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 lone 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. 

NOT FROM CONCENTRATE

How many hundreds 

of millions 

of years have been 

forcibly focused 

through just-this-second's 

lens—and then,

never to be used 

again, discarded as the pulp 

of the spurious past? 

What a terrible 

waste, in fact, that 

that which is now must be 

squeezed-fresh continuously 

from all that has ever happened—

not to mention

how little hope there is 

for this moment's 

perseverance, since 

every hard-won is that ever was 

didn't last much 

past its own definition.

SERMON ON THE LAWN

Bees in the clover
working, diligent
and noiseless—

too busy, 

in fact, to stop 

and challenge us thus

as we drag out
our gas mowers,
edgers, and hoses:

you think you know
how to work,
how to use,

how to speak 

to the taciturn

land like us?

Those who have nothing
want nothing,
gain multitudes;

those who know everything
have everything
to lose.

ASKING THE ORACLE

To the gray-faced gulls 

outside my window, 

husbanded here 

by the breath of the dawn—

though my questions 

number in the millions, 

in this moment, 

I just want to know 

if you think 

every wind is distinct—

or is there, in truth, really 

only one kind 

which gets passed 

around and forward 

in space and in time?

In short, 

is it more

like the seafoam 

which drove you 

to this building, 

or the way 

we all suspect 

that there was

a first yawn—

issued-forth at the end 

of day seven by God,

and ever since then riding 

this great wave of animality 

for untold—

and as-yet-

unfolding-into

eternity—eons? 

TARGET AUDIENCE

Sometimes 

my soul talks 

down to my body;

says I know 

you think you hear 

the wind in the trees—

think you recognize 

the melody—

but you don't 

appreciate it 

like I can, 

since you don't 

understand 

what the lyrics mean.

Which is just 

as well, since, 

from the branches in the breeze, 

to the rippling 

of water and the wild 

screams of flowers—in fact, 

everything 

wafting out from 

life's orchestra pit—

though you may 

catch it, you are not 

the demographic, 

and don't you forget it

whatever you do:

the world may be here

to appear to you—but 

to me, it's here 

to sing. 

PERISH THE THOUGHT

As if I 

could do that. 

As if there were simply 

a hex I could cast. 

As if I could ever

grant myself permission 

to wrap these

tense hands around its 

incorporeal throat—

or grab 

for some ethereal, 

existential pillow 

to smother 

its monotonous mouth 

without guilt—

some divine length

of piano wire 

that wouldn't leave welts,

or some metaphysical 

potion, purpose-built 

to snuff its lights out,

leaving 

no residue 

of murderous intent

and me, though

newly-listed as sole 

inheritor of its estate,

still somehow 

bathed in the good 

graces of its family members—

in particular, its 

attractively built 

younger sister. 

{}

Empty set, I 

eye your symbols 

with inexplicable dread, 

like a pair 

of hungry rusted 

calipers on the page

or two 

of a disappointed fence's 

warped boards, 

long past brown now 

and headed more 

towards gray

as you don't so much

circumscribe as

underline what remains:

the size of a place 

when nothing there

is left, 

and there's nothing 

left to be done;

the truth

that absence 

is not the same 

as nothingness

(for absence 

is a vacancy in space—

whereas nothingness 

is the full weight 

of space 

and vacancy's absence);

and the fear that, 

after this, quite enough 

has been said.

ENLIGHTENED PESSIMISM

As the regal sun 

processed in the sky

the only way it's able

and white gold

from the window inched 

inexorably through the room—

I was the one 

true witness 

to the sight 

of the half-empty glass 

on the bright side 

of the table.

 

PLANNED OBSOLESCENCE

Bad news for 

all that time 

and effort you'd been spending:

your heart's 

no longer warrantied 

by the lyric poem's defending.

Sure, for now, 

it still works 

to its purpose, but 

let's face it—it certainly 

is no state-

of-the-art thing. 

If your body were a car, 

for instance, it wouldn't be 

the engine; 

it'd be 

the rear defroster 

or the AM/FM radio. 

If your soul 

were a home, 

it wouldn't be the kitchen, 

or even an electric 

toaster oven; 

it'd be 

the old flip phone 

which you keep 

in a drawer,

just for those 

gray-sky kind

of sentimental days 

(it may be 

a brick, you say, 

but it still contains 

a few 

of your favorite 

dead cat's old photos). 

HUNGER

Hello, 

common thief—

back again, 

I see 

to steal 

a little 

more of my 

complacency.

FUCK IT

It's dangerous, they say, 

to paint with 

too broad a brush, but 

you know what? Sometimes 

you're in a rush. 

Plus, the predicament 

you're in couldn't be 

more legitimate: the crew 

is on a break 

which is starting to look 

more like a 

permanent hiatus—

and this guilty 

conscience of a fence 

won't just 

paint itself—so, 

holding your breath 

against the stench 

of the whitewash, 

you bust-out 

the biggest, widest 

roller of the bunch

and make short, bliss-

fully thoughtless work 

of what otherwise might 

have taken months 

to confront.

After all, you think,

what harm could it do—

just this once? 

