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.