ABSENCE AS AESTHETIC

Day by day, 

minute 

by minute, 

we content ourselves 

with the imposition 

of our will 

to persist 

upon arbitrariness

and then call 

the newly minted thing fate.

All along the balance beam, 

we prance 

or we cling 

to this gangplank 

that bridges 

the gap between 

the playthings we were 

and the devils 

we're becoming,

capitulating 

to the passing of every 

present moment 

as sweetly as we accept 

the juiciest 

orange is lined with 

rind and pith—

as if 

we could convincingly 

assent to live 

the lives we were 

already born with.

HELIOLATRY

Is it the least bit 

mysterious why I 

worship the sun? 

I too can't resist 

being the center 

of attention.

I too exist to fuse 

the littlest things into 

less wieldy objects,

even though I know 

that will soon

present a problem.

I too am content 

to have lifelong 

dependents 

and too eager 

to let them confuse 

heat with passion, 

light with 

understanding, 

warmth with love.

I too have 

never questioned

my reason for being. 

I too don't ever sleep, 

consumed as I am 

by this need to burn things. 

 

DEATH OF THE AUTHOR

In the grocery 

store lot, 

a carrion crow 

makes a loud 

show of its 

roadkill inspection 

before taking-off 

with guts 

trailing from its mouth 

and leaving 

in its wake just one 

single spectacular 

feather 

of implausibly 

iridescent sable.

And the moral 

of this fable, as it drifts, 

shimmers, settles? 

That god may well 

be a crook

or a sham—but 

the glory 

of creation? Well 

and truly: god damn.

THAT'S THE LIFE FOR ME

It feels not the least 

bit shocking to admit 

from this perch 

where I sit among 

the torrents of today 

that I am not jealous 

of the freedom of water 

to flow and change 

shape and ride 

gravity with ease—

or of light 

to trade its weight 

for the twin eternities 

of everlasting present 

and neverending speed; 

rather, I am jealous 

of the freedom of trees 

to grow slow

and carefully 

into their positions,

and then, to just maintain 

their balance—

to hold fast 

to that erstwhile, 

hard-won shape—

in brief: to simply 

stubbornly stay 

in one blissful 

place for the rest 

of their eternity. 

QUALIFICATIONS

At noon, near the old church, 

just before its clock tower 

chimes the hour, 

I pass a small pack 

of starlings in the garden grass, 

huddled in their daily practice 

of warming-up 

their murmurations—

and in that moment, 

how I wish

that I could quit lurking 

and dredge up the courage 

to ask to join their choir. 

I don't know the songs, 

I'd admit off the bat—

yet I know how to sing,

and I swear that I'm 

equal parts proud 

and dismayed 

as any blithe impulse 

to praise would dictate

to confess 

that I don't get at all 

how that works. 

ANY WAY WE CAN

As so often 

in the park, crust scraps,

casually tossed 

in the wood chips,

attract an array 

of scattershot pigeons 

grateful for this 

providence,

graceless in their privilege 

to underplay their 

daily bread,

to embody the question—

how dare we live 

these lives 

we've been given? 

NIGHTFALL

How suddenly 

it lands now, 

like a crack 

in the jaw

which stuns you 

into silence

and makes you feel 

sorry 

for the illicit

yet broad-

daylight tryst 

that you saw. 

ALMANAC

Late summer, when the vapors 

of nearly three-months-

worth of memories 

seem to alight 

and shine for one moment 

on August's dustiest surfaces 

before sinking beneath them 

and into the soil, 

where avaricious weeds—

though outwardly 

enthusiastic as ever 

for moisture—

have nonetheless slowed 

down the pace 

of their growth,

as if each one was 

privately shaken 

in its faith 

by the sudden appearance 

of just one 

yellowed leaf. 

Nearby, in this earlier, 

heavier breed of shade, 

sparrows chortle 

for reasons which none 

of the weeds can know, and 

not even they can remember. 

AVAILABILITY BIAS

More difficult 

to think about 

than it is to see

why darkness is known

as the absence of light—not 

the other way around. 

Be it ether, waves, 

or particles, only substance 

can beguile us, 

so it seems that 

even life's biggest puzzles 

must contain pieces. 

When night falls, for instance, 

we tend to focus 

on the stars, 

and not on the unnerving 

fact of their bone-

whiteness—

or the loneliness 

which chokes space to tarry 

emptiness between them—

or how the vastness 

of that very emptiness 

only exponentially increases.

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.