GILDING THE QUOTIDIAN

The water birds sailing 

in search of Byzantium 

are now touching down 
on this flash-flooded town

in search of oases—some 

retention pond of youth, 

some inside-out aquifer 

or impromptu estuary—

like Ponce de León,
like Noah’s enervated raven,

like thousands of Parsifals 
burnt out on the quest—

driven by thirst to steal 

rain from gutter puddles

in a soggy pantomime 

of Promethean fire 

or nectar from some presently

nigh-uncountable 

overstock remainder 

of Holy Grails. 

FINAL JEOPARDY

          (after Robert Creeley)

Walking here, 

standing there, 

killing time 

and yawning—

sitting around 

talking, thinking, 

tinkering 

with the longing 

for anything 

to start, stop, 

bind, or burst 

into flame; 

for anyone 

to come or go, 

to curse or keen-

ly call your name—

what is a life 

when you haul-

out its engine and 

take it apart? What is 

a car 

that won't start.

FREE DESIGN

In the deep end 

of dawn—before our words 

have begun their 

long commutes, 

when the warm washed 

light of the sun 

overcomes last night's 

unsoothed moon—

cicadas begin 

their empty drone, 

wind-stippled 

grasses moan, 

wild birds sing 

to no purpose at all. 

Here, nothing in the world

has a name—still

everything 

has a voice;

nothing has been 

given a choice—but 

everything 

is called. 

EXTRA ORDINARY

Being so much

wiser than her husband, 

the female cardinal 

perching on the brown branch 

knows better than 

to make a statement. 

ANIMAL CONTROL

As an idea, love 

is an easy one 

to hold; 

it's fun to imagine 

bold gestures, 

kind words. But 

when you finally 

catch it, it bites

and scratches—

it soils your lap 

with its piss 

and turds—

and the second 

you loosen 

your grip, it disappears 

down a little burrow 

where you're too 

stout to follow. 

And you say,

I've learned my lesson,

but you haven't 

learned a thing.

So you'll wait 

at the entrance

all night if you have to—

just to be near it,

just to participate.

In the rain, 

in the wind—

you're exultant 

to do it—you'll keep 

this holy vigil. You will 

softly sing. 

EVERYDAY BREAKING POINTS

From the way, July evenings,

at the tiniest quake  

in the gathering 

gray, the rodents 

all burrow,

the sparrows 

pull-up stakes,

and even the proudest 

blossoms of summer 

surrender 

and invert 

their petals—it is plain:

all must submit 

to the thunder’s

mad authority;

all beauty 

is contingent—must exist 

on the border

of abysses, 

of Charybdis's fantastic

maw of ancient chaos. 

What a precious 

and terrible gift 

we've been given—

this graceless susceptibility 

to vicissitudes of wind;

this indomitable 

ground; this savage,

hellish heaven. 

APOGEE

Experimental

used to mean: based 

on experience.

Am I aging, then, 

less like dry 

sherry in the bottle—

not into quotidian 

tradition or senescence—

but rather

toward the vanguard, 

the eccentric, 

the unstable? 

Perhaps,

rather than enable 

its denial,

age 

is time (that daft abstraction) 

turning real.

Or—a good

scientist would add—

so it feels. 

MAJOR ARCANA

What does the cuttlefish 

grasp 

about water?

What do those 

winging crows behold

in the air? 

Or the wind—for her 

part, does she hear

her own singing?

As for me—fathoming

age 

and regret, 

the way day 

bends to night,

the encroachment 

of shadow—

what words 

do I expect 

to ferment 

from the experience?

Of inchoate, 

relentless, 

illiterate fear—what 

could anyone know?

HUMMINGBIRDS

Mono-

maniacal 

genuine 

articles—

actual 

virtual particles.

Speed 

given shape, 

given hue,

given thrum.

Messengers 

of Hermes—

whence 

did you come?

Iridescent 

temples—the place 

where thrum 

comes from.

RE-ILLUSIONMENT AT 2AM

An old sailor:
sailing, and 
sailing some more—

until finally 

moored amid 

the neon somewhere 

downtown, among 

nighthawks still-

drunk at the diner—

and halfway 

between sleep 

and awake at the counter, 

that's where

he caught his last
red weather tiger,

whom, rather than holler 

when clutched, 
roared with fury

his hot-breathed 

rejoinder: a distinct

Sayonara!

A farewell, 

thought the sailor,

to dithering, to clinging—

pitched halfway between
(but exquisitely 
neither)

a permanent goodbye 

and a blurry
see you later.

EQUANIMITY

Inland gull—

bobbing 

through the parking lot at dawn,

calmly 

courting alms 

from the unmoved cars;

hungry for litter, 

but mostly  

in the abstract—

lonely, 

but not 

unhappy altogether.

SENESCENCE

Eventually, the set 

of {who you are}

feels like nothing 

when weighed against

the traces

of all you might have been:

things you thought

but never said,

actions you've considered

but haven't ever taken

pass out and in 

like shallow breaths

and through you 

each day like 

ionizing radiation—

like battalions of ghosts 

whom you used to 

know by name,

but now, whose 

faint collective 

hunger gnaws away 

at those serifs 

which ornament each

glyph of DNA 

until finally, it's

illegible, and you're free 

to join their army.

