XMAS VACATION

Looking out at last, 

an esoteric sight made simple

unties some Gordian 

knot in the heart: 

the distant rumpled

office buildings 

hang there lighter 

in the wind-dimpled air, 

looking more frail 

in weak afternoon light 

and empty now 

of all who might 

have illumined the lamps 

that would yellow their windows. 

Rarely does such a singular quiet 

chime with such curious harmony;

and only once 

or twice a year, maybe, 

does such solitude and emptiness 

invite anticipation 

and foster in us this 

benign repose. 

HOSTAGE

If you're reading this, 

it's already too late; 

you are helpless 

as a goddamned lamb;

You've been forced 

to guess forensics 

from these negatives 

of experience. 

Meaning reigns  

like rain rains—

you must 

try to understand. 

NEW YEAR'S RESOLUTION

To try again 

at wanting 

to be honest, 

to be common. 

To learn from the young 

to be blithe 

but look sullen. 

To break it 

into pieces 

too profuse 

to be included. 

To quit trying 

to fix it, 

accept it, 

or reject it—but 

just to learn 

from my cruelty 

and rudeness 

how best 

to be human.

EASY COME EASY GO

Most would agree 

that survival 

is transactional—

that every private

joke and vision,

no matter how 

expensive, hard won, 

or implausible,

in some sense

is cheap, since it's both 

extant and available. 

But that still doesn't mean 

we can afford 

what we need,

or that we won't get killed 

on the cost 

of the upkeep. 

Just ask these meningitic 

December trees 

(although they probably 

don't need to tell you) 

how—precious or ubiquitous, 

pragmatic or unnecessary—

there came no warranties 

on their latterly defective 

umbrellas of leaves. 

ARS ARTIS

Credit 

where credit 

is due: 

to the Long Run—

when words, 

though they 

aren't yours,

will still come 

unbidden. Under 

the old sun, 

nothing 

is new—but 

rearranging its

small bits 

is still called 

a breakthrough. 

THE POEM I DELETED BEFORE I WROTE THIS ONE

was curved 

like the intricate

folds of a rose petal;

each line—frail 

and furtive and perfumed 

with allusion—

would bend back 

on the last in soft 

laps of recursion  

to cradle 

at its absent center

such untarnished answers 

to all of my 

most pressing 

metaphysical questions 

that each seemed 

to gleam like a galaxy

of water, 

spiraled-out 

and kissing its neighbor 

in the interstellar void. 

And yet, 

despite the untold wonders 

of insight it contained, 

I feel better 

just for knowing 

I am willing to destroy

and satisfied 

that I have passed a test 

I often flounder at:

that of applying 

the courage required 

to extinguish information 

whether or not 

I am sure of its value—

and whether 

it's equal to 

or greater than the hubris 

of creation. 

LOGOS

Under the cover 

of another darkly 

dawning day in December, 

I can just make out 

the distant shapes 

of dozens of hectoring 

arboreal animals—

but despite the barren 

blankness which 

surrounds them, 

their incessant clamor 

in the snarl of branches 

is clear and bright 

and new and urgent.

At the end of the year, 

they sing to one other,

not of the new 

world to come 

hereafter, but, 

over and over, 

of all that came before—

distilled 

to a fusillade of one 

repeating word. 

Being a poor excuse 

for bird, I myself 

am not sure, 

but I think that word 

must be immemorial: 

that which must not  

be forgotten, 

but cannot be 

remembered, either.

WINTER BREAK

Windsound 

of untold 

ice-tongued bells; 

pleasurably 

sharp snick 

of salt 

beneath boot soles—

I am not going 

to work today; 

I am not 

sure what 

else to say. 

*

Time's arrow, so much 

like your sun-

illumined shadow, 

no matter where

or how you roam, is always 

pointed elsewhere. 

Infinity 

is the feeling you get

that you might, 

like a beam of star-

light, strain the borders 

of forever; 

while eternity 

is the way the thieving 

darkness seems to cling—

that sinking feeling 

of seeing 

past the universe 

but always, interminably 

of being 

right there. 

DAILY DRIVER

If death is a hotshot 

sadomasochistic stunt pilot, 

desperation is 

the unassuming, 

ruthlessly efficient 

chauffeur of my life—

impeccably liveried, 

morning, noon, and night

and willing to work 

for the pittance

of experience—

I'm so pleased

to watch it weave 

around the traffic 

of my common sense, 

bypassing 

all self-respect

to get me 

to the tomb 

on time. 

TOTEM

To the woodpecker—

little desperate-

ly industrious sap sucker, 

pilfering what 

deaf torpid 

insects you can 

and extracting, 

while you're at it,

whatever little bits 

of calcified sweetness 

this maple may

have scrimped 

and stowed away 

in the marrow of its 

snow covered limbs: 

what advice do you proffer 

for the winter ahead? 

With your dots 

and mad dashes, 

what Morse code 

message do you send

to the feather-

poor soul which is 

mired down below? 

Grim or perseverant—

which posture 

toward the end 

do you portend for all 

the living and their 

tokens of the dead? 

D-LIST

Most of us wish  

to be famous 

for our looks,

but the fact is 

a beautiful face 

is half-distinctive, 

half-ambiguous. 

Not incisive; 

not disgusting—

like a sudden 

vague pang 

of recognition 

through the rain. 

What we want 

more than fortune

and way more 

than fame 

is the subtle power 

to trigger nostalgia; 

to make another 

tingle with suspicion 

and that lust 

for just in case;

not to be seen, 

but to have been 

seen somewhere before;

not to be named, 

but at last

to be placed.  

HARMONY I

My hurts 

are not your hurts—

but I’ve heard they might 

vibrate 

sympathetically; 

and that, at least 

to me, is music. 

HOW MANY ANGELS CAN DANCE ON THE HEAD OF A PIN?

It seems God 

is omnipotent 

like the novelist is: 

from Adam and Eve 

to Japheth, Shem, and Ham, 

many of his 

best characters 

just "got away" from him.

*

Religious conviction 

is math 

without numbers,

gravity 

that doesn't attract;

it's all the little things 

without their preponderance—

as if 

the breadth 

of the next world 

could outstrip 

this one's 

impermanence.  

