WAITING ROOM

The excruciating 

way the second 

hand of the clock 

stalls 

for its small 

eternities, 

as if resting—

as if catching its base- 

sixty breath 

upon chagrined completion 

of its

herculean task—

then stutters 

forward again 

with a jolt 

as if coerced—

as if enslaved 

to time's accretion 

with no will 

or countenance left 

for revolt—

inspires less 

impatience than 

dismay, and less regret 

than a softening 

to sympathetic amity 

toward death.

 

THE REMEMBERING SELF

Want to know the very best 

thing about 

the present? It's that 

every moment 

is still 

our best guess. Whereas 

retrospect 

is a hangman coming 

creeping towards the lever 

which couples 

the slackened noose 

of motive 

with the gravity 

of dis-

ingenuousness.

COUNTERPARTS

In the sterile 

light of 

later autumn, 

fiercely pronged leaves 

of near-indigo 

serve as signals; 

from their twiggy 

bifurcations, 

profuse twinnings

of what's what—

eerie facsimiles

of brass tacks—

stare back, as if 

daring you

to ask: 

which one 

is the original?

WATCHED THOUGHTS

The transparent 

way I panic 

and start to miss the moment,

even as

it's happening; 

the way a certain worry

just explodes

into my head, 

while another one

spares me—leaves me

unmolested; 

the way The Valuable 

has a penchant 

for staying so small 

and revolving around 

the same precious nouns

like elections in stable, 

orbital shells—

all remind me, somehow 

of a child on a carousel, 

deriving less comfort

from the rhythm 

of the ride 

than they do 

from the inexorability 

of a circle—

not to mention 

the surety 

of being 

observed. 

SMALL COURAGE

It's the littlest 

trees—not the gnarly,

grizzled mighty—

which manage to cling 

to their red gold 

leaves longest—as if 

the decadent color 

explorers once sailed 

the world for,

but which now 

falls beneath all earthly 

need for liberation,

still might well 

profit from defense 

against oppressors 

and, as dusk's empire 

swells, be their secret 

to keep. 

HAPPY HOLIDAYS

In lieu of 

talking politics, 

we shall talk 

of rapacity—

flagging for review 

the self-

centeredness of desire; 

by way of proxy 

for the future, 

we will talk about 

the weather—

a climate 

deteriorating more 

quickly than expected. 

Instead 

of the treasure-trove 

of pattern recognition, 

we will joke 

about our love—

then fall silent, praising 

no one present.

Do we really intend, then,

to raze the world 

in order to spare

a pleasant moment? 

What is it 

we're trying 

so hard 

to get rid of? 

INSURGENCY

There is something 

to be gained from

observing the way 

light's recalcitrance 

accumulates 

on a late November day—

when heavy gold rays

strike the trees' 

meager branches 

and seem, 

for the first time 

all year, to outspan them.

And though, as they

must do, they pass

right through,

for a moment, 

they seem to want 

to stiffen and hang,

like jewels 

on a pendant, for a week 

of afternoons—it's as if 

the light knew 

any better than you 

or I do 

how to own more 

than a moment 

in this world, 

how to thwart time, 

how to own it,

how to stay. 

RECURSION

What is it like 

to partake 

in the next life? 

What would it take 

to be—and stay 

at peace?

Experiment: stand alone 

at dusk, 

trying sincerely 

to picture the deceased 

as agile, pliant; 

as distant and laughing; 

as slapping 

at the silver 

waters—privately, 

but all 

together—shining 

in an endless sea.

*

Everything still 

reminds us 

of them—

especially the way 

they still remind us 

of all the things

they never can be.

CATCH

The truth can't be 

refused by the lowest-

lying waterhshed: 

now plus acceleration 

due to gravity

equals then;

in dribs and drabs, here 

must diffuse 

into there. 

If only 

a washbasin 

could be invented 

to collect the bygone 

present which 

condenses from thin air—

to preserve the raw 

and the too-

haunted things, 

and forestall them awhile 

from that freefall 

into yet—

a vessel to protect 

the still-

pure and unadulterated, 

to hold 

the only thing 

we can know

and prohibit 

even the littlest 

spill. 

DON'T OVERTHINK THIS ONE

The goal of all thought 

is to redirect

itself; 

to reach a grand end—

and then

to start over. 

In that sense, reflection 

is a threat 

to survival; 

careful second guessing, 

a burial plot. 

A retrospective lesson

reads a lot

like a tombstone—

a tombstone which, 

to instinct, also 

doubles as a roadblock,

bringing wild movement 

to a screeching halt. 

CHRISTMAS COMES EARLY

V of gray geese

plows the air 

of necessity,

trawling invisibly 

the last temperate clouds—

scours dull belief 

in the promise 

of winter

intoned in a far-off

untroublesome melody—

clears a fleet path 

for that 

heavenly peace 

in which, perchance, 

to sleep.

MATURITY

As flocks 

of pigeons 

sweep low 

above fountains 

in tacit sync—

then break—

then repeat;

as the once-

august leaves 

now stuff gutters 

and steep 

leftover water 

into strange,

reddish tea—

so too may

equanimity 

advance 

and retreat, 

taking no more 

or less pleasure 

in either 

than the craving 

for stability 

used to take   

in each. 

NIGHTMARE

Everything out there 

being patently 

what it is: 

two 

succeeding one, old age 

displacing youth—

no hiroglyphs 

to illustrate the march 

of our days, 

no metaphors 

to explicate as proof—

and definitely 

no lessons to tease 

from eternity's 

hashed miscellany; 

our tongues 

fuzzing over, 

turning gray-green

from atrophy—

by which you'd think

I might really mean 

apathy—but no, 

I don't, 

sadly.

BEYOND ME

Decades now, 

the leaves 

have been whispering

in the waxing, 

then waning winds

of acceptance,

but still as yet 

can't translate  

the fathomless—

still can't tell me 

what 

you meant. 

THIS TOO

          The heaventree of stars hung with 

          humid nightblue fruit.

               -James Joyce

Gazing up, one sees 

that burnished 

heaventree of stars—

feels its light 

not with the inference  

of thought, but 

that immediacy 

usually reserved 

for the heart—and still 

may call the night 

sky uniformly 

black, 

the universe empty, 

impassible,

and dark.

RECOMPOSED

Just ask 

these shadows 

lagging behind us: 

there's no such thing 

as forethought 

or freedom of design; 

everything we realize

is a light blast 

that's been red-shifted—

every action, a super 

massive black 

hole scrambling 

to crush, then reprise 

our imperative 

past. 

SURFEIT

By November, 

wet maple leaves 

plaster the fence—

each one

the color of fired 

clay, or flesh—

each one so insistent, 

so barbed 

and particular—and yet, 

much like every 

fiercely blazoned 

universe out there: 

divisible 

by billions, if not 

by the infinite;

in the eye

of an observer, identical 

to its neighbor. 

SMALL COMFORT

It's getting dark 

early now, 

like the evening 

you died—

the evening 

you finally 

were finished 

with dying. 

THE PROCESS

One poem 

is an ordinarily  

busy street,

uncannily deserted 

on Christmas Eve; 

Another is us 

from the future,

viewed through 

a foggy plate glass,

hugging strangers.

But we trust 

these odd strings

of familiar things

whose swings 

mean so little,

yet explain

to a tee 

the phyiscs 

of our psychical need 

to careen.