VOLTE-FACE

If there's another Earth 

where things 

worked out—

where the bees all

stuck around

and the birds

maintained their weight—

where a pretty fence 

built from

coordinating conjunctions 

has made cordial

neighbors of Church 

and State—

where, instead of 

swiping strangers and 

sexting AI, 

you and I linger 

over coffee and pie 

(even as I type this)

in a round-the-clock diner—

where anyone 

who lied, or wouldn't 

look me in the eye 

is tortured asymmetrically 

for their crimes by 

Delphic prophecy 

first haunting, then 

unhinging them, then

driving them to blindness—

what good 

would any of these

distant fictions do me?

My dharma 

is the clusterfuck; 

my armament 

is kindness. 

WHAT'S THAT

As above, so below—

what a crock, 

and what a shame.

Precision machine-

beveled right angles jut

as street numbers 

sprout from 

grids like grave 

anatomical ribs;

everything bisectable—

everything 

must heed its label. Only, 

just on the other side 

of that great looking glass:

the sky—

which, 

otherwise,

doesn't need a name.

SHADOW

Not quite 

darkness or light—

neither noise 

nor silence—

how readily you volunteer 

to wade out ahead of me

and strip me of all of my 

nonessentiality; 

it is your murk which clarifies  

the complicated truths 

of this blandness, 

this coolness, this need 

to be aloof. 

Such a circumstantial absence, 

such ambiguous 

truth—it is you 

who comes to teach me, 

without absolutes,

how yet I might live 

in a world that needs ministry 

in fullness—

but still

at the slightest 

remove.

LESS THAN YOU THINK

Any truth which is whole 

could not be yours 

to own—

it's been fermented 

by the grasses, the zephyrs, 

the stones.

For god is not 

in all things—

that's too lonely, 

and it's simpler:

god is the total; 

god is all things. 

Your injuries 

were loaned, as 

actuality is rented.

TWILIGHT OF THE IDOLS

          Is man merely a mistake of God's?

          Or God merely a mistake of man's?

               -Neitzsche

Some causal chains 

are so long, thought 

cannot wind them;

others, as inexorable 

as the final chord in songs.

Quirky and immortal

and mercurial 

as quarks—

as wiseacre cartoon 

rabbits, pigs, and ducks—

the first gods must have sprung 

from the volcanic 

islands of our minds

as general outlines,

suggested by the anxious 

agitation of our motions—

then grew tall

and strong on all

the sugar, fat, and salt 

of our desperate hopes 

and fevered questions, 

til at last they turned 

misshapen 

and strange,

which gradually changed 

into strange-

ly quiet—

then dead-

silent—

then 

dead-wrong. 

THE SHARP END OF THE SPEAR

In the end, every life

is a dull heavy shaft 

which is suddenly honed 

to a breathtaking point; 

and each, the sole bearer's 

precious own to lose, 

the splendid 

and the simple one.

Given time, good and bad 

fade to ignorance—then pity; 

after ignominy, 

after fame, 

there waits the same 

oblivion. 

MATURITY

Less of a ripening 

than a 

tipping point involved:

all that it takes 

is one 

or two more problems 

than commensurate tomorrows 

in which 

they can be solved. 

FINALLY

My name: 

one mighty 

syllable—

wind 

through arborvitae; 

say it 

softly if you will—

if you must,

you won't be 

capable. 

SUMMER SOLSTICE

In tune 

with the fanfare 

of solar noon, 

gold-fuzzed bees drift by 

confused, gassed with the scent 

of a million flowers;

and birdsongs 

are launched 

from a cache of cool rocks, 

then pitched at you 

underhand 

by the same clement wind. 

But what measure is disguised 

by glinting treasure 

troves of light? 

One day, you might 

appraise this as the longest 

of your life.

ODYSSEYS

Year after year, 

we inure, 

stay aloof; 

we insulate our ears 

from the siren 

song of future—or else,

disguise ourselves 

from ourselves 

to walk like a ghost 

through the Ithaca 

of our hearts—

which only serves,

to all we meet,

as proof of how engrossed—

how invested 

we still are—

in our most 

deceitful 

and adulterous parts. 

DEMOTION

And here 

I think I am

all alone—

think I am

the subject 

of this poem—

when a trio of round bees 

lands, keen 

but conscientiously 

to steal

from the rough

swirls of clover where I sit

those leading-man kisses, 

which go on

long enough 

to make me feel 

invisible—yet more 

than a little embarrassed.

CODEPENDENCE

What is faith 

but the process 

of making up shapes 

in my mouth 

as I go? 

There is no—

there is no—

no such thing as— 

a correct structure, 

I stutter; 

yet I can't 

shake the feeling 

that something 

must come next. 

* 

Not to sound 

defeatist, 

or morose—but 

I'm a completist, so 

carve it on my stone: 

Here Lies A Sucker 

For Matters Of Course. 

Reality may be 

a bad marriage, 

but I'm far too 

invested in it now 

to divorce; 

in fact, the quicker 

time passes, 

the less and less 

I notice 

the flicker.  