*

The number of galaxies 

is now thought 

to be so numerous 

as to border on 

the commomplace

and conjure up 

the frivolous;

points of light 

so ubiquitous, 

they're used 

to end independent 

clauses.

The grains of sand 

in Saturn's rings 

and the surplus of it 

which fringes our beaches 

number infinitely more 

than all the humans 

who have ever lived, 

but still less 

than all the words 

we collect 

to fill in the smallest

awkward pauses. 

THE HARD PROBLEM

We like to think 

of our thoughts 

as cosmic objects:

true, most of them 

are space junk—orphan 

asteroids and comets 

with tails made of dust 

debris, and ice chunks—

but a few bright ideas 

really capture our attention, 

and we call these 

main attractions 

stalwart stars 

and pilgrim planets. 

But we mustn't forget 

that, from masters thesis 

to default-mode chatter, 

all of these are really

just disturbances

of matter 

in the vast and untearable 

space-time known as 

consciousness, 

bending it and warping it 

to their own 

obtuse purposes, 

but nonetheless always 

so hopelessly embedded—

so enmeshed in the limitless, 

and purposeless fabric 

which is alternately

known as "what it's like" 

and "how it is." 

FROZEN ASSETS

Rife with 

the numb white of ice 

though it is, 

the grizzled old 

December wind 

can't quite 

erase these last 

riots of leaf color—

such fortunes 

of mock-gold 

and ember-red treasures 

as my forebearers 

greedily burned 

down the world for 

now cached (as if 

under glass) 

on the stiff

ice-shagged branches, 

soon 

to disintegrate, yet 

transcending all transaction—

an unprofitable sight

with the year 

almost done

which is 

current to all

and currency 

to no one. 

CODEPENDENTS

You know 

this body 

will betray you 

like Judas—

if, that is, 

your continued use 

does not undermine

and undo it first.

It's less 

a game of chicken 

than a suicide 

mission, which 

neither of you 

can hope to win—

and yet, 

neither can cope 

with the other's 

refusing.

HARVEST

With most of this 

city still bugged-

out for environs 

in the moon-

swallowed wake 

of another Thanksgiving, 

I pause 

to regard my growing 

streetlamp celebrity—

my analog feed, 

which keeps 

blowing up—

not with follows, 

but with paw-

tracked snow; 

not with tweets, 

but caws. 

WHERE WERE YOU WHEN I MADE THE WORLD?

I do not want 

to ask that question; 

what I want is to stand 

underneath 

and inside it—

to feel it accrete 

around me like a pearl 

around a grain of sand, 

until I'm not the one 

who is doing the asking; 

I am the one who is 

doing the accretion—

dancing like 

dust coalescing 

around 

what wonder 

must be lost 

whenever we seek an answer; 

when we sellout 

our attention, 

or turn it upside-down 

and watch 

the nothing that was in there 

fall back to the ground.

AUTOPILOT

After each 

alarm, the precious 

interim 

of boredom.

A carapace of dust 

begins to form 

around the plangent 

call to self-harm—

but unfortunately, 

also around

the one to self-

report. 

*

It manifests less 

like destiny 

than cruise control 

or autopilot. 

After a while, 

you feel blessed 

to have no choice; 

Never mind the abyss; 

you have gazed 

at the on-and-off blinking 

lights of you life—

those phased 

rhythmic stutters 

of your days and nights— 

for so long 

that you've become 

hypnotized by the sight 

of repetition's ocean, 

where thoughts don't dare 

to delve 

for fear of drowning;

where all your burdens 

still exist, but 

seem to lift 

and drop themselves.  

YOU NEVER KNOW

Suppose for a moment: 

ambition's not the issue. 

Short of money, looks, 

and the privilege 

of ambivalence, 

what on Earth else 

could be wrong with you?  

*

Growing older 

is like binging 

a riveting 

series on Netflix, 

desperate to know 

what comes next—but 

in reverse: 

all of the whispers, 

the taste of their lips—

even the texture 

of that fabric 

on your fingers—

disappears; it

starts rushing backwards 

in a torrent 

as you sit there 

transfixed before 

all you never learned. 

You realize (for instance), 

watching found families 

back away from one another 

and old lovers shrink. 

and smooth-out. and weaken, 

that all along, 

you'd been too glib 

or hasty 

when you said you knew love;

what you really felt 

(or thought you did) 

was loveliness 

mixed with safety. 

*

Skin blushes, 

sugar rushes, 

pleasure felt in rhyming—

how much of this 

would still be important 

with the Great 

Lakes dried-up 

and the west coast 

in the ocean? 

You cannot be sure,
so you'd better list 

everything. 

CONDOLENCES

"Not half bad!" cheep 

the migrating 

barn swallows 

as they bed down 

for the evening in the cart 

outside the store. 

But when I ask them 

to elaborate, they only keep 

repeating themselves,

so I continue 

through the lot alone 

on my pedestrian chore. 

Though admittedly

a little more 

slowly than before—

thinking, after all, 

I've got things 

to get done, 

and others 

to get over—

but also, now

a few 

on which to land 

until tomorrow. 

HARD MODE

What I want 

is to have been given 

all the answers 

in advance. 

What I get instead 

are platitudes, 

highlights, 

spot-lit, 

slowly rotating 

carousels of facts—

not collected, 

but selected prose. 

And how tempting it is 

to punch in 

the cheat code; 

to let one thing, 

not  support, but 

stand in for another; 

for dessert to take 

the place of dinner. 

But no, there's not 

an app for that. 

The map is not 

the territory—

no matter 

how intricate 

or lovingly rendered. 

Facts are not objects; 

truth is not beauty; 

and beauty 

is something more 

than order.  

HOT TOPIC

The saving grace 

of intrusive thoughts 

is how they 

never seem to make themselves 

at home,

how each 

is preempted, and prevents 

the last one

from getting stuck 

in the flow. 

*

Obscure loops 

of bird slang 

buffeting me 

from the roof in 

the morning

like shrill orbits 

around a supermassive 

object, long-collapsed; 

like empty electron shells 

around a hydrogen atom. 

all going nowhere 

in the most urgent fashion; 

like a time-lapse 

of doomed bees in what's left 

of autumn flowers—

showing me there's always 

something to remember, 

even if I only know that

because I have forgotten. 

