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 

in 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 infinite,

transient 

drone of a gong—as if, 

for always 

and ever, 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

hanging 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,

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 felf 

unselfconscious enough 

to unspool 

in the water—to expand 

and to rise 

toward a surface that, 

to breach, we all 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 

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. 

WRITING AS A DISCIPLINE

Notice how,

day after day, the blue 

waterfall of dawn 

fearlessly 

moves to drown 

the nonpareil moon:

there is neither sorrow 

nor jubilation 

in the action—

just the dutiful execution 

of each peerless 

new tomorrow. 

GEDANKENEXPERIMENT

To a waveparticle of light 

there is no big picture;

there's 

no such thing 

as later, 

no such 

thing as night. 

It that sense, 

each photon is pure 

excitation; 

as a matter of course, 

it must exist 

in a permanent 

present, whatever 

the cost. 

There is no domain 

where it ought 

not to travel; 

where it goes is 

where it is, so 

it cannot be lost. 

In short, it composes 

the world through 

which it hurtles—

kind of like 

this thought. 

SUNK COST

Our low-key

favorite 

thing about these bodies 

is their penchant 

for falling 

far short of their ideal. 

This fetish 

for the defect—this hell 

of the self—

this giddy-

thrilled refusal 

to feel what we most need 

may seem 

like a torment—

like a bad poker hand—

but we see it 

as a palmed ace, 

as a check not yet cashed. 

This hectic grace, 

this restlessness 

is an interest 

which pays compounding 

dividends the longer 

we invest;

it's the reason 

we buy in 

again and again—

even after

the market has 

already crashed.

PROGNOSIS

In the age 

of mechanical 

reproduction, 

consumers 

will function 

as the artists

and all those 

who dine upon 

these words 

shall be granted 

the might of an 

author intervening.

A bottled rich 

umami flavor 

overtakes the palate;

information 

saturates—suffocates 

the meaning. 

SUI GENERIS

Gray geese 

fly camouflaged 

by overcast skies 

as wavewater percolates 

through slate-

stippled sand. 

The use 

of this sort of thing 

to a certain stripe of mind 

is simpler 

to explain than it is 

to understand: 

most people 

want to know 

how many clouds? 

A few are much quicker 

to wonder

what kind?

NONPLUSSED

Origami crane

fashioned from 

a dollar bill

interrupts 

your complicity 

in the collective dream

by making 

the fantastic

real.

*

It's all going 

to work out, we say; 

it's okay, 

or 

it's not 

that important—as if 

to kick 

the empty soft pack 

of "it" down the road 

after flushing the cigarettes 

of "is" 

down the toilet. 

*

In the future, 

words like "nonplussed" 

mean their opposite,

and belief in the devil 

is actively shunned,

while all manner 

of heretofore 

abstract objects

now exist just

to astound.

Welcome. 

Please log in 

to your iCloud account. 

Stay safe. 

Stay healthy. 

Stay busy. 

Stay stunned. 

CLUE

One 

by one, tiny sun-

smitten buds 

shiver up the lilac branches—

the way 

new lines of poetry 

appear 

to ring true 

simply by virtue 

of having just 

been written. 

EBB TIDE

What does it mean 

to say a life 

has been "spent?"

Exhausted 

from treading 

the waters of want?

Or else, from always holding 

our watery hands out 

hoping to receive 

our allowance 

of suffering? 

Perhaps, it's forgetting 

the fad of transcending;

eschewing 

jagged edges for 

softness made stronger.

It's not as if, someday, 

we'll not be 

still filled 

with dubious persons 

and infernal desires; 

it's just that 

we may live to be  

too old to stand up 

and shake their bejeweled 

hands any longer.

LIFE'S WORK

The light 

through the window 

comes in full-speed 

from nowhere 

slams and 

gets tangled 

in the woodgrain 

of the table 

as your hand moves unbidden 

to seize the utensil, 

and it doesn't 

even occur to you 

to wonder if this 

is normal.

*

Once, life 

was broke. 

Then, it got to work; 

life was 

all business. 

Now, it gets the joke—

and it calls itself 

flirtatious. 

*

The little girl 

whose smooth hand 

yours cradles 

gazes up at you now

with a quizzical 

look on her face 

because she's either 

too young 

or too 

something else 

to grasp  

what you mean 

by "a hassle." 