WILDFLOWERS

From pasture 

to parkland, parkland 

to landfill,

from swirl of hills 

to roadside ditch,

let the nominal 

pests and invasives 

proliferate—

their odd-

numbered petals, 

their frowsy leaves

once drenched 

with the curious

blue rain of night, 

now lousy 

with inviolate light—

filthy with 

the summer wind. 

A WORKING MODEL OF EXPERIENCE

If the past is 

just a joke 

whose punchline we 

have memorized, 

and the future 

is a cruise ship 

whose tagline is 

"unsinkable," 

then the present 

must be the decimal repeating 

after all 

that we're capable 

of recording 

with our devices 

is divided 

by all that we still find 

unthinkable. 

*

If the past 

is me knowing 

what everyone was thinking, 

and the future 

is a party 

in a room I can't picture, 

then the present 

must be the one I'm in 

now: 

on the couch

unamused, surrounded 

by strangers. 

*

To wake up 

and find myself 

in the middle 

of a sentence—

it's like 

I've just come-to 

in the freefall 

of existence, 

hurtling downward 

toward an "is" 

that won't discriminate. 

What's it like 

for you? 

A HUMBLING EXPERIENCE

While we rise, dig 

deep, strap 

in, and hunker down, 

clouds—

in the background 

every morning, 

do-si-do-ing.

Clouds 

joining, separating, freely 

flowing, 

and unbound.

Clouds without debt; 

clouds intent 

on nothing. 

Clouds never tired 

of involving one another. 

Clouds with borders 

so blurry and porous

as to make 

us stop and think 

(at least, 

if not 

in such a callous rush): 

no wonder 

they're so far 

above us.

LITTLE SHOCKS

Little shocks

of sidewalk clover 

discreetly peeking 

through concrete:

I see you 

make the most 

of the constraints 

imposed upon you, 

and I know we 

all have a thing 

or two 

to learn about

negotiations.

How the center 

of something 

might be the frontier.

And how life 

in the city is 

a hostage situation. 

UNMENTIONABLES

Fantasy: 

I want to be 

phase-locked 

like a V

of wild geese—

each one 

in perfect 

continuous sync, 

while avoiding the rest 

at all costs.

*

Solidity.

Permanence.

(let's face it,

such words 

are great comfort, 

but those things

just aren't beautiful; 

in fact it's 

quite the opposite.)

*

On the very long trip 

from speech 

to silence, 

I often want to say 

I feel 

self-obsessed 

one minute, 

and completely 

abstract the next;

I guess,

at its best, 

the mind is like 

a Crayola crayon box: 

bigger is always better—

and full 

of colors 

that don't exist 

yet. 

LONG-TERM STRATEGIES

1. 

Scent chemicals start 

turning keys in their locks, 

performing the dance 

of a nuclear 

launch sequence,

unleashing a vivid

technicolor attack. 

2.

Reality 

is a game show 

wherein participants 

must concentrate 

harder than the rest 

to solve 

even the littlest 

problems. 

3. 

The present moment 

is a time-out 

in the knock-em-down 

grudge match 

between future and past 

so that fans 

can adjust themselves 

and doubt 

can sell ads. 

4.

The aching cry 

of a minor third:

denial too 

can be beautiful.

On a long enough time line, 

perhaps 

the sheer stamina 

of my intransigence 

will start

to surprise you. 

GODSEND

The way 

fingertips pause, 

poised over letters 

suggests

that vague clouds 

skating in from the west

first survey

your neighborhood 

for interesting sounds 

before morphing 

into their 

reciprocating shapes—

suggests verbs 

once roamed the great 

plains of the page 

before Proper Nouns came 

to tranquilize 

and train them for the circus—

suggests meaning 

is a desert lake 

which ripples in the distance, 

and purpose 

isn't given to us 

pre-ordained—but made. 

CALISTHENICS

As the sun's rays

always find the beech trees 

reaching, 

flotsam at their feet, 

fingers splayed 

toward heaven—

so too 

do we loyally practice 

and pose, 

day after day, 

those words which sound 

most durable,

pressing 

and holding them firm 

to the foreground, 

conjuring 

from the blur of motion 

resolute convictions,

posturing allegiances, 

bootstrapping 

blind faith. 

SHOE STORM

And all this time, here we were 

anxiously waiting 

for a second one to fall—

the sky went dark 

as the front moved in, but 

we didn't move—or notice at all. 

The downpour was sudden 

as the change 

of our confusion 

to a mood 

of sheer relinquishment 

and penitent compliance 

as we gave up keeping track 

of each split-

second oscillation 

between the odd 

and even counts of them 

now landing all around—

these little reprimands 

from heaven

to the acquiescent ground.

WILD HONEY

With a warmness 

so soft that it's 

almost unbearable, 

the June wind coaxes 

the lavender open. 

At intervals which quicken,

each equal-parts-

furtive-and-

articulate blossom 

glows ultraviolet 

with innocence 

and inspiration—

a fecund mix

and elicit solicitation—

not to you or me, 

but the pollen-

mad bees whose 

deepening thrum 

now saturates existence

with the sweetest 

kind of greed. 