*

The hottest gift 

this Christmas season 

is suspension 

of your disbelief 

that, unlike loneliness 

or empty space, 

need is a hole 

you can fill 

with itself. 

COAT OF ARMS

November rose 

near the fence, you're 

an argument—

tattered, not fragrant;

more thorns 

than petals—yet 

fierce enough 

to be here, 

to press a point 

that no longer matters—

to voice your concern 

for childless mothers 

and endangered 

pink elephants; 

for punk rock dads 

whose roots are showing

and half-novels mired 

in dark locked drawers—

in short, 

for the lost race; 

for the cursed family tree; 

for the not-unhappily dark

and stormy future 

of irrelevance. 

CONFLICT AVOIDANCE

The incongruously sweet 

talk of pigeons 

in the park 

as they run 

interference all 

over one another, 

scrimmaging 

for corn crumbs, plum 

pits, bread crusts—

though strange-

ly attractive, is 

not such a good trick—

this glut 

of rapprochement, 

this spurious gossip,  

this little bit 

of trouble which

adds such spice to dinner

must be indicative 

of something 

I do too, but—

I don't even want to know what. 

COMING TO TERMS

Once-noble savages 

with their hands 

on the monolith 

are now become, not death,

but hapless 

fish 

who got snagged 

in six-pack holders—

who found their fins tangled 

in a flimflam of options, 

or got strangled 

by the disembodied 

washing-hands of explication.

Great inviolate nets 

of cause and effect 

trawled through oceans 

of perspective, seaching 

for the bottom—

but such a glut 

of explanations

was less of a cure 

than a clue 

to what was missing 

and filled precious 

little of that trench 

in the truth; 

now, none are left

to acknowledge 

that depth 

is just height as seen 

from another point of view.

DRUTHERS

In this fairy tale, 

everyone dreams,

not of riches, but 

of becoming 

a meme.

Don't think

wishing stars,

think bondage constellations.

All the children 

"vibe so hard" 

with Rumpelstiltskin's 

POV. 

*

Everyone 

wants to make 

something out of nothing. 

Some would go 

so far as to say 

that truth 

is a parasite 

on beauty; 

if they had their way, 

some would say 

that rhetoric  

is not opposite, 

but prerequisite 

to plague—

that intercourse 

is poison; 

good faith, contagion's 

larval stage. 

GOD EXPLAINS THE JOKE

To the extent 

that it "existed,"

all poetic language 

was a farce 

of your mistaken 

sense of mastery 

over feeling. Sometimes, 

yes, your thoughts 

were scalding-

hot water,

and some pleasingly 

strict little poem 

was the pot;

but were you 

not so taken

with the aptness 

of that metaphor, 

you might have finally 

thought to address 

the question 

of the burner.

IN FOR A PENNY

None of us 

actually asked 

to be born. 

Not the scorn 

or the stress; 

not the laughter 

or the sex 

(however respectively 

uproarious and fabulous); 

not to know hunger 

or the comforting tug 

of fabric on skin, 

or the dizzy 

oblivion after 

spinning pirouettes. 

All that we requested 

was to know 

how it felt 

to draw breath just once 

and to speak—

or, to wit: 

to peek out 

from these shells and 

proclaim our strange dreams. 

But in our vim 

to strike a bargain,

it seems we forgot 

to stipulate that anyone 

should be there

to listen;

and little did we know

how often 

we’d find the need 

to keep on repeating

ourselves, over 

and over again. 

ARTIST'S MOTTO

"In artifice, 

verisimilitude." But 

vice versa? Never. 

To know

is one thing; it's another 

to know better. 

Our lies pollute, 

sure, but all lies 

contain truth,

and somehow 

or other, that truth 

stays pure.

THE SWEET SPOT

Before we forget 

what a relief 

it can be 

to subsist 

at the mercy 

of benevolent despots, 

let us recall 

how kind 

it is of light 

to strike 

a blue glass 

bottle from behind 

and, instead of rushing 

through, to luxuriate 

inside it

and make it appear 

so auspiciously 

illuminated; 

and while we're at it, 

how kind of our 

tyrannical minds 

to insist 

that we be 

captivated—

to concoct 

out of infinite 

bolts of whole cloth 

the gonzo 

conceit of some 

Goldilocks plot

in which 

anything at all's 

just right. 

COUNTDOWN

So spare now, day 

runs ever faster 

into day, 

as if being chased 

by the skeletal thing 

that waits 

at the end of the calendar—

not the birth 

of a savior 

or hard deadline 

imposed by the manic 

boss of elves;

not even 

a rough beast 

from the savagest hell 

who's time shall 

come around again at last 

at the zero hour—

just the endless 

night of unfeeling winter, 

creeping towards our windows

like the undead from the grave, 

coming to invade us 

like the same old blunt 

intrusive thought—or worse

yet, leave us 

to ourselves. 

BIG IF TRUE

Each morning, I make 

the same attempt 

to hone my attention, 

as if breaths were 

sharpened arrowheads I'd 

fashioned out of flint—

little weapons

that existed 

independently from me.

*

Suffering through 

vinyasas on the lawn 

increases one's 

hunger to become 

someone else, 

which only makes it 

harder to swallow 

the arrogant swagger 

of crows a little farther on—

they who pretend

to nothing 

and thus have 

never been uncertain. 

*

True or False? Even 

our sense of diminishment 

ebbs. 

"Even if 

the soul exists, 

what are the chances 

it persists 

outside the body?" 

is a question 

no one can 

bring themselves to ask 

once they've brushed 

up against 

a single spider's web.

ARCANUM

As a loitering kit 

of pigeons 

hears my footfalls 

on the roadway surface 

and explodes, 

so too does my 

head start 

to oscillate and flutter. 

You could say 

they've been trained 

to fear my approach, 

and I, conditioned 

to fear their departure—

but life is no trick 

in a Pavlovian circus; 

its moments chime 

in harmony, not 

on purpose. 

DAYLIGHT SAVING TIME ENDS

All has given in now 

to ponderous shadow—

to slanting, 

to shifting, 

to edges, 

to echo. 

Still, we feel 

we have come too far 

to disappear into 

the hardening air, 

and so we 

console ourselves

that we still feel okay, 

only—

in smaller 

and smaller ways. 

