LET'S FACE IT

We love to hurt 

the way a baby loves 

to look around 

after it has 

just fallen down 

to make sure its mother is 

paying attention. 

*

Our preferred form 

of diversion 

is a pleasure 

deferred—

a day 

without timestamps;

a poem 

without all the troublesome 

words;

a "referred" pain 

as an analgesic 

substitute for the real thing.

("Better them 

than us," we exclaim.)

We like our 

soft feelings

like we like our hard truths: 

registered across town 

in seedy hotel rooms

under nom de plumes. 

*

We are not into 

"pushing the easy button."

We are into regretting 

easy buttons don't exist. 

TIME OUT OF MIND

                   —after Emily Dickinson 

"Forever," we've been 

told, "is composed of nows,"

but unfortunately, now 

is also flooded 

with forevers—

and the only way 

we know of to endeavor 

to cross over 

from one specious present 

to the ill-defined next is 

to caulk the twin wagons 

of hope and regret 

and attempt to ford

(via brute summation) 

the biblical river

of pleasure-

cum-pain 

which has burst the cheap 

dam of this 

same time and place 

and laid waste 

to that oasis from horizon 

to horizon.

But the hell of it is:

the place to which we 

think we might escape 

is just another maddeningly

familiar-looking junction 

between that which can 

neither be found 

nor forgotten.

DISPUTED ZONE

Even though you've doubtless 

come here for 

a respite from the storm, 

I am sorry 

to say that you've been 

misinformed; 

there's a despot 

in the white space 

and guerillas 

at the margins.

There are sergeants 

drilling crackpot logic

and halftracks of gibberish 

and incoherence 

patrolling with menace 

the perimeters of this— 

and every other poem. 

From the epics of Homer 

to the white chickens 

of the Imagists, 

it's shelter, some direction, 

or a mantra you're after, 

but the truth is 

it's widdershins 

the moment you enter—

and you hold no cards 

within these borders. 

Consider, dear reader, 

the predicament you're in. 

FINAL SOLILOQUY OF THE INTERIOR EX-PARAMOUR

In more ways than one, 

your face is 

like the moon. 

But never mind 

the milkwhite 

beauty of its cheeks

or the taut graceful curve 

of their bones; 

I have seen, unbidden,

the way it goes 

through phases 

to keep a ruined 

and dark side hidden—

and, having zoomed 

out to widen 

my view, how it shines 

with a light 

that is not its own. 

KEEP 'EM COMING

Despite the enormity 

of what or who 

we've lost, 

clouds 

out of nowhere 

fledge and caper; 

they swell and cleave

and bud and splatter 

with all the deathless disregard 

of immaculate 

sprites for whom beauty 

and whimsy 

are all 

that matters—but 

have no cost. 

How else would you explain 

our utter failure 

to prepare—even

to believe 

that the worst has 

come for us? 

ABSTRACTION

For some 

time now, sallow light 

on the spring/winter border 

has been blanching all those

photos hung too close 

to the window. 

The scene might read 

as tragic to the momentary 

witness, but 

in the relentless eternity 

of now, to temper

is a kindness; 

you can look at the past 

as if through stained 

cathedral glass—that is, 

without wincing 

at all the details, or facing-

off with facts. 

IT GOES WITHOUT SAYING

A Pentecost of pigeons 

perched in rows on 

rolling fence posts 

is spelling out a message 

just for you in 

Morse code. 

It isn't a prediction 

of the storm 

before it happens,

or a forecast 

of how many breaths 

you have left;

it's the eerie invocation 

of the purpose 

of The Random—

of a sharp exhalation 

and a little vague wind, 

in the long run, amounting 

to the very same thing.

This is what passes for 

excoriating doom,

its communique 

telescoping 

over the horizon:

if you feared you'd be 

hounded by fate 

to ruination, the bad news 

is good news—you will 

get there 

on your own. 

DOUBLE OR NOTHING

From the battered ground, 

stark crocus tips poke 

like licked fingers 

raised, in their near-

comic seriousness, 

to test the direction 

of the wind 

and feel around 

(a little dubious) 

for what sincerity 

may exist in this 

latest thaw.

Despite last year's flowering 

coming to nothing 

and the daffodils' trumpets 

falling silent—

then just falling—

they are eager as gamblers  

for their damnable chance

not to bask 

in the moral of the story 

or the Easy Street Kingdom 

of the power and the glory—

not for permanence, or 

to put it all behind them—

but only 

for balance—

only

to begin again. 

ON SECOND THOUGHT,

in this spherical geometry, 

a straight line 

is a lie—

is actually a slight smile 

or sneer; 

it may even 

intersect itself 

after a while. 

For Euclid, 

this was heresy. 

To be emissary 

of the kingdom 

and still be allowed to see it—

that is just

too much. 

It's a beatitude to be 

so near 

to the truth 

and not be allowed 

to touch it. 

*

I'd have to say 

it's rather odd, but, 

during one certain hour of the morning, 

the mind is a vacant lot; 

the few hawks 

that drift high above 

would have to be 

its thoughts. 

The arbitrary relation 

of the sign to the signified—

ominous, 

but not urgent;

eerie, but benign;

lifeless, and so 

deathless—maybe that

was god.

TALKING TO MYSELF

"What is there left

to say?" I mutter;

existence 

is incurrence 

of impression (viz: 

of debt).

*

A bit 

far-fetched, but it 

feels good 

to be called 

as material witness 

to the voiceless obsessed; 

to next spring 

and last winter 

colliding with each other 

and hopscotching birds 

that seem to disappear 

around the corner 

of the Earth; 

to the hide 

and seek 

of rivulets 

which traipse 

through mud 

like hieroglyphs. 