ENTREATY

I do not seek 

to travel the world, 

to lose myself 

in space; 

my wish 

is to be free 

as a tree is 

to stay forever 

in one place—

to just do 

the same thing 

endlessly, 

posed 

like I don't care. 

Such slender, double-

jointed limbs 

would do neither 

harm nor 

irritable reaching; 

such tender leaves 

and gossamer flowers

would always be 

oblivious 

to their reality's contingency

and eagerly 

invite beseeching.

However rooted, I

am sure 

that beings like these 

are less of the earth 

than they are 

of the air—and that,

for every ten minutes 

which I endure here, 

they, in their 

reverie, have dreamed

a thousand years. 

RENDER

As some mothers 

eat their young—

as an electron spits 

and then swallows 

its own photons—

so time 

first stretches, 

makes life's landmarks 

look distinct; 

then,

comes back 

hard

and fast 

and smashes them all flat 

as we hurry nervously 

on. 

*

Does faith find you

pushing 

certain words 

to the foreground?  

Bending and posing 

them like double-

jointed dolls? 

Wherefore 

this desire 

to bathe and clothe 

bewilderment,

to render 

unto sound,

to reconcile 

at all? 

*

Before I pose 

another question, 

let's define our terms: 

just because we 

"exchange" explanations 

doesn't mean 

we own them.

COMFORT—

the tender smell 

of steam 

as it's leaving

the potato.

DEFECTS

Strange to say 

"that's all 

in the past," since 

the past is 

not a location 

in space.

Even stranger, 

perhaps, that 

we have no access 

to the crucibles 

that made us 

the blades we are today.

Then again, it's not

our remembrance 

of the blaze 

that sustains us; it's 

the little imperfections—

those niggling 

and persistent 

small aches 

that remind us 

we're still 

the same weapons 

we were yesterday. 

CURRICULUM VITAE

Warm smoothness 

of a few slate gray 

pebbles on the mantlepiece—

so far away 

from their frenzied 

ocean past 

on this 

declassé tuesday 

that it might just not exist. 

Suddenly, the intent to dust 

around them fumes 

to reverie 

as you finger 

and fiddle for the whim

that bid you carry them:

never mind 

what's useful 

or true; a life 

is all 

about what's 

necessary. 

OF THE ESSENCE

Time is not so nice 

and benign as 

a flat circle; 

time is a screwlock, 

a pitiless vice, 

extracting the vigor, 

then discarding 

the pulp of life.

The longer we may live, 

the more we may 

grow horrified

at our resign as it flays

with its inexorable knife 

the gory- 

yet-nourishing 

gristle of the details

and winnows away 

the now- 

obvious chaff

of what once mattered 

so intensely to us,

but which we 

must finally admit 

to be dust.

TERMS

The wider

your gaze, the more 

it becomes clear 

that the universe behaves 

like a simple equation 

in which the terms 

on either side are mirror

images of each other. 

Perhaps this is why 

you and I can exist 

on opposite sides 

of a sagital plane, 

yet still dream 

the same dreams;

still laugh 

at the same memes;

still remain, at all times, 

so perfectly in sync. 

Because ours, 

like all systems,

is a complex operation—

a galactic 

combination-factory-

floor-and-call-center. 

Or no—

it's a starved dog 

jonesing for bones, 

excitedly pulling 

in all directions at once.

Which, of course, 

is another way of saying 

it goes nowhere. 

INTERMISSION

While you just sit 

and listen 

in the sixty-

second eye of the storm 

known as noon, 

the last desperate chime 

of church bells—

keening, 

then dissolving 

in the ambient mist 

reminds you of 

(or perhaps 

replaces?) 

the weight 

of your grief and dis-

consolation. 

For to whom 

on this earth 

does a silent moment

answer? 

Though you're perfectly still, 

some part of you 

dances.

AHA MOMENT

Under the shade 

of the hackberry tree,

new leaves—light 

as ideas, and just 

as elemental—

are proffered down 

in patterns which 

resemble complex sentences.

Perhaps existence 

is not a given thing;

it's known, after all,

that the heart 

must be 

gradually grown—so, 

wouldn't the soul,

too, have to be

eventual?

DOGGY

Great, great 

grand descendant 

of the noblest race 

of beasts—

you who deigned 

to live at our feet, 

but who never ate

of that fruit—

your soul 

is pristine, so 

how can it be 

that you too

are doomed to 

one day die?

HEALTHY BOUNDARIES

Next time you feel 

lonely, or

a bit unsure 

of how things fit 

together, 

remember:

your body is,

at all times,

precision-filled—

in fact, it's 

practically packed 

to the gills—

with miraculous 

acids and 

everlasting bases—

both of which 

are necessary—

in exactly 

equal measure—

and both of which 

are so movingly 

and desperate-

ly dependent 

upon one another

being there,

but also—always 

keeping clear.

IT'S LIKE THIS

Feelings 

can only be said 

to exist 

in relation 

(by comparison, 

that is) to one another. 

Therefore 

we must know, 

deep down, 

what bliss is—

since 

we cannot possibly be alone 

with this. 

*

Clipped phases 

seem to wander the brain 

like children 

in a dark forest. 

Even conjunctions—

those erstwhile 

breadcrumbs—

will not successfully join 

or contrast them. 