HERDING SCHRÖDINGER’S CATS

No frills with these

new quantum gods;

no sacrifice, no
scapegoat.

And no thrill

to exist 

in two places
at once, because

magic is
as magic does;

all things 

now both

keep the faith
and don’t.

NO EMPERORS

Salved and swaddled 

in the rhinestoned 

robe of words, 

we set off and posed 

from the top 

of life's parade float—

protected, 

we assumed,

from our loitering guilt,

by the glitter of logic 

and self-righteousness

in air quotes.

We explained each small move 

that we made 

as we made it 

as if 

narrative arc 

were a miracle cure 

for the cancer of greed 

turning sense

to Swiss cheese. 

But looking back now 

at the Polaroid 

of memory, 

we can see 

why they laughed as we 

taxied past, waving—

the armor we'd donned 

to oppose 

the old doom 

was lying 

like fiction, not 

clothes, on our skin; 

we looked pale 

and thin—and impossibly 

nude. 

THE WORK

As great stacks 

of starlings ride drafts 

with the speckled 

dust of dead 

suns on their backs 

down to muddy earth 

to needle for worms 

among crumpled 

leaves and 

cigarette packs—

so, feather under feather 

or shingle over shingle, 

do I extend 

those same acts 

to which I'd attended yesterday. 

Life dovetails 

this way—

sprints of elation 

commingle

with creeping death, 

torpor with 

the sun's caress; 

I cannot hurry, 

and I cannot rest. 

ELEMENTS OF STYLE

History may 

be a text block 

of narrative, 

but day-to-day 

life feels more 

like enjambment: 

some snatch 

of it starts out

making sense—

then it doesn't—

then it 

does again, 

looking back. 

*

Destabilization's constancy 

somehow leads 

to satisfaction 

if, and only 

if, it's temporary.

Picture willingly 

submitting to 

the opiate of sleep 

without presuming 

(from experience) 

you'd later 

overthrow its tyranny. 

*

The reader and the writer 

must meet 

in the mirror—

must combine 

to create the totality 

of feeling 

so desperate and dumb 

for the pleasure 

of completion, yet

filling up further

and faster 

with regret 

the closer 

to the end they get.

INSIGNIFICANCE

What is the word 

for when we mean 

to say nothing? 

Curious 

how the winnowing 

of choices 

appalls us 

when it comes, but never 

leaves us furious.

Just as the hub 

of the spinning wheel 

lacks motion, 

at the nexus of all feeling,

where no expectation 

or desire is detected,

perhaps even concepts 

like distinction 

lack a difference;

of course, it's 

a moot point, since 

in the end, it isn't—but 

that last gasp for expression 

could be said 

to be either 

nonexistent 

or unlimited.  

BEST-CASE SCENARIO

As we took in the view, 

we were forced  

to acknowledge 

that all along 

the way, black 

and white had underlied 

by default 

our perception 

of every shade of gray—

and that, no matter 

how enlightened, being 

"part of everything" 

still entailed a separation. 

While we waited 

for our breath to come back,

we finally made 

the calculation: for all 

the elevation 

we felt we'd hard-won, 

we had taken the gentlest 

possible slope 

to the top 

of the locally- 

tallest mountain. 

THE GAME OF LIFE

The object 

is to find 

that which will take 

your living breath away 

before some twee 

reaper comes 

to take your living 

breath away.

And points  

are scored 

each time 

you believe 

that all effects 

are caused, 

that your thoughts 

are connected 

like insects 

caught in spiderwebs,

and that similes 

like the one above 

are magic spells—

superstitious rituals 

built to hammer one thing 

into another 

using dull knives 

like love 

and hope instead 

of nails. 

FIRST PERSON PLURAL

Persons are made 

in the combustion process 

known as loss.

As probabilities exist

as distributions 

prior to measurement, 

so too are we kinds

of palimpsests—

superimpositions

of selves. 

Then, from the smoke and dross 

which surrounds each 

burning manuscript 

booms the thunderous sound 

of many rooms collapsing—

of pluralities 

ruthlessly 

getting paired down. 

*

Our eyes narrow 

at the answer 

to another computation, 

and discretion stands-in 

for the better part of valor—

not because it's better, but 

because it can be measured. 

*

This life, then,

is a pinprick 

at the center 

of a cloud; 

is the pupil 

of a rheumy eye; 

is a wave 

in the sky 

which has been 

slowed down. 

Isn't that 

too dreamy? 

GRADUALISM

The way, most days, 

the sunset 

sky elides red—

sliding instead 

from apricot 

to amber

before folding down 

its somber petals 

of lilac, plum, and lavender—

suggests less 

beauty in defying 

expectation

and more 

in this bleary world's 

refusal to accept 

the premise of a difference 

between "do" 

and "don't" expect. 

THE MASS ORDINARY

Everybody sees 

these crimson-

tipped maple leaves—

some plastered 

to the dewy 

grasses near their feet, 

many still clinging 

to senescent 

mother trees 

like fabulous flags 

to decrepit 

poles of memory.

In their own 

low-key way,

everybody senses 

the individuality, 

the novelty 

of each—

and yet, 

nobody thinks 

to make a distinction 

between which leaf 

is which. Isn't 

that interesting? 

SURRENDER

Star-scoured, 

moon-rinsed, 

the air at the window 

is now bell-clear,

and even thought itself 

becomes cheap 

in a world where distant 

branches dangle 

fresh necklaces of condensation 

in scant white rinds of light. 

There is no way 

to get inside 

the alien absurdity of it,

but no way out 

of the moment, either;

no point of reference, 

no view from outside 

of quiet's totality—

and so, for one more 

night at least, 

we slow our breath, let go 

of what we call belief,

and willingly fall 

into labyrinths of sleep.

KENOSIS

I do not write 

to collect 

my thoughts; 

I write to disassemble,

and then spirit 

them away.

As light 

through a glass lake 

will separate and remain 

only as a little heat 

and motion 

in the waves, 

each day, I divide 

and further 

sublimate my mind 

in the hopes that, 

in the end, I'll have 

materialized my soul—

emptied 

my whole self 

out into the world.

No map to unfurl 

of some buried 

cache of interior life;

if no such inner 

life remains—there's 

nothing left to find.

