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—