All paths to understanding 

overgrow 

and are erased. 

Only periodically 

now do they leave their cave 

and wander in circles, 

lost.

*

Every time I feel 

a disturbance, 

I might split 

and wind up in two places, 

retaining the former 

memory of both. 

Strangers in the hereafter? 

Perhaps—but 

accomplices, 

more so. 

GENTRIFICATION

As I burn through my days, 

I think a lot 

of all the bodies 

this weathered old soul 

must have tarried

through by now—but 

(probably due 

to the tyranny 

of memory) 

somehow not 

often enough 

of the opposite: 

what battle-scarred hoards, 

all strange 

and complex, 

have tossed their lots 

in with this 

broom closet body, 

seizing it, 

razing it, 

building it up—

then selling it off 

at a loss 

or a profit? 

GEE

Day after day, 

while you focus 

on the sun—

and others, from 

the sound of it, 

on the revving 

of their engines—

those tight faces 

at the ends 

of the lilac bush branches 

remain blank 

and unresponsive 

to the choruses

of birdsong at dusk 

and dawn

and the quickening 

green of the adjacent 

park lawn. 

But of course, 

one morning, those grimaces 

will loosen 

and redeem 

their cached sweetness 

in busts of fragrant glee—

and you'll think how, 

in the grand scheme, 

it only takes a blink 

for everything  

to happen—

but an awfully long 

and difficult time 

for anything 

to mean. 

IMAGISM

Has anything ever 

come out 

the way 

you meant it to? 

Would any bright cocktail 

of gadabout words 

go down as 

rococo as 

your point 

of view?

*

Just tell them—

how the leaves 

looked black 

in the last light 

as the canopy 

and the loam beneath 

unhurriedly 

equalized.

*

At last, the night sky 

was so 

phosphorescent-bright 

with the staggering 

pollution 

of downtown lights 

that words 

had no meaning—

the rock bottom 

you were needing. 

I DARE YOU TO

say 

at what distance 

objects begin 

to flatten 

and thin 

and collapse 

into images.

And where 

(in the wings,

the apron,

the proscenium?) 

is this sort of thing 

keen 

to insist

upon happening? 

*

tell me 

you're clever 

without being 

clever—

or pathetic 

without sounding 

rude—

or human 

without coming-off 

ruthlessly savage, 

marbled 

with decadent 

streaks 

of absurd. 

*

Everyone's heard—

a picture 

is worth a thousand words. 

But 

just you try 

writing down 

or even explaining 

to anyone afterwards 

exactly which ones 

those were. 

TRAGEDY OF THE COMMONS

As a tree is a pure 

conflation 

of the Earth 

with its atmosphere, 

what are we 

doing here? 

Drawing breaths 

with the pencil-

thin siphon 

of self-interest

(an indelible 

theft) 

from the well 

of all being.

ON THE OTHER HAND

A mighty fortress 

is our 

precomtemplation phase.

It's our 

prayer 

and our privilege 

not 

to comprehend this.

*

Picture the interminable

sea of electrons 

all tugging 

like tethered cubs 

at their  

lackadaisical nuclei.  

Who the hell are you 

and I  

to feel at ease 

with anything? 

*

Meanwhile, somewhere 

above the north Atlantic, 

a majestic 

arc of terns 

swoops and takes its 

morning dip 

without ever once 

resolving itself 

into a file of distinct 

individuals. 

EITHER WAY

I know that it's
cliché, but really:

the spaces 

are for all 

the things 

I'm not saying. 

Look, I'm not 

making excuses; 

even music 

uses silence—

or is it 

silence that uses 

music 

to both 

herald and 

excuse itself? 

Either way, 

it's plain 

(and also 

elaborate—

are you 

starting to get it?) 

that nothing 

you could explain 

exists 

solely at its 

own discretion. 

ALMOST SUMMER POEM

Cradled 

by the shade 

of a softly 

weeping crab apple, 

starlings 

bathing in the blossom-

spattered puddle—

stowaways, 

perhaps,

from some ancient 

sylvan past—

or else, 

augurs 

sent back (by 

ourselves?)

as a promise: 

the best is still

ahead of us. 

WHY I WRITE, MK. III

It's not to speak 

my mind 

at all, 

but rather

to climb 

inside the language 

like a power suit, 

like chainmail—

to feel huge 

and yet invisible, 

buoyantly quixotic 

in a world 

full of windmills—

to feel utterly protected, 

secure in my belief 

in the feats 

of which it's capable—

and yet still, 

when I get 

near an ending,

to flail;

to panic, then 

go limp;

to let go 

and admit 

I don't know shit—

and

even if I did, 

I surely 

haven't said it. 

R0

Something new is going around. 

It's been said 

(and now, so much

repeated) 

that the birds 

or insects started it.

Incongruous, 

unwelcome—

it doesn't care; 

it hops the line and 

pops up everywhere.

Tough luck, they say; 

no escape 

form this zombie. 

The best you can 

do is climb 

willingly inside it, 

surrender your head, 

fill your mouth 

with its replicants: 

"What's new?"

"How are you?" 

None can withstand it. 