HOW TO MAKE RELIGION

Mix until 

just combined 

(stir, don't shake) 

equal parts lucky 

to be alive 

and dismayed 

by just how profoundly 

it agitates 

that gratitude 

to have no one 

and nothing specific 

to thank. 

KNOWN UNKNOWNS

Acrobatic finches 

pull and tease 

the hackberry branches,

heedless as birthday 

toddlers ripping 

clean through tissue paper—

discrediting so-called 

eyewitness accounts 

of consciousness 

existing 

at the center, 

and not just 

as a dashed-off 

insouciant flourish 

ringed around 

everything's fringes.

*

Where there's a will, 

there's a way—but 

is the converse 

also true? 

Does a "thing to do"

preordain a doer? 

Could the heart persist  

outside of its armor?

For that matter, 

could "outside"

exist—even a little—

if it didn't surround 

that wound 

called "the middle?"

REPEATING OURSELVES

Like those roses which sustain 

their blanching blooms 

clear through October, 

we too 

may now look 

a bit worse for the wear 

as we hold

the last sonorous 

note we'd prepared 

in defiance of the muffling pall 

of a silently 

darkening autumn—

as if virtue consisted 

in our obliviousness 

to criticism 

and praise and thanksgiving 

in our freedom

to do the one thing 

we already know 

how to do 

without thinking. 

WHAT IS THIS?

If matter is 

slow energy 

and energy 

is fast matter, 

then what 

are we even 

talking about? 

Physics tells  

what it does, 

but can't say 

what it is—

because 

even whatness 

is really something 

else. 

*

Our favorite books 

are made 

of poems, but 

what in the world 

are poems made of? 

Us, I guess—

hot plosives,

rough edges,

and incipient glances—

and that's just

what we are;

what 

were the chances?

ACCEPTANCE

We pride ourselves often 

on becoming 

better people, 

but perhaps it's 

our dimness—

our thick impenetrability— 

which makes 

the affirmative grip 

of love 

not just effective,

but possible

and necessary—

perhaps 

priceless amalgams 

of loathing and lust, 

like seams 

of gold, lie so 

deep at the center of us 

that our humanity 

would collapse if they 

should ever be retrieved;

the less we understand 

about these 

fables that inhabit us, 

the more 

we are willing

and able to believe.

ONCE IN A LIFETIME

Remember when 

we thought that we could 

simply trade labor 

for a glimmer 

of its opposite—

for the long, happy, 

untrammeled, 

callus-free life 

of the children we 

once resembled 

on another distant Earth,

where the moon 

routinely takes the place 

of the sun 

without 

the mechanistic explanation 

of eclipse? 

Would those kids ever think 

that the sweat 

of the intellect 

is somehow equivalent 

to that of the flesh—

that safety is a substitute 

for the raison d'être

of love,

or an orbital ellipse 

for the halo's perfect circle—

that one thing 

ever truly takes 

the place of another

when they know, 

even in the throes 

of their youth,

that two pairs of lips 

cannot make,

or replace—

or even summarize

the bliss—

of that nervous 

first kiss?  

KILLER POEM

A shriek 

with its splinters 

and spikes sanded-off, 

its creases 

all filled, smoothed, 

and polished 

with the thick 

shellac of distance—

until 

it shines 

with all the uneasiness 

and pathos 

which play 

in the shadows that eclipse 

your own face 

as it groans

at the sight of its 

grimacing reflection 

in some 

opaque expression's 

strange transparent finish. 

MANKIND

Dreamt I tried to speak 

to the sparrows 

like the serpent 

to the woman—except,

not to tempt, just 

to tell them

they were naked;

thought I'd watch 

them soar up at once 

to cover themselves 

with shorn cloud scraps. 

But instead, 

two dozen 

hard black eyes 

fixed mine back 

from the crab-

apple branches, 

and asked me not:

who told you 

what that was?

but: son of soil, doomed 

to work the earth—

who could have cursed you

to sing 

such a tuneless, 

lean, and unlovely

song to us?

TRUISM

The heart of most matters

is so trivial 

that it's radical—

crisis is the bleeding ink 

which blooms its 

beautiful terrible roses 

all through the tattered 

blotting paper 

of existence 

with the wastefulness 

of death and quiet

poise of gravity,

til you're just 

about ready to toss 

the whole mess

but still recoil 

at the thought 

that one day

you'll be forced

in any case 

to give it all away. 

INFINITE LOOP

Perhaps consciousness is 

recognizing the motions 

as such 

while you're going 

through them, instead 

of only after—

to become, after death, 

less a ghost 

than a photon 

that has no past 

no future, 

no friction—

and for whom 

the notion of transport 

from point to point is trivial. 

It is pointless 

to establish a motive 

or inaction; 

before you walk 

through its 

unbounded door,

the future is a repeating 

remainder 

called nowhere,  

and as soon as you 

leave here, you'll 

already be there. 

FAILING UP

I hate to admit it 

every bit as much 

as you do, but 

it's true that our most hated 

parts might be the places 

that simultaneously 

lust most intensely 

for somebody 

(anyone) to come 

to the rescue,

and those awful weights

which tug like stubborn 

anchors at our centers 

and ground us 

to our murky strife 

are the ones that 

imbue us with the metal 

that sustains us,

drawing our hearts

like iron filings to a magnet 

to the world next door

which summons us 

to wake into

and voluntarily (if not 

enthusiastically) suffer 

through a better life.

NOSTALGIA

It's the way 

the slightest 

autumn breeze 

fans the blaze 

of summer's 

faded green—

tugs at the frail 

leaves of 

memory's trees, 

reminding the penitent 

who now brace

for winter

of a distant sea 

of aquamarine,

placid and reflective 

of those skies 

above of endless 

daylight,

and that humid hum 

of bliss which seemed 

to overlay each night

and sing the praises 

of everything 

it was in life

and the legend 

of how it would 

come to be 

eventually  

so fondly mistaken 

for everything it wasn't. 

ROOMS TO LET

There are no exceptions;

any love 

that comes to us 

is a love that must 

sooner or later go.

This much we know, but

to make it 

even more deceptive, 

think of all 

the disconcerting 

aliases it uses—

pity and self-

loathing, 

pride and fear 

and avarice. 

And notice, when all 

of these feelings 

flea, 

how each one

inevitably seems 

to leave the same way—

at roughly same speed, 

and from roughly 

the same place.