*

Ironically, if you want to see 

the kinds of shapes 

light makes 

when it finally 

slows to a halt,

all you have 

to do is wait; 

this could take 

forever. 

HUNG JURY

You know 

what they say: options 

beget disparity, 

and disparity 

invites the contrast 

which heightens your 

confusion.

Consider 

the way your 

head's tense crest 

always manifests 

emergencies: wild eyes 

under rampant hair,

gone wild 

from the scent 

of predicament. 

Consider, too, the fact 

that you're almost 

exactly sixty percent water—

and that water, 

in all cases, 

rides with gravity, 

pursues ease. 

Which part 

of your being, then,

begs the most attention—

defense or prosecution? 

Which words, 

once incepted, 

are speaking 

even now

for your deadlocked caucus 

of hacked actions?

MIRROR STAGE

Once:

mere confusion 

of the grotesque 

with the meaningless.

Now: a reluctant 

surveillance of the day-to-day;

forgetfulness 

as signifier, 

castigation as 

routine. 

*

Existence 

as a thing 

begets persistence 

as a subject. 

the assumption, half-

forgotten, 

half-lost 

in translation 

is that one must 

perform one's function; 

one must, in fact,

go on.

*

The atoms 

which compose us 

are spinning themselves 

despite our reluctance—

or vibrating 

in place, at least 

with something like 

anticipation. 

Do a little happy dance 

gets 

sent to us 

as automated text message.

Then,

do your own research. 

Then, never look 

back. 

THE PROBLEM WITH PRESENCE

The stirring of bare branches 

by limpid 

eyeless wind;

morning sunlight 

clinging 

like a dangled modifier,

emphasizing shadows' 

whereabouts, 

severing the cold—

this is presence itself 

bearing witness 

to its function.

All the world is humming

to the same 

obscured assumption:

the problem with presence is 

we each perceive it 

as our own. 

LE SACRE DU PRINTEMPS

In lieu of hugs 

and platonic kisses, 

we are succored now 

by noises 

which ripple the horizons—

contrails 

from car radios 

smearing lively streets;

starlings who needle 

the blithe air 

with their whistles;

and laughing-screams 

leaking from the edges 

of our playgrounds. 

And though deeply at peace 

and in love 

with the sounds, 

we maintain 

a light dispassion,

and we know 

this isn't heaven 

by the way we aren't 

fatigued as yet 

with all the repetition. 

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

I like to think 

I write things down 

so that others can see 

they're not alone 

in this mission, 

but truth 

be told, I use poems 

like friction—

to slow 

my roving mind 

with the scrape 

of repetition 

and to run interference 

on my snowy disposition 

with the heat 

from my body's conflicting 

experience.

MARCH CARDINAL

Child of the wind, 

blown in fresh 

from Elysium, 

his fresh scar of red 

against the monochrome wreck 

is a real piece 

of cake for the hiker's 

eye to track, but 

to find himself here 

at the end of winter's dreck

might be dumb 

luck because he's 

just as shocked as you are.

ABRACADABRA

In the clogged wings

offstage, 

limitless prototypes 

wait (since eternity) 

for just the right climax 

or inciting incident 

to flood and ply

the arch 

for all 

of half a minute. 

*

Every Earth-second 

yields 4.5 infants—

and yet, 

in physics, it's professed 

that the instant 

two bits hit each other 

all of their mystery 

is forthwith 

annihilated. 

* 

From their seats 

in the house, 

the audience 

bears witness 

to undying iterations 

of 1s and 0s 

piling as 

long cords, 

into fantastic shapes 

never seen before—

but that doesn't stop them 

from leaning to whisper 

their trite explanations 

of the metaphor. 

THE SCIENTIST

Something has always 

piqued my interest 

about single-

serve recipes, 

drying racks 

which house 

just one dish, 

and austere 

wooden tables 

with a solitary chair. 

How much less 

can one man stand?—

I shall know 

when I get there.

That endgame, 

perhaps, is a 

mortal stress, so 

it's a good thing 

I was built for this

and am dying to test 

just how 

much violence 

bachelorhood will bear. 

BY COMPARISON

Everything that's coming 

had to come from 

something 

that itself was once 

very close 

to nothing. 

What would it be like 

to be that first thing—

parentless 

and humble, 

uncalled 

by another, and yet 

suddenly all 

at once, there 

to discover 

the nuts 

and bolts of loving, 

the long and short 

of leaving?