And it's far too late 

to stop it (if you're 

reading this,

that's obvious). 

In all manners 

of speaking, the virus 

of utterance

 

has spread across the planet. 

THE PARTY IS MANDATORY

Whereas light 

is compelled to move 

at the speed of itself, 

to fill 

to the limit 

every room, every instance 

with de rigueur vitality 

before perception 

can catch up;

whereas tight 

gray-green leaves 

at the ends 

of hapless branches 

are bayonetted 

into being 

per the strictest regulations  

of the chlorophyll metabolism;

whereas even random 

chance itself has

got to be created 

on the back 

of the beck-and-call dime 

of compulsion:

so everything, it seems, 

is made—

not just 

caused—to happen. 

In god we trust—

because 

we must. 

IDENTIKIT

Believe in yourself, 

they all used 

to tell me—

as if I 

was really 

a caped crusader, 

a crimefighter 

cloaked in a nom de guerre. 

They may have 

had a point there 

about the mask 

of duplicity, 

but some superhero 

I've turned out to be—

I can't even seem 

to bend 

even slightly 

the bars to the prison 

of this body. 

*

Trying to convince yourself 

there's no such thing as solidity 

is a lot like banging 

your head against a wall. 

Protons, 

electrons, 

gamma radiation—?

Referring to yourself 

in the first person 

suddenly just feels wrong. 

*

There's nothing pacific 

about the ocean, 

the way it 

keeps thrashing its wings 

against the sand. 

But who am I 

to envision a better way? 

Who am I 

to say 

how to bear—

to withstand?

Immeasurable 

reach 

needs

impossible hands.

ODE ON INERTIA

The way each heavy-

with-holy 

water droplet 

hits 

and resounds 

upon the surface of a pond 

like the transient-

yet-infinite 

drone of a gong—as if, 

now

and forever, it was

the only one—

honest-to-god momentum 

looks a lot 

like its opposite.

But curious

enough, we only know 

what's honest

by the way 

it leaves us

lingering on

for so long 

after it's 

already gone. 

METEMPSYCHOSIS

In the infinite 

closet known as 

Immateriality, 

it must be hard 

for a cold little soul 

searching 

and searching 

in the desperate dark 

for the armholes 

in a garment 

called the heart

of a stranger. 

MAD RUSH

Ironically, it's just that 

pliant softness

and fragility 

of open petals 

that causes us, as we 

dash past, to grow 

anxious—

to clamp our mouths 

shut, stiffen 

up, and become 

what we fear most: those 

tense, insipid 

imitations of ourselves. 

It's as though, 

when confronted 

with such 

slow and deliberate 

forms of movement, 

our subconscious aches 

from its breakneck approach.

But instead of going limp, 

we go 

unbending

as we make haste 

for cover, since we feel

so exposed. 

NEW AGE

In the end, perhaps 

it'll all come out 

like a laugh 

from the mouth of each play-

acting skeleton—

how the truth 

was a leaf 

in the air 

for a moment

just before it hit the ground:

a surfeit 

of love

was always there—

but no care,

because—

no self. 

THAT'S PROGRESS

All our lives, 

we can't shake 

the feeling 

that our bodies 

should be more static—

not these great 

twist contests 

of vestigial viruses

and genes 

in giant lines, switching 

off and on again 

one at a time 

like they're taking turns trying 

to duck the limbo stick. 

In fact, it seems 

almost automatic—

every precious time 

we get the chance 

to close our eyes, we see 

in a dream, the lure 

of advancement 

as an abstract 

substitute for light—

that feeling of warmth 

by which we might, 

in an ancient time, 

once have felt

unselfconscious enough 

to unspool 

in the water—to expand 

and to rise 

toward a surface that, 

to breach, we well-knew

would be suicide. 

PSYOP

Fleshy scented

fists of magnolias 

shall uncurl 

and beckon in 

troves of mist 

as cardinals 

issue falsely 

approbative dictums 

and gestures 

toward warm 

breezes come and go 

coyly as so much

conditional love—

and this 

is how April 

will manage to sell 

its thirty-

day-wind-and-rain 

hell to its victims. 

MUTE SWAN

Perhaps the only 

extant creature 

to have successfully 

upended the belief 

in her own body, 

she alone knows—

to catch the wild quiet 

and keep it 

is harder 

than it seems at first. 

And perhaps, 

to achieve this, 

she has spent her life picturing 

a breath 

without limits,

a breadth 

with no length, 

a burst far beyond 

the bounds of sound and color,

too haphazard 

to ever have been 

intended. 

But more likely, 

she has learned 

in the monochrome fire 

of repetition

how to forge 

a more effortless noise 

with neither the desire 

nor the need 

to make another. 

 

THE IMPERSISTENCE OF MEMORY

Viewing their star 

from increasingly far 

as the explosion 

we live in 

rides the spine of everything

each night will add 

just another 

milligram to hell.

As if the ghosts 

that swam in these shells 

could not possibly find 

their way home 

without reminding 

that matter can neither 

be created nor destroyed,

that the gaping 

void is no match 

for mathematics.

And so, we try to focus 

on the faith that our facts 

will persist without us; 

gradually, 

we learn not to be 

afraid of growing distance—no, 

it's the tiniest 

change in brightness 

that shatters us. 