But luckily, as those 

who've invested 

in beauty can attest,

beauty is not a feeling;

beauty is a space.

In fact, it's the space

where all of those fugitive 

feelings were living;

and, of course, even after 

a fugitive leaves, 

the place 

where it was living 

stays. 

CHRYSANTHEMUM'S THE WORD

Frowzy mock-flowers

of beat-rug orange, 

attention-deficit red, 

and afterimage yellow—

cordial, but ragged 

as the coming autumn clouds; 

they do not offend 

with their brand 

of hocus pocus, 

nor beg for our attention 

like high summer's 

neon dandies—

because, although 

too impregnable 

to be moved by the wind, 

they know, 

deep in the closed-fisted 

swirl of each corolla, 

that it's too late 

in the year now 

to hope for a perfect body 

and was always 

just plain foolish 

to wish for an unblemished soul. 

NECESSITY

How I've grown 

to resent you, mother 

of invention—

when I fear 

I lack the courage, 

your intention 

is always 

to rush right in 

and suckle me to sleep 

on wisdom; 

when I say 

I have a problem, 

you are quick 

to dispatch it 

with a solution. 

But although it's 

all very timely 

and clever, 

therein lies 

the contraction: 

what you give 

so freely  

is the answer; 

what I crave is 

your attention. 

THE ANSWER

It's what the angel whispered 

just before 

you were born—

and what you'll presently 

foolishly fritter 

your life away, 

scorn by scorn, trying 

to remember: 

like all you encounter, 

she'll be simple 

to understand

until you start 

to love her. 

JUDGEMENT DAY

To help make sense 

of eternity's math 

equation, let 

the afterlife 

be equal to 

endless equivocation. 

*

The real first sacred mystery 

is that, after the creation, 

god would find himself 

of several minds 

about seeing his image 

in the mirror again. 

*

After listening 

to their speeches 

and sermons for so long, 

they start to sound less

like accusations 

and more like 

clever loopholes 

or contextual breeches:

in heaven 

you'll be surrounded 

by familiar faces—

the only difference 

in hell is you'll see them 

in bewilderingly 

unfamiliar situations 

and places.

NO MATCH FOR MY INTRANSIGENCE

How could I be 

like the sea? 

When I'm angry, 

do I grow, at once, both 

overlarge and hungry; 

Do I heavy myself

ceaseless at the grungy 

rocks of reason, 

then blot candor's sky 

with the foam of my fury, 

withering grace 

with briny excoriations  

at the rational edge

of each shore 

where I go? 

How could I be 

like the sea, I repeat

and demand 

that you answer me—though 

I don't want to know.

THE REAL CONVERGENCE OF THE TWAIN

By September, flecks 

of jaundice-yellow 

marble the once brassy 

green of leaves. So it seems 

the need to mix 

frivolity and grief—

to kiss Aurora wide-awake 

and Snow White deep-asleep—

was never the province 

of men and women 

in the street's worst 

thoughts and machinations.

The stimulus 

is ductless, 

wireless, general;

the response,

decided from the start. 

Agony is the blood 

in the heart 

of every child of levity. 

THAT'S ENTERTAINMENT

Could it be 

that your thoughts—

just like

individual pigeons—

simply take pleasure 

in glomming together, 

swooping 

in formation 

over life's roofs 

and branches—then 

fracturing again 

at the slam 

of a car door, or 

the odd boom 

of thunder, or 

the approach of another 

creature who is lost 

in just such a musing? 

At first, the observation 

is a little confusing; 

then suddenly, all this

retreating and reforming 

starts to seem 

more like 

an endgame 

than a metaphor.

You're not sure 

what it is, but 

there's probably 

a lesson here.

LOVECRAFTIAN

It's almost unreal—

how, after a particularly 

horrific showing,

we obsessively 

ravage ourselves—

conjuring the dead 

and plumbing 

the unsympathetic

depths of the encounter—

until 

we've impossibly 

managed to dredge up

some unholy. 

tentacle-dragging, 

irrefutable cause 

who's black 

hole and absolute-

zero existence,

as evinced 

by the uncategorical 

engorgement of our dread,

we'll never 

forget, but were 

better off not knowing. 

THERE ARE OTHER WORLDS THAN THESE

To the sparrow 

who must have got caught 

in the grill 

of this brand new,

fully-loaded, 

midnight black Camry:

who'll speak for you now 

as the flies close in?

I suppose 

that I will—though only 

through roundabout 

questions, I'm afraid, 

whose answers can be 

felt, but they can't 

be explained. 

For instance—how  

in the world do things stay 

where we put them? 

And—is God the you

that watches you 

from deep inside your head? 

Was anything sacred 

before that word 

was invented? 

And, if nothing at all,

does that mean

everything, then? 

GOD'S EYE VIEW

It doesn't really matter 

how closely you hover—

those thick darkened riffs 

of parkland clover,

all silky with glissandi 

of tuneful morning dew, 

cannot change your 

luck for you. It's true,

that byzantine bead structure 

is a Morse code of water 

which spells the whole story 

and moral of your future—

but in order to read it

or hear how it's singing, 

you'd have to have already 

known everything.

SPIDERWEB

Gossamer 

song;

weightless 

aubade;

terse canny 

stanzas, clad in 

dew-clotted thread—

even your maker, 

her highness, 

is frightened 

by the ticklish 

recitation of this

ravishing poem, since 

she knows 

in her soul where each 

filament came from,

yet maintains 

no awareness 

of how it 

got made.

HUMAN KINDNESS

An enigmatic  

rain puddle—

gunmetal 

gray 

as a blank-

faced cloud—

that no one 

dares step in

because 

the assurance

that it must have 

a bottom 

is only, after all, 

a milk-safe

presumption. 

PRACTICAL EFFECTS

Mostly, our lives 

are the portraits 

of unglamorous—

they're like movies 

that can't stop forgetting 

their own plot twists. 

Yet,

there are days 

on the set 

when the sky is a halfway-

decent watercolor, 

the distant forest 

a matte painting 

so vivid and so still 

as to border on suspicious. 

And there, 

deep in shadows 

the color of ashes, 

soundtracked 

by the lapping 

smack of water 

and the drone of bees 

far too lazy to sting, 

we can't shake the feeling 

that the air we breathe 

has been keeping 

thick secrets; 

that maybe—just maybe, 

there might be 

something to this. 

