HERDING SCHRÖDINGER’S CATS

No frills with these

new quantum gods;

no sacrifice, no
scapegoat.

And no thrill

to exist 

in two places
at once, because

magic is
as magic does;

all things 

now both

keep the faith
and don’t.

NO EMPERORS

Salved and swaddled 

in the rhinestoned 

robe of words, 

we set off and posed 

from the top 

of life's parade float—

protected, 

we assumed,

from our loitering guilt,

by the glitter of logic 

and self-righteousness

in air quotes.

We explained each small move 

that we made 

as we made it 

as if 

narrative arc 

were a miracle cure 

for the cancer of greed 

turning sense

to Swiss cheese. 

But looking back now 

at the Polaroid 

of memory, 

we can see 

why they laughed as we 

taxied past, waving—

the armor we'd donned 

to oppose 

the old doom 

was lying 

like fiction, not 

clothes, on our skin; 

we looked pale 

and thin—and impossibly 

nude. 

THE WORK

As great stacks 

of starlings ride drafts 

with the speckled 

dust of dead 

suns on their backs 

down to muddy earth 

to needle for worms 

among crumpled 

leaves and 

cigarette packs—

so, feather under feather 

or shingle over shingle, 

do I extend 

those same acts 

to which I'd attended yesterday. 

Life dovetails 

this way—

sprints of elation 

commingle

with creeping death, 

torpor with 

the sun's caress; 

I cannot hurry, 

and I cannot rest. 

ELEMENTS OF STYLE

History may 

be a text block 

of narrative, 

but day-to-day 

life feels more 

like enjambment: 

some snatch 

of it starts out

making sense—

then it doesn't—

then it 

does again, 

looking back. 

*

Destabilization's constancy 

somehow leads 

to satisfaction 

if, and only 

if, it's temporary.

Picture willingly 

submitting to 

the opiate of sleep 

without presuming 

(from experience) 

you'd later 

overthrow its tyranny. 

*

The reader and the writer 

must meet 

in the mirror—

must combine 

to create the totality 

of feeling 

so desperate and dumb 

for the pleasure 

of completion, yet

filling up further

and faster 

with regret 

the closer 

to the end they get.

INSIGNIFICANCE

What is the word 

for when we mean 

to say nothing? 

Curious 

how the winnowing 

of choices 

appalls us 

when it comes, but never 

leaves us furious.

Just as the hub 

of the spinning wheel 

lacks motion, 

at the nexus of all feeling,

where no expectation 

or desire is detected,

perhaps even concepts 

like distinction 

lack a difference;

of course, it's 

a moot point, since 

in the end, it isn't—but 

that last gasp for expression 

could be said 

to be either 

nonexistent 

or unlimited.  

BEST-CASE SCENARIO

As we took in the view, 

we were forced  

to acknowledge 

that all along 

the way, black 

and white had underlied 

by default 

our perception 

of every shade of gray—

and that, no matter 

how enlightened, being 

"part of everything" 

still entailed a separation. 

While we waited 

for our breath to come back,

we finally made 

the calculation: for all 

the elevation 

we felt we'd hard-won, 

we had taken the gentlest 

possible slope 

to the top 

of the locally- 

tallest mountain. 

THE GAME OF LIFE

The object 

is to find 

that which will take 

your living breath away 

before some twee 

reaper comes 

to take your living 

breath away.

And points  

are scored 

each time 

you believe 

that all effects 

are caused, 

that your thoughts 

are connected 

like insects 

caught in spiderwebs,

and that similes 

like the one above 

are magic spells—

superstitious rituals 

built to hammer one thing 

into another 

using dull knives 

like love 

and hope instead 

of nails. 

FIRST PERSON PLURAL

Persons are made 

in the combustion process 

known as loss.

As probabilities exist

as distributions 

prior to measurement, 

so too are we kinds

of palimpsests—

superimpositions

of selves. 

