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.