THE GIST

As ever, it is early 

when I start upon 

my journey, 

and the trees 

to whom I've pledged 

to listen 

lean down 

with their heavy 

burden of sleep, 

branches still filled 

with the thick 

mist of night, 

and whisper to me 

in their rustling stupor 

in a language which 

no man could ever 

hope to speak 

because there is 

no code to decipher. 

So who am I 

to render any of this, 

I wonder—let alone 

interpret?

No being could record 

such ancient words—

and really, 

no one has to try;

no living thing 

need sightread 

the wind's song, since 

deep inside, they've 

already got it 

memorized. 

GOOD GIRL

Everything you do 

is done with 

full attention;

any action 

undertaken, 

anything you feel 

as unconcealed 

as possible—and 

generally successful. 

Most would call 

a life like that 

austere—strict meditation. 

But to brand it 

at all names the hair, 

not the dog—

besides, 

a simpler word 

is prayer. 

ACT OF CONTRITION

I suppose enough 

words have been 

wasted on this, but 

without the force 

of love's 

greed to restrain us, 

what downward 

pressure would 

ever be great enough 

to push us once 

or twice in a life

to our knees 

with such resolute 

and terrible ease—

what better place 

from which to see:

what better 

posture than this 

from which

to worship or 

to grieve? 

ON THE TIP OF MY TONGUE

Still feeling 

for words, 

as if with 

my fingers,

wishing I could 

hold on 

to the beat 

of each syllable—

but that pulse 

which runs 

though the veins 

of your name 

is weakening 

steadily, 

and the memory 

grows pale. 

Never mind 

desirable—

retirement 

is inevitable:

what's built will 

collapse—but 

what's built upon's 

still there. 

Corporeality 

fails and founders; it's 

only what's invisible 

that prevails. 

FUTILITY LOOKS

a lot like me 

with both hands cupped 

around my lips, as if 

trying to save 

one breath 

for the future—then 

flinging 

the door shut 

to the freezer 

where it's kept,

so that way, 

I won't have to 

chase it down 

and catch it 

at the end 

of that sentence,

with no liturgy left 

on which to depend

and no 

ritualistic dance step 

on which I might 

elaborate—

IT'S THE LITTLE THINGS

Ghost white 

gull feather, still 

gliding down:

teach me 

to love 

the world as it is now—

not as it was 

when you 

plied the wind above,

and not as it 

will be once you 

finally touch,

then softly 

push to move 

the ground.

ABSENCE AS AESTHETIC

Day by day, 

minute 

by minute, 

we content ourselves 

with the imposition 

of our will 

to persist 

upon arbitrariness

and then call 

the newly minted thing fate.

All along the balance beam, 

we prance 

or we cling 

to this gangplank 

that bridges 

the gap between 

the playthings we were 

and the devils 

we're becoming,

capitulating 

to the passing of every 

present moment 

as sweetly as we accept 

the juiciest 

orange is lined with 

rind and pith—

as if 

we could convincingly 

assent to live 

the lives we were 

already born with.

HELIOLATRY

Is it the least bit 

mysterious why I 

worship the sun? 

I too can't resist 

being the center 

of attention.

I too exist to fuse 

the littlest things into 

less wieldy objects,

even though I know 

that will soon

present a problem.

I too am content 

to have lifelong 

dependents 

and too eager 

to let them confuse 

heat with passion, 

light with 

understanding, 

warmth with love.

I too have 

never questioned

my reason for being. 

I too don't ever sleep, 

consumed as I am 

by this need to burn things. 

 

DEATH OF THE AUTHOR

In the grocery 

store lot, 

a carrion crow 

makes a loud 

show of its 

roadkill inspection 

before taking-off 

with guts 

trailing from its mouth 

and leaving 

in its wake just one 

single spectacular 

feather 

of implausibly 

iridescent sable.

And the moral 

of this fable, as it drifts, 

shimmers, settles? 

That god may well 

be a crook

or a sham—but 

the glory 

of creation? Well 

and truly: god damn.

THAT'S THE LIFE FOR ME

It feels not the least 

bit shocking to admit 

from this perch 

where I sit among 

the torrents of today 

that I am not jealous 

of the freedom of water 

to flow and change 

shape and ride 

gravity with ease—

or of light 

to trade its weight 

for the twin eternities 

of everlasting present 

and neverending speed; 

rather, I am jealous 

of the freedom of trees 

to grow slow

and carefully 

into their positions,

and then, to just maintain 

their balance—

to hold fast 

to that erstwhile, 

hard-won shape—

in brief: to simply 

stubbornly stay 

in one blissful 

place for the rest 

of their eternity. 

QUALIFICATIONS

At noon, near the old church, 

just before its clock tower 

chimes the hour, 

I pass a small pack 

of starlings in the garden grass, 

huddled in their daily practice 

of warming-up 

their murmurations—

and in that moment, 

how I wish

that I could quit lurking 

and dredge up the courage 

to ask to join their choir. 

I don't know the songs, 

I'd admit off the bat—

yet I know how to sing,

and I swear that I'm 

equal parts proud 

and dismayed 

as any blithe impulse 

to praise would dictate

to confess 

that I don't get at all 

how that works. 

ANY WAY WE CAN

As so often 

in the park, crust scraps,

casually tossed 

in the wood chips,

attract an array 

of scattershot pigeons 

grateful for this 

providence,

graceless in their privilege 

to underplay their 

daily bread,

to embody the question—

how dare we live 

these lives 

we've been given? 

NIGHTFALL

How suddenly 

it lands now, 

like a crack 

in the jaw

which stuns you 

into silence

and makes you feel 

sorry 

for the illicit

yet broad-

daylight tryst 

that you saw. 

ALMANAC

Late summer, when the vapors 

of nearly three-months-

worth of memories 

seem to alight 

and shine for one moment 

on August's dustiest surfaces 

before sinking beneath them 

and into the soil, 

where avaricious weeds—

though outwardly 

enthusiastic as ever 

for moisture—

have nonetheless slowed 

down the pace 

of their growth,

as if each one was 

privately shaken 

in its faith 

by the sudden appearance 

of just one 

yellowed leaf. 