Then, from the smoke and dross 

which surrounds each 

burning manuscript 

booms the thunderous sound 

of many rooms collapsing—

of pluralities 

ruthlessly 

getting paired down. 

*

Our eyes narrow 

at the answer 

to another computation, 

and discretion stands-in 

for the better part of valor—

not because it's better, but 

because it can be measured. 

*

This life, then,

is a pinprick 

at the center 

of a cloud; 

is the pupil 

of a rheumy eye; 

is a wave 

in the sky 

which has been 

slowed down. 

Isn't that 

too dreamy? 

GRADUALISM

The way, most days, 

the sunset 

sky elides red—

sliding instead 

from apricot 

to amber

before folding down 

its somber petals 

of lilac, plum, and lavender—

suggests less 

beauty in defying 

expectation

and more 

in this bleary world's 

refusal to accept 

the premise of a difference 

between "do" 

and "don't" expect. 

THE MASS ORDINARY

Everybody sees 

these crimson-

tipped maple leaves—

some plastered 

to the dewy 

grasses near their feet, 

many still clinging 

to senescent 

mother trees 

like fabulous flags 

to decrepit 

poles of memory.

In their own 

low-key way,

everybody senses 

the individuality, 

the novelty 

of each—

and yet, 

nobody thinks 

to make a distinction 

between which leaf 

is which. Isn't 

that interesting? 

SURRENDER

Star-scoured, 

moon-rinsed, 

the air at the window 

is now bell-clear,

and even thought itself 

becomes cheap 

in a world where distant 

branches dangle 

fresh necklaces of condensation 

in scant white rinds of light. 

There is no way 

to get inside 

the alien absurdity of it,

but no way out 

of the moment, either;

no point of reference, 

no view from outside 

of quiet's totality—

and so, for one more 

night at least, 

we slow our breath, let go 

of what we call belief,

and willingly fall 

into labyrinths of sleep.

KENOSIS

I do not write 

to collect 

my thoughts; 

I write to disassemble,

and then spirit 

them away.

As light 

through a glass lake 

will separate and remain 

only as a little heat 

and motion 

in the waves, 

each day, I divide 

and further 

sublimate my mind 

in the hopes that, 

in the end, I'll have 

materialized my soul—

emptied 

my whole self 

out into the world.

No map to unfurl 

of some buried 

cache of interior life;

if no such inner 

life remains—there's 

nothing left to find.

HOW TO MAKE RELIGION

Mix until 

just combined 

(stir, don't shake) 

equal parts lucky 

to be alive 

and dismayed 

by just how profoundly 

it agitates 

that gratitude 

to have no one 

and nothing specific 

to thank. 

KNOWN UNKNOWNS

Acrobatic finches 

pull and tease 

the hackberry branches,

heedless as birthday 

toddlers ripping 

clean through tissue paper—

discrediting so-called 

eyewitness accounts 

of consciousness 

existing 

at the center, 

and not just 

as a dashed-off 

insouciant flourish 

ringed around 

everything's fringes.

*

Where there's a will, 

there's a way—but 

is the converse 

also true? 

Does a "thing to do"

preordain a doer? 

Could the heart persist  

outside of its armor?

For that matter, 

could "outside"

exist—even a little—

if it didn't surround 

that wound 

called "the middle?"

REPEATING OURSELVES

Like those roses which sustain 

their blanching blooms 

clear through October, 

we too 

may now look 

a bit worse for the wear 

as we hold

the last sonorous 

note we'd prepared 

in defiance of the muffling pall 

of a silently 

darkening autumn—

as if virtue consisted 

in our obliviousness 

to criticism 

and praise and thanksgiving 

in our freedom

to do the one thing 

we already know 

how to do 

without thinking. 

WHAT IS THIS?

If matter is 

slow energy 

and energy 

is fast matter, 

then what 

are we even 

talking about? 

Physics tells  

what it does, 

but can't say 

what it is—

because 

even whatness 

is really something 

else. 

