Wednesday, July 31, 2024

ALADDIN SANE

Instead of demanding 
that he live 
forever

(against the rules 
anyway, to hear it from 
its servant's mouth), 

the unlikely true master 
of the power 
of that lamp 

merely rubbed it 
gently as he wished 
under his breath 

for a swift but lasting 
end to his perennial 
fear of death.


Tuesday, July 30, 2024

THE SHORT POEM

Like a wink of the eye 
it departs 
as it arrives; 

it's an opening gambit,
sans the tedium 
subsequent

to the knock-em-down, 
drag-em-out grudge match 
which follows it.

But it surely isn't 
some boldly 
unsinkable Titanic;

it's more like
a kayak 
which cannot be tipped 

because it's small enough 
to fit between 
the waves 

of all our lives—scanty, 
yet unflappably 
demanding: it survives.


Monday, July 29, 2024

MARKET VOLATILITY

Shapely runes 
I gather 

with such
passion every morning, 

by evening, speak 
a language 

I no longer 
understand. 


Friday, July 26, 2024

THE TRAGIC HERO SOLILOQUIZES

Not infrequently, there are evenings
when every light 
is green 

on the bleary 
return-trip 
from the place I was meant to be—

which is a way I have
of knowing 
that I'm a whole universe,

but I always, 
impossibly, seem to be trapped 
inside another universe. 


Thursday, July 25, 2024

SUMMER BREAK

Finally, the sound 
of children
flooding the post-rain park, 

squealing 
at earthworms, eager 
to learn things.


Wednesday, July 24, 2024

ODE ON THE LACK OF A GRECIAN URN

I don't know 
about quietness, 
but I'm sure

when formlessness 
divorces its brides, 

it never says
goodbye; 
it just whispers

an empty
see you later.
Okay, so

maybe beauty 
isn't truth,

but sometimes, it's 
truth's and my 
mediator.


Tuesday, July 23, 2024

GHOSTWRITTEN

Instead of composing,
I've been sitting 
in the kitchen, 

listening 
for silence, but hearing 
myself think

that just 
doing nothing 
is a kind of action,

and action 
is a kind
of music.

Monday, July 22, 2024

JOB DESCRIPTION

Is your hobby 
to take 
note of things?—

is that phosphorescent sheen 
of night clouds rimming 
city skies 

greener 
or bluer than the evening 
before? 

If the time it takes 
for the furniture 
to grimace, or 

for every flower 
to earn its
own word—

and each word, 
all the time it requires 
to mean

then, you might qualify 
as our key change, 
as our modulator,

as that flat sixth 
which transmogrifies the mode 
of the day;

redresser 
of all 

status quos, recoverer 
of songbirds—

over 
and over again, 
but always

in some 
new way.


Friday, July 19, 2024

SELF-DEFENSE WEAPONS

We all like 
to think we've 

closed the book 
on such studies, but 

could it be 
that, evolutionarily, 

the "purpose" of these 
tongues was 

not so much 
to speak 

as to 
tunnel themselves

firmly 
into our cheeks

as we 
effortfully cultivated 

a relationship 
with our melancholy 

which allowed us 
as a species 

to never mean 
what we feel,

to feel only
what we know,

and worst (read: most 
advantageous)

of all—to never know 
what that means?


Thursday, July 18, 2024

DELIMITED

It's just as I thought: 
this evening's 
dim tide,

mauve-gold and 
unfolding
gradually before me, 

at last reveals 
not bewitched bliss
but tranquility—

to be just one term
of a sprawling 
equation—

to humbly read 
proofs until 
glumly convinced

that absolute 
anything 
does not exist.


Wednesday, July 17, 2024

QUICK HITS

As the distance
increases, all images 
dissolve themselves—

all objects, 
in the big 
bang, white hot 

mania 
of their expansion, 

are spun into the beatific 
clichés of dime-
store mysteries. 

Take that distant 
undulating 

scramble 
of pigeons, for instance;
 
to witness it 
hurtle 
toward cheap abstraction, 

like a cut-rate 
cigarette, is  
still my small pleasure—although

to not comprehend 
what the purpose 
or goal is 

still my great 
privilege.


Tuesday, July 16, 2024

NIGHTMARE

One by one, but soon
in multiplying 
throngs,

our words 
grab experiences, 
hold them down, 

crack them wide
open, and feast upon their 
contents. 

No one had told us 
they were so strong.

Yet we fail 
to connect this 

to the zombie 
apocalypse we'd 
read about; 

so we go right 
on talking, 

doomed, like 
nothing's even wrong. 


Monday, July 15, 2024

LATE STYLE

Now, as then, 
we write essays—op-eds.

Only, now 
that we aren't being 
graded on them, we must 

cash-out our paychecks 
and get numb 
to feel correct.

But, 
worse than 
"not working," 

we no longer find it
necessary. 