*

Ashes to ashes,

dust to dust, 

and in between, 

oneness (read: 

aloneness) 

with experience. 

*

It's good, now

that things are beginning 

to stir all around me—

shadows 

of dull bulbs, flickers 

of birds' wings—

that way, I don't 

have to be 

the one to sing;

I can be silent 

and still 

more profoundly.  

JUST THE THING

In a less 

auspicious turn, 

I'm the Flesh 

made Word—

because I'm always attempting 

to be just the thing 

to spurn the unconscious 

and burst forth 

from your mouth—

because I long to degrade 

on the waves 

of midair ringing 

til I land like a seed 

in the mind 

of you interlocutor 

and bloom into 

the sweetness of a greater 

understanding—

because I was built

to live forever, 

but I cannot bear the wait, 

and on a page, I can't stop 

leading, always leaning 

towards an answer—

and lastly, because 

I am never content 

to just be myself; 

I always 

have to mean 

something else,

whether or not 

I can mean something  

great.

OBNOXIOUS

how loud the rusted

hinges of my heart 

still creak 

with the coming 

and going 

of your trust.

TURN-ONS

When I tell you 

I need understanding 

like a drug, 

it sounds degrading. 

But 

the way you can't 

give me 

what I want 

is so hot. 

*

Which do you think 

is sexier? 

my neediness 

or

the way I pretend 

not to lie to you 

about it? 

*

In my experience...

you start to say,

because the truth 

is just not 

the party dress 

you're looking for—or 

because the truth 

is that the warm muzzle 

of authority 

pressing so 

firmly against you 

is soothing. 

NO-MAN'S LAND

It's possible that 

you and I exist 

not as 

a series of near-

infinite points, but 

more as as series 

of near 

hits and misses.

In both cases, 

some kind of

surveillance is involved—

some orienting 

spin somehow

superintends

the blind-alley waste 

of directionless space—

but in neither 

could you say 

we've mapped 

the lightning strike 

of being yet, 

even though 

we've been surveying 

all the right places.

NEW COVENANT

Maybe we 

no longer need 

to have faith; 

the resurrection 

is ongoing—it happens

incessantly. 

Everywhere you look, 

you see

younger 

and younger people

flirting and gibing 

and slanging in tongues, 

nonchalant about 

coming in late 

to replace you 

as they are 

about their inchoate 

need

to one day be 

redeemed. 

DE RIGUEUR

We are taught 

to want both 

peace and quiet, 

as if the two 

were mutually inclusive. 

But to what extent 

could the heavens be 

nonviolent 

when the light 

in which all 

consciousness subsists 

was born hence 

by bombs of such 

merciless velocity? 

It may be soundless 

in space, yes—

and weightless too, 

in some sense—but 

the most crucial

expedients

to this very thought 

were loud, hot

explosions 

none the less.

APLOMB

It's astounding 

the way all these still-

bare sycamores 

continue to bow 

and twist 

in crude wind—as if

calmly demurring

oh thanks, but 

no thank you

to winter's 

unnervingly 

cringe last-ditch overtures.

ÉLAN VITAL

It's possible that 

this whole time, we've been 

doing it wrong: 

searching for life 

as metabolites 

in the frozen oceans 

of Jupiter's moons 

when, in truth, 

it burns cleanest 

in the flame of our mistakes.

Our small losses 

accrete, and the travesty 

gains mass 

til it condenses 

and falls down

and puddles like rain 

in the sedimentary layers 

of rock-hard 

before and after. 

In fact, so rich is the vein

in the dirt 

beneath our feet 

that to say we could sort it 

and give it a name 

would defy any meaning 

or endeavor 

to explain. 

THE LIMITS

Bottom line: 

you and I 

don't have 

true power 

over time; 

we can pass it

or kill it

and perhaps some day 

change it, 

but only a god 

could forget 

it exists.

*

Sure, everything 

is possible—so long as 

we define possible 

as actual 

and everything as 

all extant things.

How might this ever

be helpful? Believe me,

if you're begging for the answer,

you don't want to know.

*

Heavy sigh 

of traffic 

as it resignedly 

collapses 

on just one 

out of countless

imaginable paths. 