THEME AND VARIATION

When the keynotes

and leitmotifs drafted 

in dreams 

begin to seem tedious 

and overly repetitive,

perhaps that is when 

we're impelled 

to wake up 

and witness afresh 

how the many rooms 

of consciousness 

also incessantly 

urge and repeat. 

*

It's a curious thing

to feel 

disarmed by duplication—

the copy-pasted nodding 

heads of daffodils 

beside the path, 

or the headlong rush 

of grackle songs unspooling 

from the cool penumbra. 

From what 

have we just been 

relieved or exempted? 

As often, the pith 

of feeling will not bear 

articulation. 

EXPLORING

Behind the convenience store, 

oblivious to me, 

a cadre of shrieking 

laughing gulls 

heedlessly scavenges 

the disarrayed trash, 

finding nothing precious there—

other than the difficulty 

of taking themselves, or one 

another too seriously. 

*

We like to believe 

that effort 

is accumulated,

but the truth is 

it's negotiated, moment 

by moment.

Satisfaction, equanimity—these 

are loss leaders,

lagging indicators. 

To receive 

our daily bread 

is blissfully bearable, but 

to forage it

instead? Nothing 

could be trickier. 

* 

At long last, you 

discover: the fact of the matter

is, at best, an atlas. 

Whereas 

its reality 

is a landmass—

a pristine 

island Eden—

a country with no roads.

SPRING PSYCHOANALYZED

It's a peculiar thrill

the way the nascent 

season teases us—

advances, then retreats; 

pronounces, 

then repeats—

as if it somehow 

gets us off to see 

uncertainty made manifest.

This disarrayed mix 

of encouraging breezes 

and hectoring sleet 

must bring to mind 

our own haste 

and reluctance—

those sides of us 

which are not content 

with the surety of stasis, 

which crave a container

for their own 

ambivalence 

and find nothing 

hotter than the lack 

of intent. 

OSMOTIC FLOW

As water moves 

through ground-

up coffee—corpuscle

by corpuscle:

the littlest peace

of mind.

JUST GUESSING

If nothing 

needed doing, what 

would I do?

Without an observer 

to despise 

or enjoy me, 

would my need to deploy one 

make me chattel 

or deity? 

For a ghost, 

there's no such thing 

as friction 

(though of course, I'm 

just guessing); 

Likewise, 

for a photon, 

no time passes 

as it wends and twists 

its way 

through the infinite 

vacuum of space. 

If what I resist most 

is just emptiness 

and void, 

how would 

not resisting it feel 

any different? 

DISCREPANCY

Some chords 

seem to naturally 

resolve themselves to others, 

while a few 

sound stranded 

no matter what you do. 

Some people you know 

are like that too; 

some words 

you send 

mean even less to them  

than their displeasure—

while others, much more 

than you intend,

trembling

like malleable bits 

of unearned treasure. 

but then—who gets to say

how much 

things mean,

or even—

what units 

should be used 

to make the measure? 

INSTINCT

Smitten 

by the heretofore 

derelict sun, 

warblers flood 

the lawn, repeating 

the only note 

they know by heart—

as if 

serving the light

by taking dictation—

as if the world's 

most transcendent art 

were to wring 

every last bit 

of tartness from it,

leaving, thereby, 

only sweetness behind. 

And perhaps, 

some canny witness 

may say 

that to act out of impulse 

can never be sublime—

that there is no transcendence 

in quotation 

of a known text. 

And all I could say 

would be that I 

agree: 

there is only 

every implication. 

SILENCE SPEAKS VOLUMES

Tuck stop full 

of chary strangers, 

not fighting 

over resources, 

not even talking— 

a little taste 

of Purgatory 

right here on Earth. 

*

Every kid  

wants to know 

where do thoughts 

come from? 

It's rare an old

ascetic wonders 

where 

do they go? 

*

If the soul 

is not of the body—

if it tenors-on 

long after 

the vehicle is dead—

must we not admit 

it just 

sits back and 

watches all this—

bored, 

reticent, 

disinterested? 

NOW AND THEN

There

at the cinched severe 

center of the hourglass—

where nothing 

is pent-up 

but all is interposed;

after thought goes 

but before feeling 

has arrived;

where one 

might well find, 

(if one were so inclined)

just one grain of time 

which is neither cached 

nor spent—

there is the best

speck of proof 

you will find—

compellingly weightless,

exquisitely benign—

of the sustenance 

many call intelligent 

design. 

THE AGNOSTIC

You would grant that 

there's a plane 

through which 

all things intersect—

it's just 

foreign as heaven 

to a deep sea fish. 

But make a wish 

and listen: does the answer 

form a question?

Is your notion of god

like a hermit crab shell—

an awkward and 

abandoned vessel?

In that case, hold it close 

and listen; you are 

bound to hear the ocean. 

MISADVENTURE

Grim scythe 

of morning by the rain-

bedeviled shore

where wet fat crows sift 

through the mist,

spearing worms

and take turns defying,

with each hoarse

craggy laugh,

the baggy nets cast 

by my best 

metaphors.