There is always something 

new to read, however 

crude or tenuous. 

No wonder 

this attention can 

never be spent;

this duty to desire 

can never be absented; 

this ache to ask 

questions can never

be addressed. 

THE DEFENSE RESTS

At this point, God 

must be 

absolute-

ly sick of me 

telling him 

all about the sparrows 

and trees.

What did you think 

you were doing? 

he'd say. 

I'd say: it takes a lot 

of faith 

to just describe 

the things you come upon 

in a prosaic 

way when one 

leaf shot-through 

with dawn sun 

is staggering 

enough to 

make you scream—what 

is anything?

THE NAME OF THE GAME

We like to think 

affection will make

absence shrink away,

but the consequence 

of tenderness is never 

abolition. Love works 

more like a caretaker—

an animal husband 

to savage distance; 

it does not kill or 

outlaw, just declaws 

our separation; 

for the sake 

of preservation it 

succors the herd—first

it feeds, then trains 

and breeds it. In a word: 

domestication. 

A SUBURBAN CONJURING

From the hedges
on the banks of the muddy
Dunkin’ drive-thru,

the sparrows chanting
“come and get it”

with a hunger
for spring rains, not donut-
combo breakfasts—

for locusts 

and wild honey, in fact; 

not that they 

could ever show it.

but forget about baptism 

by water, or coffee 

in the courtyard 

of the shopping plaza,

and never mind 

the incantations

carved in the cliffs 

of the distant auto mall:

"Good credit, 

bad credit,
no credit?" Hell,

if you were really getting
life right, you
wouldn’t even know it.

CATALYST

It sounds so 

innocuous 

when you say it 

like this: 

our prehistoric 

antecedents—

those eagerest primitive 

pieces of us—

were thermodynamic 

processes, 

catabolic molecules, made 

to break down acceleration; 

they ate up time 

and distances 

and breathed out rates 

of change

in increasingly warm 

and rapid waves, til 

the great grid of tireless 

innovation caught fire—

then the tires 

of the car—

then the back seat—

then the kids. 

CREATION MYTH

Particles 

of astonishment 

flood the gap between 

"I" and "am." 

Matter 

and its anti-; 

positivity 

and its pre-

requisite opposite, 

which must, as a rule, 

repel one another—yet 

here we all 

sit anyway, 

casual as Friday,

comfy as ever. 

*

Still bearing the stigmata 

of such deliberate precision, 

keen pithy snatches 

of some meditation mantra 

play around the collective 

nouns that we've 

come to call our faces, 

making them gorgeous 

as fractal images:

matrices 

of galaxies, say;

or heaventree heads 

of Roman-

esco broccoli?

*

We go forth 

and name things

to know 

where we stand. 

We shake things up 

and leave the house 

for the sake 

of getting back. 

this is not 

profundity—this is 

just its traces. 

CRUELTY REFINES

On the subject of tough love, 

much to hear this 

time of year 

from the mute cold throats 

of the rough 

fruitless bushes 

which crouch low 

and hold their ragged 

breath in the wind 

while a whole mess 

of sparrows—all 

hunger pangs and urges—

whinges now for shelter 

and sugar 

in their branches: 

never mind 

what "speaks to you." 

It's all about what could—

but chooses 

not to. 

VOICE LESSON

As if any further 

proof was needed 

that truth and beauty 

come in particles 

and waves—

rough but discrete 

and mercifully light, 

a song behaves

like a handy palliative 

used to modulate 

one's tolerance to life—

whereas 

singing itself 

is a very different catalyst; 

like a whittling knife 

to basswood, it's the honing 

of routine 

through rigorous daily 

practice

to a thing that feels 

sleek, but looks 

preposterous. 

DEUS EX MACHINA

The Terminator 

who learned to cry 

was right:

the best anti-virus 

protection from 

sadness is 

pattern recognition—

this 

is like that; 

stolidity 

like blankness; 

detachment, right 

next door 

to madness. 

*

Wherefore this need 

to triangulate 

emotion? 

Our first response 

to the threat 

of overbalance is 

not 

to respond—

but to find someone 

to show. 

*

Note to future-self: 

when you finally 

rub up against 

the Great Artifice, 

be sure to save 

the last of those three wishes 

for meta-

significance. 

THE PLOT

First, you learn 

that you 

are someone—

front 

and center, bright 

eyes shining; 

then, you learn that you 

are not—you run 

together, wander off; 

last, you learn 

it was never 

about you—all depth 

collapses, 

and the plot 

strands clot; 

the divinely un-

divided scoffs 

at what went rhyming

with "auspicious"

in the sticks—those 

trite seconds 

and gauche minutes—

the conceit 

was just a matter, 

not 

of time, but 

of timing. 

SECOND PLACE

Heaven is distinguished 

from psychosis

by its paleness. Whereas 

even the bleakest, 

snow-blank 

day in February 

is all shot through 

with stinging 

vivid filaments of memory 

and the richness of the longing 

for the sideways 

glance of spring—

the end of the show, 

where the ache 

is extinguished 

is a blank soundstage, 

stripped of its old 

garish game show sets

and backlit 

by the weakest dangling 

strands of winking bulbs—

as if the antidote to depression 

and anxiety was 

a kind of blindness; 

as if the runner-

up prize, 

so long denied, 

was an end to irritation 

and negation of striving; 

as if going nowhere 

and doing nothing 

were the grand culmination 

of yearning for something.