THE DEAD

Some days, 

I'm afraid 

I no longer recognize 

their faces

with anything akin 

to familiarity 

or precision;

others, that I do—

and find them 

all too relevant 

from all of the wars 

I've seen on television.

*

Perhaps 

those feelings 

we expose

grow a tough skin 

of syntax, 

resistant to drought 

and strangulation, 

while those

we leave out 

starve and shrivel, 

having failed 

to sprout 

the well-muscled wings 

of articulation.

*

While we 

whiled away our lives 

feasting 

on prophylaxis, 

we were slowly 

but surely 

devoured 

by the analogous: 

as this corpse 

is to shrunken, 

so that one was 

to frivolous. 

TRIFLE

The orphan black 

squirrel does her 

gymnastics on a wire 

so nonchalantly, 

she must not 

be self-conscious—

and as I pass 

underneath the lithe 

animal, I think

that sometimes, 

there are pockets 

in the present so exceptional, 

the only explanation 

is that all of this 

is frivolous; 

I could spend a life-

time trying to cultivate 

this poker face,  

but a world this blithe-

ly beautiful can't 

possibly be serious. 

DEAD SET

It's true;

there's a secret sacred
room in you

where you daydream
great birds

and huge fish 

in dark water

and labor to translate
experience into words. 

But though you're content 

with the worth

of this arrangement, 

the halo 

of loneliness 

which serves 

as your lighting 

will diminish over time 

with the dearth 

of your returns.

How long does it take

to furnish a language?

What hellbent book 

are your days

and nights writing?

A WILLING SUSPENSION OF DISBELIEF

The whitest lies 

are whispered 

by the most complex systems—

like the dreamer 

who dreams, and then 

invades his dream, insisting 

that nothing exists 

unless it's being witnessed. 

Our senses say 

we're nothing 

but brief, diffuse clouds 

of temperature and pressure, 

but we don't 

have to listen to these 

wild allegations. 

After all, time 

can't be fundamental, 

for one, it's too pervasive. 

For another, it's far 

too easily killed. 

For a third, 

what we tend to mean by 

"I'm doing really well" 

is just that we've been 

staying hungry 

for heaven 

but only 

the smallest bit

lonely for hell. 

ENGLISH LESSON

Metaphor 

is not so much 

a cure 

for our vehement 

dearth of imagination; 

it's more 

of a foul-tasting 

homeopathic remedy:

a little of what kills us 

is what goes 

the longest way,

and the place 

where we are taken 

is the palace 

of our ignorance.

With practice,

we come to think 

of discrepancy 

as nothing 

but a plea

for our interest;

contradiction 

as a pea—and we 

are the princess. 

MY UNFUNNY VALENTINE

I've heard that,

like me,

every piece within you

has ridden the vim

of an interstellar burst—

but the whole 

of us now 

sooner marvels 

at this: 

that every blush 

recedes; 

all enthusiasms 

dim.

*

Don't blame 

Narcissus 

for what 

narcosis 

did.

*

All love exists 

in a bittersweet stasis—or else

swarms 

with the ghosts 

of our pathos 

and ignorance. 

 

Something left 

undone will breech 

the surface 

all at once,

the way an old taste might 

return to us unbidden. 

The shapes 

our mouths make 

in the dark

when we kiss 

can only be 

the inverse 

of the thing 

that we're missing.

GONE CROOKED

At the end
of the line, there aren't 

any lines. 

On the borders 

of a picture, no one's 

eye is fixed.

At the edge 

of every squiggled   

demarcation on the map,

such this- or that-ness

does not exist,

and the once wild, 

romantic, and 

obdurate frontier, 

as if curdled by fear
of its own 

sudden fixity, 

will wilt—

will double back

like it's seeking 

lost comfort 

in some less conspicuous past

like the hooked-

under tail 

of some little 

scaredy cat.

TROJAN HORSE

Don't look now;

the attention 

could destroy us.

From all the open tabs 

of all the incognito windows,

the chorus 

of experts chirrups 

"righteous indignance"—

or, put another way: 

paranoia's 

poker face. 

*

Deep inside its 

grand disguise, 

the Particular 

grows resentful 

of having to shoulder 

the burden 

of the Whole. 

*

Insisting on insistence, 

everyone 

believes me. 

My voice 

is the storm 

of white noise 

where I hide. 

Yes of course, reader,

these are empty words—

how else 

do you expect me 

to smuggle my 

self inside? 