*

Our favorite books 

are made 

of poems, but 

what in the world 

are poems made of? 

Us, I guess—

hot plosives,

rough edges,

and incipient glances—

and that's just

what we are;

what 

were the chances?

ACCEPTANCE

We pride ourselves often 

on becoming 

better people, 

but perhaps it's 

our dimness—

our thick impenetrability— 

which makes 

the affirmative grip 

of love 

not just effective,

but possible

and necessary—

perhaps 

priceless amalgams 

of loathing and lust, 

like seams 

of gold, lie so 

deep at the center of us 

that our humanity 

would collapse if they 

should ever be retrieved;

the less we understand 

about these 

fables that inhabit us, 

the more 

we are willing

and able to believe.

ONCE IN A LIFETIME

Remember when 

we thought that we could 

simply trade labor 

for a glimmer 

of its opposite—

for the long, happy, 

untrammeled, 

callus-free life 

of the children we 

once resembled 

on another distant Earth,

where the moon 

routinely takes the place 

of the sun 

without 

the mechanistic explanation 

of eclipse? 

Would those kids ever think 

that the sweat 

of the intellect 

is somehow equivalent 

to that of the flesh—

that safety is a substitute 

for the raison d'être

of love,

or an orbital ellipse 

for the halo's perfect circle—

that one thing 

ever truly takes 

the place of another

when they know, 

even in the throes 

of their youth,

that two pairs of lips 

cannot make,

or replace—

or even summarize

the bliss—

of that nervous 

first kiss?  

KILLER POEM

A shriek 

with its splinters 

and spikes sanded-off, 

its creases 

all filled, smoothed, 

and polished 

with the thick 

shellac of distance—

until 

it shines 

with all the uneasiness 

and pathos 

which play 

in the shadows that eclipse 

your own face 

as it groans

at the sight of its 

grimacing reflection 

in some 

opaque expression's 

strange transparent finish. 

MANKIND

Dreamt I tried to speak 

to the sparrows 

like the serpent 

to the woman—except,

not to tempt, just 

to tell them

they were naked;

thought I'd watch 

them soar up at once 

to cover themselves 

with shorn cloud scraps. 

But instead, 

two dozen 

hard black eyes 

fixed mine back 

from the crab-

apple branches, 

and asked me not:

who told you 

what that was?

but: son of soil, doomed 

to work the earth—

who could have cursed you

to sing 

such a tuneless, 

lean, and unlovely

song to us?

TRUISM

The heart of most matters

is so trivial 

that it's radical—

crisis is the bleeding ink 

which blooms its 

beautiful terrible roses 

all through the tattered 

blotting paper 

of existence 

with the wastefulness 

of death and quiet

poise of gravity,

til you're just 

about ready to toss 

the whole mess

but still recoil 

at the thought 

that one day

you'll be forced

in any case 

to give it all away. 

INFINITE LOOP

Perhaps consciousness is 

recognizing the motions 

as such 

while you're going 

through them, instead 

of only after—

to become, after death, 

less a ghost 

than a photon 

that has no past 

no future, 

no friction—

and for whom 

the notion of transport 

from point to point is trivial. 

It is pointless 

to establish a motive 

or inaction; 

before you walk 

through its 

unbounded door,

the future is a repeating 

remainder 

called nowhere,  

and as soon as you 

leave here, you'll 

already be there. 

FAILING UP

I hate to admit it 

every bit as much 

as you do, but 

it's true that our most hated 

parts might be the places 

that simultaneously 

lust most intensely 

for somebody 

(anyone) to come 

to the rescue,

and those awful weights

which tug like stubborn 

anchors at our centers 

and ground us 

to our murky strife 

are the ones that 

imbue us with the metal 

that sustains us,

drawing our hearts

like iron filings to a magnet 

to the world next door

which summons us 

to wake into

and voluntarily (if not 

enthusiastically) suffer 

through a better life.