KOYANNISQATSI

I like 

to think my mind 

moves pretty quick, 

but I'm 

shamefully slow 

wherever 

words are concerned. 

If only you 

and I could speak 

in those 

broken chord 

arpeggios 

like the kind 

Philip Glass chose 

for a film with 

no speaking roles. 

Because really, it's just 

there 

in the shimmering 

depths to which

talk won't go

where 

tender, nameless, 

feeling grows.

WHEN LIFE GIVES YOU ANCHOVIES

To the even-

tempered fish 

who once 

were minding 

their own business

as placid blades 

of bluish silver 

foraging in 

brackish water—

but who now 

lie splayed 

out end-

to-end inside 

this golden

pull-tab can: 

it's a shame about 

your heads, but 

do you really 

even miss them? 

I used to think

I would 

for sure. But 

I don't seem to

know anymore.

INTERCOURSE

These conversations never go 

as smooth as 

you would hope. 

But then: even the water 

that flows 

from the tap, 

at some scale (you

must admit), is 

full of gaps—so

the same must hold true

for the very air 

you exhale—

to say nothing

of those quips, 

which initially set sail

with such zeal

on each rocky 

and pockmarked gale 

(each one assuming 

a placid landing,

and each intended 

to sound juicy 

as a ripe fruit), but which 

rather quickly 

find themselves 

marooned 

and full of pits.

DIRTY WORK

If emotion 

is a skill, we are novices, 

all—apprentices  

to passion until 

the day we are retired. 

Those magical potions 

we strive to learn 

and perfect—

drafts of warmth 

and respect for one another—

are diluted  

in solutions of pure frustration,

sugared dust of tenderness 

bound-up 

in poison lust.

Even the lightning-

strike hex 

of our grief 

gets obscured by 

anger, self-

pity, disbelief—to say nothing of 

the willow wand 

of love, which, at the slightest

touch, combusts. 

Nowhere does there seem to be 

so much as a journeyman we  

can learn from. 

Surely, in the absence 

of some reprimanding master, 

a job like this 

will be the 

death of us.

DIRGE

Like a black 

hole in deep 

space, 

only the assumed shape 

of goneness 

can be found

in the heat 

glow of tacit 

bereft regrets, 

unarticulable  

laments, 

and relieved 

not-yets—which 

in our silence, 

tend 

to spiral,

iridescent,

all around it. 

POSTMORTEM

In our personal lives,

it takes 

less than a second 

to make 

the decision 

that unleashes 

the pandemic 

which defies 

vaccination. 

But even with 

hindsight expanding 

our compassion,

we question

how much longer 

the forgetting 

will take. It seems

that wishing, 

as we did, when 

we were young 

and health 

was given 

for such

stable, contiguous, 

durable lives 

might have been 

our first 

mistake.

CLEMENCY

In the frosted 

gloom again

at the knife-edge 

of freezing, 

when

even the rain 

is starting to rain—

and where 

even the shadows 

will not follow

where you're walking—

the usual tingle 

at the base 

of your neck 

feels less like 

the shiver 

you remember from before 

and more like 

the potent 

that, despite your 

nonacceptance—and 

to your grim displeasure—

somewhere far 

away from here 

right now, you're 

being prayed for.

TRESPASSED AGAINST

As often, 

outdoor solitude 

invites the incursion, 

just after 

dawn, of one 

dismal, haughty crow 

who damns

from the dormer with her 

strident proclamations, 

disrupting

my nascent and

fragile meditation. 

Savor your 

idea of today 

while you can,

goes her dread-

fully flip-yet-

incessant incantation, 

for no man's 

execution 

ever goes to plan.

STING OPERATION

For what feels 

like years, I've been 

staked-out 

on the perimeter. 

I've been quiet, still,

and careful not to 

ruffle any of the local 

toughs' feathers. 

I've refined 

my hypotheses, 

appointed 

all my deputies, 

cleaned and maintained 

my surveillance equipment. 

I've got mirror shades, 

caution tape, 

thermoses, 

toothpicks. 

The mic's hot 

and strapped-on 

underneath a layer 

of Kevlar.

Any minute now, 

I'll chance upon 

the character I'm 

looking for: 

I will catch 

the strange 

man I'm afraid 

I'm becoming 

red-handed 

in the act 

of relaxing 

for a change. 

EQUITY

After years spent 

waiting for 

impoverishment to worsen 

or ignorance 

to lessen—

for tall ships 

which tread the air 

to bear us 

away or 

strand us here, 

the truth of who 

and what we are 

may finally strike us 

as priceless 

in its ordinariness: 

our ticket 

to ride has been 

punched all along, 

and we've already 

taken what the world 

has to offer.

Every moment 

has a diamond in it; 

we are all 

so rich 

that nobody is. 

NABOKOV'S FAVORITE WORD IS MAUVE

          Nabokov used the word “mauve” 44 times 

          as often as one would expect.

          —Ben Blatt, in The Guardian

Do you think it was love 

of mauve that 

drove Nabokov, 

or merely the need 

to state things 

in-betweenly:

how even this rough 

life's most 

beautiful bruises 

are paler 

than purple, yet murkier 

than pink—and how

even the cleanest idea 

we tend to eye 

suspiciously

and can't resist giving it 

just the littlest shove 

with our lips? 