HOLDING MIRRORS UP TO MIRRORS

What a pleasure it is 

to call things 

by their names. 

Serious, 

for instance, 

grandly summarizes 

the game that we play 

when we try to hide 

the frivolous 

truth 

about beauty. 

* 

Speaking of beauty, 

it has taken me 

forever 

to admit 

I don't want 

you to see me this way—

I mean 

to say: with half 

a compassionate mind 

to swipe right 

on every hapless princess 

to blundered into 

the obvious trap 

and fell into a coma 

on her birthday.

*

And speaking of truth, 

how are we 

defining that? 

Exaggerated sense 

of having all the facts? 

Overwhelming preponderance 

of evidence presented? 

Presented by whom? 

To whom? 

In what context? 

And in which 

of this universe's 

infinite rooms?

MULTIPLICITY

Sun-silhouetted 

sparrows crowd a wire, 

as if 

in syndication—

unassailable 

duplicates 

(neither whole 

nor parts), 

their indifference 

to falling 

rivals only 

that to flying. 

Perhaps such anonymous 

agglomeration 

is far and away 

the best way to prevail?

Perhaps you and I

have been upside down 

all this time 

about dying.

SOMETHING KIND OF LIKE THAT

Without much 

intention, old crows 

swoop in 

on the bracing 

wind to colonize 

a sycamore's dead branches—

but in just the right 

shadow at the denouement 

of day,

it seems reasonable to say 

that together, 

they resemble

those whorls of black 

in the final line which 

closes out an emblem poem—

coming 

out of seeming 

nowhere

to confound our fear 

with the thrill 

of the unknown. 

NUCLEAR OPTIONS

As matter is mostly 

an emptiness 

in space, 

so I 

am mostly an emptiness 

in feeling—

and no, the two 

are not the same thing, 

as that feeling 

is what keeps me from 

demolishing 

the world.

*

Picture 

your discretion  

getting massacred 

by gestures: 

god begets 

light 

begets 

reliance—or  

suspicion.

*

Our lookalikes 

are all defective, 

but 

don't say that out loud.

Would you settle instead

for a happiness 

contingent?

Or vicarious? 

Or how about 

a "later" 

encircling your "now" 

with all the exactness 

of an electron cloud?

ENANTIODROMIA

If things pushed up 

against the brink 

become their opposites,

then perhaps each 

little word I've placed here 

is a universe—

is a cat's eye 

that's fixed on you, archly

but detached—

is a sign that, any 

minute now, the sun might 

break through cloud 

and cause you to feel

your life has been 

a good thing all along—

is more than just 

a belated attempt 

to add value 

to what's lost—

is so beyond wrong 

in appraising 

that cost

that it isn't 

even wrong. 

CANDY HEARTS

Two twin lobes—

chirrup-sweet, 

spittle-shiny, 

every kind of wine-

colored—

conjoined 

to appease, 

to circumscribe 

our little-

minded pleasantries. 

GETTING OLD

In the cold 

pointless rain 

of an infertile February, 

it gets difficult 

to concentrate

as all sound 

grows thin—

impossible to harmonize 

the last year 

of my life 

with the speculative fictions 

peeling off the wind. 

Is this still 

the new year? 

And who is 

to say?—

each day, just as 

fathomless 

as every 

other day.

THE MEASUREMENT PROBLEM

Ironically, before 

there were numbers, 

the dream 

of you and I 

was a lot more 

precise. 

Our goodbyes 

were less conceptual, 

our barbs 

more cut and dried. 

Twice 

was a luxury; 

halfway, 

a meeting place. 

Now, I can no longer lie 

in the dark at night 

and estimate the worth 

of your indefinite face, 

then drift off to sleep 

while I count myself lucky 

that you're simply 

nearby, 

or else

very far away.

BEST CASE SCENARIO

What we 

wish for 

most of all 

in the darkness is 

a surrogate—

a twin 

who'll suck the poison 

from our ache 

with a kiss. 

But perhaps there is 

a reason our unease 

cannot be claimed: 

anxiety can never be 

extinguished—

just revised; 

languor and fatigue, 

once overhauled, 

are reinstated.

One can't just "go around"

the abysses

of experience—

each chasm 

must first be 

forded, 

then surveyed—

and finally 

named. 

MUTATIONS

In the beginning, 

was the metaphor—

transformation 

as second nature. 