*

What's left 
when the symbols 
we once held 

hostage 
refuse to validate us,

other than a sense 
of satisfaction 

which our children 
find embarrassing?

*

One electron, 
it's been shown,

will emit  
its own photons. 

Another electron 
swallows them 
up again.

The world is 
the world; we have had 
no effect. 


Friday, July 12, 2024

BUCKLE UP

I have held forth 
before, of course, 

about my clambering 
into the car—

the weapon 
on wheels—
the metal machine—

the loud suit 
of armor—called language 

and imperiously putting 
the pedal to the floor. 
But 

what I hadn't 
mentioned earlier 

was that I
never learned 
to steer, 

so that renegade DeLorean  
just excursions 
where it wants, 

and I'm frightened 
a little 

to be its servant 
from inside it—

less like a storyteller 
mowing down his readers, 

and more like 
a hapless country squire 

who used to dream always 
of becoming a knight 

but never 
of having to go 
to war.


Thursday, July 11, 2024

PERSONIFICATION

The way the light 
by which I

write is 
elemental—

but in no sense 
compulsory. 

The way the wind 
wends through birch trees 

to buffet me in 
short sleeves 

at this spot 
on the planet

on this particular instant, 
but never 

can be said to have 
properly had a beginning. 

Perhaps this 
is what we mean 

by essential:
a thing like hunger

which never was 
invented, yet

comes to us unbidden,
grabs hold 

of the void in us firmly 
by the handle, 
 
and fills it 
to the brim.



Wednesday, July 10, 2024

HEAD-ON

After everyone who smiles 
when they say your name 
has died—

after every insincere 
prophet out there
eye-witness-testifies—

after the government 
files are 
declassified 

and you learn, 
as the tide 
turns, that God 

was never 
on your side—then 

you may know 
how the horror film 
heroine feels: 

like the black hole 
at the center 
of the universe,

or the last one 
which vicissitude has 
deigned to leave alive—

not out of grace 
or compassion, 

but as a plot line,
as test 
of her capacity 

to look head-on
at the epiphany 
as it dawns in her mind 

that, this whole time, 
the calls have been 
coming from inside. 


Tuesday, July 9, 2024

INDEPENDENCE DAY

Cool morning, 
for July;
white dew intensifying 

scent off the pines.
No more 

tapped mines as 
relationship metaphors;
silence 

is general—freedom 
is mine. 



Monday, July 8, 2024

WELCOME TO MY MASTERCLASS

Just know this: 
a certain chill 
is essential.

An iciness, 
wherever it's 
applied, 

will act as a signal 
to bring blood 
to that place.

In just the same 
way, you can't 
pontificate 

or ramble; 
you must write 
with restraint 

before your 
audience 
will assemble

or any latent 
meaning can begin 
to radiate. 


Friday, July 5, 2024

MUSEUM PIECE

How cruel 
that the futile, over time, 
becomes the natural—

that barbarism, 
give or take a few 
millennia, grows canonical. 

Temples burn 
and cave paintings fade, 
but 

something harsh 
and unusual 
remains in their material—

some residue in the ash 
of our past inhumanity
yearns to be discovered.

And when, at last, 
that savagery's 
unearthed, 

lifted 
and placed under glass 
on display, 

we pay 
in cash, and we form 
a neat queue 

to view for ourselves 
how little 
has changed. 


Wednesday, July 3, 2024

DISLIKE

It's a thrill we feel 
deep in our bones, this 
self-loathing.

For once, we are
at one. For once, 
we are part of something—

we are part of 
the problem; 
we are wolves

in wolves' clothing, 
and we hunt our own
revulsion—not 

with a fury, 
or even 
as a joke, but 

because we're so 
engrossed by vulnerability 
exposed 

that we long to catch 
up with our goldbricking
souls

and hold them so close
that they choke.


Tuesday, July 2, 2024

PROP POEM

Relax, dear 
reader, you don't 
have to stick 'em up; 

this poem's not 
fully-loaded like 
Leaves of Grass was

this poem (compared 
to that one) is more like 
a cap gun.

You know how, 
sometimes, you feel braver holding
something in your hand, 

more for the look 
and the feeling 
than anything?

But it's safer
if you practice with 
something more synthetic 

as you toy 
with the idea
of hauling-off eventually 

and holding-up 
your audience with
something that's authentic. 


Monday, July 1, 2024

SOLITARY CONFINEMENT

I think I 
get it now: these bodies
aren't temples—

they are small
locked rooms, which 

we're doomed 
to get to know 
too well

after pacing them
in circles 
for forty years or more. 

Before long, we know
the placement 
to the millimeter
 
and relish 
the smell 

of every stained 
stick and nicked-
up corner of their furniture.

And soon, 
we become so at-one 
with all the clutter 

that we don't think 
to to clean 

or run a quick 
vacuum 
underneath it anymore,

because 
even though we 
can't function without it, 

we don't even know 
it's there.