equally piercing 
and impressive, 

the mind 
is concurrently 
dull and elusive. It works less 

like a diamond 
than a bolt 
of jagged coal—or maybe 

less a rock 
in general than some livid
rusty nail

hammered 
to right angles 
by the reoccurring thought 

that not only is it 
all too true that 
nobody is perfect, but it's 

also a murky 
yet terrible fact that nobody's 
exact. 


Wednesday, December 13, 2023

A LITTLE PRACTICE

Just then, when you notice 
your capricious mind 
has drifted 

from the loud, laborious  
task at hand 

to that sullen 
land where all 
is pointless,

it might help 
to think of some 
ponderous objects—

gas planets, for instance, 
and their dozen frozen moons;

cloud-piercing 
mountain ranges, off 
in the distance; 

even, perhaps, the huge 
side-by-side fridge 

which buzzes like a
hive inside your 
fourteenth floor apartment—

you should try to see each one
as now effectually 
weightless,

since, without a little 
practice, it might never 
cross your mind 

that every immutable 
thing which exists, 

at some point 
or another, first needed
to be lifted.


Tuesday, December 12, 2023

THESE DAYS,

while I wait 
for fate or 
inspiration 

to restart 
and update my 
operating system, 

I keep looping 
to comb through the 
honed decay 

of all the same old
fossilized streets—
though,

at this point, 
I'm no longer 
searching for something; 

I'm just strictly 
rehearsing (in hopes 
I can memorize)

the feeling 
of finding precisely 
what I need there.

That way, if I ever
came across 
the motivation 

to stop repeating 
hurts and claim the 
mercy I'm so hungry for, 

I would find myself 
so nimble and 
well-prepared 

that I could blithely 
walk right by it, like I 
didn't even care.


Monday, December 11, 2023

ENDGAME

Between bungalows' little 
cold sighs
of front yards

each strangled with wires
and tinsel 
and lights,

and the street curb, 
all caked with 
December's take on dirt, 

a few robins—great rakes 
in the long days 
gone by,

now gaunt,
pale, and desperately 
pointed and sticky—

are darting ever faster 
back and forth 
between the pines

and squawking nonstop 
about the good times 
come next Easter.


Friday, December 8, 2023

PARTICIPATION IS MANDATORY

Under the severe 
and age-old discipline 
of winter,  

it grows more 
and more difficult to recall 
the eager colors 

or the deftly 
phrased but simply stated 
songs of lost companions 

like the iridescent starling 
and the ardent, 
chatty cardinal. Now, 

under headstone-
heavy (and just as gray)
skies, it's become a lot simpler 

to fall in line
and recite, in 
alphabetical order,

strict lists 
of their names in 
binomial Latin—

preferably from 
memory, and quick 
as we can—lest we 

get a cold rap 
on the knuckles
again.


Thursday, December 7, 2023

DECEMBER POEM

How fast the day goes 
now that no leaves trap 
and hold the light close. 

Darkness falls, dense 
and cold as snow, 

chokes off 
the sparrows' song, 
covers up the roads—

as if some motor 
in the center of the planet 
were broken 

and the whole thing
quit spinning; 

some weight, 
once imbued with the lightness 
of motion 

has been loosed upon
our souls, and it now threatens 
never to leave.



Wednesday, December 6, 2023

DEAR CONSTANT READER

In short, it's because 
of the strong 
and weak forces

which have carried 
the light (if not 
the word) forward—

those sticky 
invisible prefixes 
to oceans; then

land bridges, city states, 
world wars, and 
gas shortages; 

and finally, the 
galaxy of dense fiber-
optics 

which has criss-
crossed the cold-
shoulder 21st century—

that I should be 
nothing but the voice 
in your mind 

who speaks to you 
as you while you read
down these lines. Yet,

for all of that 
progress, we 
still cannot talk 

about where we'll end 
up together, or how 
we're combined 

without spilling all 
the milk inside 
the universe's circuit board, 

and, faster than light 
can move, splitting 
back in two.


Tuesday, December 5, 2023

ORIGIN OF INERTIA

In the beginning 
was a boundless (read: 
impersonal) world. 

Only, soon it was 
realized that 
nobody wanted this,

and so, quick 
as a cracked 
whip, infinities 

were blunted—then 
separation, 
screaming, and 

television 
were invented. 
But once things 

had a shape to them, 
they could then be 
interrupted.

And though changing 
one's direction seemed
judicious as a strategy, 

all were ill 
prepared to know the
death of isolation—

the suffocating
weight of conservation 
of momentum. 


Monday, December 4, 2023

THE FIRST EVER LOVE POEM

goes something 
like this:
in our race 

to forever, 
I tend 
towards a city—

but you
place your bets 
on wending 

like a river. 
The significance 
of this is, 

as yet, 
still unclear, but 
suffice it 

to say: I persist;
you defer. 
I am 

precise, 
whereas you
are not sure. 

And my 
raison d'etre is 
to exist. But 

yours is 
to adjust—
to endure. 


Friday, December 1, 2023

COMFORTING THOUGHT

Once you 
are dead, the living 

will be retrofitted 

with only those 
parts of you they can 
endure. 

The monster you were 

will be buried 
in the backyard—

which is to say 
planted there 

to grow its own 
protector, 

afterthought 
by afterthought, 

until all concerned are 
well inured. 
So I guess 

it's true 
what they say: in nature, 

every poison 
comes paired 

with its cure.