But somewhere along the line, 

we confused 

a red delicious 

with the furious counterpoint 

of everyday experience; 

we got duped 

by a bugbear 

with a sibilant attack 

into 

trading in truth 

for the magic beans 

of facts. 

We were ends 

transmogrified solely 

into means 

not by 

the licking tongues 

of sword flames 

but the flicking tails 

at the ends

on our genes. 

PANIC ATTACK

There's a knot in me 

where some 

nimbleness used to be—

a supple expanse 

once known as 

"later on." 

If only 

I could draw someone's

attention to this mass, 

these ganglia unyielding 

to the endless arm 

of light. 

But the voice which comes 

from the throat 

of this gorgon

is ruinous and false—

and the entrance 

to my everywhere, 

which she guards 

with a bloodlust, 

however enticing,

is ironclad 

and dark. 

There's no use in trying 

to untie me 

from this malady;

the two free ends 

of a string this gnarled 

are always 

somewhere else.

GENUINE ARTICLES

Fearing that 

someday we'll be 

cut in half and sorted, 

we grow eager 

to head our killers 

off at the pass,

and so we hack 

at our selves until we're 

unzipped snippets—

parts of parts, stuffed 

into glove compartments, 

shorn of our edges, 

locked in the dark.

We think: the more 

we're scattered

the harder we'll be 

to locate—

and therefore,

the more likely we are 

to be found

a commodity. 

The ghostlier, 

somehow, the more 

substantial; 

the barer the better. 

Our treasure 

is our lack. 

PRELUDE TO A SONG OF EXPERIENCE

All the things 

I still mean 

to read 

slanting the breadth 

of a dusty shelf,

bookended by 

this astonishing 

world—

LET IT SNOW

Like background voices 

demanding our attention, 

and speaking in tongues 

of their own annihilation, 

the static and fuzz 

of promiscuous flurries 

is sometimes 

enough to provoke 

our anxiety. But 

such weaselly fuzz 

ought not get 

our hackles up, 

as it's nothing 

but promotional buzz 

for the real stuff.

Once it lands, 

it expires like 

a rumor that's spurious;

             

like a playlist 

on shuffle, it is not 

truly random—

and randomness 

is the only denouement 

that should worry us.

YES

What hidden truth 

makes fire burn?

What whispered breath 

makes water wet 

and the planet turn? 

These questions 

are but phantoms; 

there is only 

one word,

and all who live possess it—

though no one 

is the owner.

In the zero-sum contest 

that is perseverance, 

all participants 

have the power

to put their mouths around it—

and simultaneously 

win.

SPOOKY ACTION

It's chaotic 

but predictable 

as quantum physics: 

in the last instant, 

works of art 

create themselves. 

But the theistic implications

of that—

not to mention 

our sense of being 

directly addressed

by furors 

of color, or the slings 

of random metaphor —

these loom 

so much larger 

than our debit 

to the vision

that, instead of delight, 

or the pleasure 

of reckoning, 

we can't help but feel 

suspicion. 

PERHAPS

If Whitman 

was large, 

perhaps 

I am the empty set—

too alone 

to contradict myself, 

I contain 

no elements.

*

A murmur 

of action potential 

conjures black ants 

thrumming on a bone:

everything 

neatly cancelling 

any one thing 

out.

*

What hammer 

of purpose 

could produce 

such force, yet 

be so careless? 

What hidden truth 

makes water wet 

or fire burn? 

And who machined 

this world's turning? 

Even randomness, 

it seems, 

if only once 

or twice, will 

flap its wings—

will stumble 

on a syntax. 

BEYOND BELIEF

Emergence 

consists 

of things 

plus their appearance—

whereas

realness 

is what persists in things 

without such 

interference.

*

If you wish 

to discern 

between science 

and fiction,

picture photons, 

sparticles, 

negative ions 

all crossing the Rubicon 

of chaos 

and darkness 

and never once 

pinging GPS 

for directions. 

*

The Satan 

of Milton 

today would be 

sad

to see this ragged 

culture 

feign its expertise 

on God.

WITNESS

From djinns 

in the attic, 

to the thick 

of quantum physics, 

it seems, over 

centuries, many 

have agreed: 

to be 

is only to be 

perceived; 

nothing is anything

until it has been seen. 

