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. 

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.

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. 

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?  

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.

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."

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. 

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. 

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. 

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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. 

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. 

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.