Nearby, in this earlier, 

heavier breed of shade, 

sparrows chortle 

for reasons which none 

of the weeds can know, and 

not even they can remember. 

AVAILABILITY BIAS

More difficult 

to think about 

than it is to see

why darkness is known

as the absence of light—not 

the other way around. 

Be it ether, waves, 

or particles, only substance 

can beguile us, 

so it seems that 

even life's biggest puzzles 

must contain pieces. 

When night falls, for instance, 

we tend to focus 

on the stars, 

and not on the unnerving 

fact of their bone-

whiteness—

or the loneliness 

which chokes space to tarry 

emptiness between them—

or how the vastness 

of that very emptiness 

only exponentially increases.

GOSPEL

Dry cool whisper 

of the breeze 

through the leaves, 

how I wish 

I could discern 

what you're saying; 

how I wish we could 

converse 

so that I might ask

in a low, wordless moan 

of my own

where it is 

you come from. 

Is it where some think—

from the far edge 

of the planet? 

Or across space 

from the waving 

of ancient stars, 

or the windmill 

of distantly

spiraling galaxies?

More likely, I suspect 

it's from the ghosts 

of all my future selves 

passing through me

right this second,

like the wind—that is: 

oblivious;

not howling 

for my attention;

not trying to teach 

or warn me of anything

because silence to them 

is more than repetition—

it's the god's

honest truth—or 

what I might call

non-fiction. 

THE LONG HAUL

          Yet man is born unto trouble, 

          as the sparks fly upward.

               -Job 5:7
 

Yes, it's true; 

when all is said and done, 

there are going to be days 

when every 

swallow of coffee 

is hollow—

when none of the books 

on your shelf 

want to talk to you

while your pen 

strains to ask 

with its recondite scratches

if an indoor place exists

that wasn't made 

to hold-in grief,

or an outdoor place 

that that doesn't breed 

loneliness and sorrow.

In brief, there'll be days 

when taking 

feels like giving;

when, for all you know, it's 

your shadow 

casting you. But, 

since who the hell are you

to tell the difference 

between the two—

let alone the difference 

between someday 

and tomorrow—

you must bow down 

to the catch-all called 

the long haul; 

you must resign it all

and just call this

living. 

DOMINION

A long time ago, 

we used to be 

suspicious, 

but now 

we stand in awe 

of abject predictability; 

instead of living 

in ecstatic terror 

of god's everlasting arms, 

we now worship 

their compliance 

and fantastic portability.

In fact, if he 

were still 

alive today, 

he'd mostly 

be shocked

and hurt by the way 

in which knowledge is 

crushed-up to pave 

the roads to power—

by the way our GPS 

now briskly 

redirects us 

around temple wrecks 

and flaming 

sword blockages, 

all while keeping us

abreast of our most 

current ETA—

but mostly, 

by the way in which

a single earthly moment 

is no longer suffered 

by its bearer 

or endured—

or even simply 

received 

or sustained—

but rather, is abjectly 

captured, 

then explained. 

SO THERE

Even the almighty 

river doesn't know 

how it is I manage 

to piss standing up. 

LATE AUGUST

A parched wind 

limps by—

stiff and cautious, 

yet unsteady 

as our exhaled breaths.

How did we

get here? None 

can guess;

the weeks have passed 

so fast—still

each day feels

like twenty years. 

NEVERTHELESS

Every day, once a day,
I get the urge 

to do the impossible:

to save what must leave,

to give weight to words

(though I make no claim

to understand
what they name)

and a hope-like shape
to tumultuous thought.

Is it reckless? Is it vein?
I ought to say 

I don’t care.

But if you think about it,
the very fact
that this poem appears here,

lying patient as a snare
in the middle of this page

(or this screen, or wherever)—

and eager to catch
that which must pass away

already betrays
that I do anyway.

deny it as I might,

the urge to write—

the compulsion
to tell someone

has somehow caught me
unaware that I’m sure

there's no such thing

as an art
of despair.

MORTALITY

A cheap store-bought wind chime

(though no less

hungry for the breeze);

its many small lapping tongues

of bell bronze

or bell brass—

or hell, I 

don’t know, of prefab

fiberglass, perhaps—

making me forget 

as I pass underneath

what silence sounds like—

then remember (however 

temporarily)

what it means.

DAWN SKETCH

Out from the shadows,
a new morning is growing

in the window—like the shores 

of another, alien world 

unfurled for the first time 

at the calm of low tide,

salved by the balm
of a prophecy unheralded

and washed in colors
never seen before by anyone—

except perhaps by the first eye

to get squeezed shut 

at night beneath some 

primordial lid.

Does a word exist for this 

new twist on existence?

The other side of night
is daylight, sure, 

but the other side

of darkness in its essence—

would that be called clearness?
Invisibility? In any case,

it must be a color 

worth savoring, because it's 

a color we haven’t 

got a name for.

THE ENCOUNTER

I swear, when I wrote this

I didn't know
who would be reading—

but then again, 

I must have known roughly

how it would go, since

I could picture you singing

the tune in your head—
line after line, 

never rushing, never stumbling,

not stopping until 

you got to the end—

as if you knew which word 

should come next 

by heart,

because you and I 

were the same.
Not entirely, of course,

 
but close enough

to look the part.

It was as if our two souls 

shared a shadow; as if, 

for half a minute there,

we were so busy

that we wouldn't have

remembered, if asked, 

what our names were.

And I realized

when I'd finished that

that was what I wanted;

the words didn't matter.

It wasn’t quite art—but it was 
a good start.

NEW POETICS

I don't know how 

Aristotle managed 

to miss this, 

but: catharsis 

is gradual;

I mean, it’s 

every little 

blade of a tear

carving-out 

an opening—

ruining your precious 

metal content 

bit by bit

by repeatedly exposing 

some of it 

to the air—but

by doing so, 

in the long run

saving you 

the hassle 

of keeping it all 

together 

and making space 

there.

NOW

All I pretend to own, 

you loaned me; 

all that I know 

or care for 

has only just appeared here—

without my seeing 

how it came, or 

from where.

And when you bear it away—

as I believe you must do

because you have told me so 

repeatedly before—

I suppose I do not have 

to wonder 

what time it will be 

when that happens, either.