Perhaps this is why 

we speak at all 

to those we meet, 

taking turns 

talking terms in hushed 

tones on the streets. 

It's as if we 

must first be 

proven to exist 

in order 

to believe. 

RASION D'ÊTRE

All I've ever said 

out loud 

has been swept 

by the wind 

to the oceans

and drowned. But 

thickets of words 

like this persist—

and what's more, 

their elaborateness 

makes them good 

hiding spots.

With the fortunes 

marooned there, 

I find common ground;

I don't want to be found, 

yet I need to be 

sought. 

CONFESSIONAL

If at bottom,

I am made 

of microscopic gods—

of quantum crowds 

who stormed this 

Olympus, 

whose courage 

each day gives new birth

to my prowess 

and whose truth

is the grandeur of familial 

resemblance—

wherefore this need 

to equivocate,

to cling—

to come clean 

on an incommensurate swarm 

of behaviors—

to get (and stay) up close 

to the screen

and just scream? 

SYNCHRONICITY

A leaden landscape 

in concrete and snow—

though the chill 

doesn't seem to 

pain you anymore

so much as 

the cruelty of that 

humorless echo's

quick slapping 

off the low, skinny sky 

from your boot soles—

as if hastening 

to let you know 

that everything 

you say and do

has been said 

and done at least 

once before.

BOREAL

The tyranny of January 

isn't showy—

it oppresses 

from the corners;

from molding drafts 

and stress cracks, 

its invisible diatribe 

needles our necks 

with insipid 

pricks of unrest—

less like 

some mythical

ice-tipped arrows 

than a wearisome  

panhandler, 

begging for color, 

even from passing 

shadows. 

FILLER

Notice how we're 

more suspicious 

of nothingness 

than its opposite:

like those few 

blank pages at the end 

of a book, 

a spotless mind

is the rare exception, 

while prolix 

is common and brooks 

no correction; 

in sleep, we prefer 

the narrative 

of nightmares 

to the tomb 

of dreamless termination; 

and those awkward 

pauses in our deep

conversations

are thought to be 

wellsprings of hidden 

predilections 

in the same way

the vastness 

of interstellar space 

is gouged 

by the arrow 

of time's direction. 

INFORMATION DIET

Perhaps it's for the best 

that some have had it 

with significance—

that they vastly 

prefer leisure 

and light refreshments 

to the terror of purport 

and the pity 

of acceptance—

that a few would even

sooner be escorted 

to their deaths,

like clouds lead 

by breezes past the edge 

of Earth's horizons, 

than square-off with

their neighbors, pitted

monitor to monitor

and armed with the facts 

from their own 

private newscasts. 

OVERWORLD

Once, to combat 

the loneliness 

of the present, 

we make-believed now 

and then 

were one place;

here and there 

blurred to pure 

pattern recognition, 

and all that we sought 

was the shine 

of one face. 

But soon, we grew curious 

and wandered out 

in the blankness,

and everything 

looked hauntingly 

the same in that forest 

as we tramped 

our way back toward 

that lost abstraction. 

Now, it's the end 

of another 

long evening; too dark 

to read the map, 

and we're at our 

most hollow—

so we're left 

with no choice 

but to pitch a new camp 

at this blip between

tomorrow and a past 

we can't correct. 

SPYGLASS

This moment, 

we are told, is everything 

you can notice 

that cannot be noticed 

in the last 

or next moment. And yet, 

the goal, they say, 

is to line up each

one perfectly, 

end to beginning, 

beginning to end—

and then 

peer through the hole 

at the center 

of all of them 

until you make out 

the blurred shape 

of a plan. 

HALF-ASSING THE HOUSEWORK

Scrubbing 

(in vain)

the stain

of nostalgia 

from the same

couple memories

I can capably

dismantle

and quickly 

reassemble 

from memory 

already.

IMMEMORIAL

Before 

and after—a false 

dichotomy.

Suffering 

isn't everything, 

but it's 

everywhere—

and it's massless;

it isn't 

your past, 

but it rhymes

with your past—

and it travels 

(if it travels) 

at the speed 

of light; 

the instant it arrives, 

it is already leaving; 

but it doesn't 

really leave, 

it only 

leaves you 

behind. 

NEW YEAR

The sentence 

keeps running-on 

longer 

and longer,

using fewer 

and shorter 

and more similar-

sounding words—