A REPRISAL

Ancient 

yet childish—

nebulous 

but explicit—

the January wind 

has been

bellowing again,

shellacking 

its admonishing 

breath of right angles 

onto every 

svelte branch 

and bare,

contoured avenue 

and lambasting 

all who dare

navigate those streets 

for things 

we didn't do 

in that bygone year—

but meant to. 

JANUARY UPRISING

If a life must be such 

that its winter always comes—

and with it, 

the bitter, lonely terminus

of nakedness in 

shadowed cold—

in lieu of prostrating 

and dreaming of June, 

let me end it

noiseless, focused, breathless, 

and standing on my own 

two feet—

just like every naked, fearless 

tree I've ever seen.

HOMEBODY

Like the potpourri 

of states which 

comprise some sprawling country, 

there are states 

of mind, too, which aren't 

so easily reached.

A Floridian

thinks twice before day-

tripping to Alaska—so 

who are you 

to expect your native 

worry and despondency 

to impulsively 

agree to go and 

rent a tandem bike 

and joyride their way 

to the border 

of equanimity? 

PACKAGE INSERT

Warning: hyper-

focus on anything

as precious 

as consciousness—

as ethereal

and mysterious  

as this inkling 

we exist—

may make it feel

from the inside 

like the smallest

loss is total. 

To one day 

be ordered 

to slip off

the coil will

of course sound 

unconscionable—but 

even to sleep 

(with its mere

"perchance"

of dreaming) 

may at best

seem a gamble—

and at worst, 

a betrayal. 

A TREATISE OF HUMAN NATURE

Every time 

a cell splits, do you think 

it hurts? 

Most creatures 

I've encountered 

would sooner die 

than be divided, 

yet somehow, all our 

littlest pieces 

suffer just this 

without the slightest 

demur. 

There is much 

to be learned from this 

lack of histrionics, I suspect—

and yet still, 

my eyes prefer 

to linger 

on the ravings 

of Hume to 

biology books—

and I'm quick 

to assent to 

destruction of the world 

in order to spare 

the scratching 

of my finger.

THAT IS NOT THAT

It's hard 

to understand 

just how much 

space expands 

as soon as its

collapse 

is grasped. 

The clockwork 

movement 

of the gears 

can't move anyone 

to tears 

unless they 

observe 

that there 

aren't any gears.

In other words: 

the rapture 

of freedom 

only comes 

with admittance 

that there's nothing 

whatever to be 

captured—or to capture. 

It's a pittance 

when you 

comprehend 

that all of this

is emptiness..

But fortunes 

are brokered 

whenever 

you notice that

emptiness 

(nonetheless)

appears. 

POTENTIALITY BITES

Most would envy a god 

who lives on 

all branches of the wave function. 

But in truth, this poor deity—

this miserable goblin, this 

hideous demon—

would be nothing 

like even the 

worst of us

who still feel pride 

when looking back 

on a well-chosen action.

For a creature 

as all-powerful and 

all-piteous as this

would be shackled  

to its own cache 

of ruinous knowledge 

that even good choices 

place hard limits on 

experience—

that each 

lucky break, every 

pleasant interaction 

must deny an infinity 

of beautiful things 

its existence.

DEAD RECKONING

Many winter nights, 

instead of seeking 

pardon—

or, in lieu 

of the warmth of 

reconciliation, 

simply to sooth and 

unburden one another—

we stagger as sailors 

alone out of doors 

and search the night 

sky for our 

direction. As if 

the constellations 

even grasped their 

own existence.

As if those storied

pictures in the stars

owed any explanation 

or solace 

to ours.

UNDO

Chalkboard erasers, pink 

rubber, back-

space keys: all 

handy certainly, but 

what do we really 

know about their nature? 

It seems like

every erasure we 

could possibly make 

still leaves crumbs 

in its wake and/or

takes extra work—so

how the hell 

do we presume 

to ruin 

the fact that 

we never should have 

acted at all? 

Is there really any 

positive action 

we can undertake 

that will ever 

add up to complete

subtraction 

and grant us our

sacred lost 

energy back? 

PURSUANT TO YOU

I suppose it’s cruel 

of me to 

hide the homemade 

smile I used to use 

to move you 

from dubious 

to close to me. But then,

even the frayed 

ends of this 

chase require fuel. 

Alone at the finish (my having, 

at last,  

won the race)

with my bare 

face pressed against 

the glass 

that overlooks 

the cage you once named 

your favorite place, 

I think it's safe 

to admit 

to the silent 

pool of frosty gray 

that you've 

long since 

stopped chasing me anyway,

and I've 

long since lost 

my cool.

WISDOM

It's not, as supposed, 

that the youth 

do not know 

that they're all going to die 

without their teeth 

in the end. No,

the real designation 

of those who are 

giving,

and tender, 

and finespun, and 

slight enough 

to be young 

is: they don't understand that, 

until the end comes, 

they'll be 

more than willing 

to pull out each molar, 

one 

after the other—just 

to keep living.