LIFE'S WORK:

Fix this.

RADICALIZED

When I hear, 

up in sun-

sizzled buds 

of vermilion, 

the delirious grackles' 

strident singing—

out of hunger, 

out of lust, 

out of anger 

and mistrust—

about how nothing 

has been known 

that hasn't also once 

been lost, 

I'm reminded 

of an unfound time—

before my avian 

soul was caught, 

dismembered, 

and eaten 

by the fox 

of obedience—

when I knew 

life on Earth 

was a circumference-

less circle; 

every cry was urgent 

at its infinite center—but 

none of them was 

controversial. 

MERCY COUCH

Unclear how, 

but I suppose I need

to thank heaven 

for that first muzzy 

beat of slow tempo 

after waking up—

when I know 

for a fact that I've 

turned up again

but still am not 

sure what 

to worry about. 

POSSIBILITIES

What is it, I wonder,

about each morning's fresh 

mellow tide of hunches

that makes us forget 

about the fallow 

way each day must end?

The way lovestruck 

birds risk blatant overtures 

in still-bare branches

or the frisky wind 

that rolls disenchanted

boxes down alleys everywhere

must serve as narcotic slivers 

to the same hand that doles 

out nightly dread; 

for a fleeting moment, 

last evening's shouts of panic 

melt into golden tender air, 

and the living there is easy 

in the summer 

in our heads. 

FLING

For now, I have decided 

that the best things in life 

are gratis, yes, 

but also disputable; 

like a coquettish 

cardinal swinging 

branch to branch 

and tree to tree, 

I too might be free 

to change my mind 

endlessly—

and the song I sing 

may sound 

unbound, but only 

because it is 

mutable. 

THE GARDEN OF EARTHLY DELIGHTS

Even after 

that sugar rush crash 

of delphic erudition,

no one 

thinks to ask

the most selfish question: 

whence 

these sallow cocoons 

of flesh—why 

would God want 

to obscure his best 

butterflies? 

GOOD RIDDANCE TO BAD RUBBISH

Like the silence 

between moans, 

or like reflux 

in the night, 

conviction hits us 

in the gut. 

I feel it in my bones, 

we say—

or, I know that 

in my heart—

because certainty

is selfish—

by which I 

mean: it lives 

inside us. 

Whereas doubt, 

thank goodness, is 

a migratory process, 

a striking out 

for parts unknown. 

We suspect 

it underlies us 

when in fact it 

wouldn't touch us 

with a ten foot pole. 

Like spit 

or a shout, 

it was really only built 

to burst 

from our mouths, 

then bolt 

like hell for its 

actual home. 

IDENTITY POLITIC

As an object in space 

may be extended 

through many different 

time dimensions 

without every really "belonging"

to any of them,

so "i" 

is a shibboleth, 

a torture device 

of convenience, 

a lever used to prod 

parity into abeyance—

better yet: 

a clever code 

used to bootstrap 

the rest of you 

into continuing its 

sentence.

Meanwhile, the past 

and the present 

are your two 

divorced parents:

divisive 

but still a little 

too significant—

indispensable 

to your very 

survival, in fact—

yet acutely 

and instructively  

unwilling 

or unable 

to even so much as 

coexist. 

GHOST STORY

When it comes to the next life, 

half-seen is only 

half-believed; 

if every uninterrupted 

second of our lives 

was an object 

infatuated with its 

image in the mirror—

in other words, its redoubled

but left-handed opposite—

then what does that say 

about changing 

the subject? 

*

To simply begin again 

would seem 

more expedient 

than an excess of oblivion.

But 

knowledge and its limits 

are provisional pairs 

of binary digits. 

A buyer's remorse code, 

held "in contempt" 

of what? 

*

Take this mute testimony 

of branches, for instance, 

first puncturing, then devouring 

every color on the horizon: 

less like the rattling chains 

of some dolorous phantom

than the chains of coincidence 

and fate we get caught in—

tangled, we say

when we're lucky enough, but 

strangled the one time

we're not. 

AFTER THE SNOW LEAVES

land 

battered bare

like a skeleton—

like a picked-

clean rib cage: empty, 

shrunken, brittle, frivolous—

like a blank landscape 

painting in which 

anything can happen—

like a camouflaged

cat that feels 

stealthily superior 

 

while assiduously licking 

her claws clean 

and the tips of every tooth—

like the infinite grandeur 

of a mountaintop view 

getting compressed until 

whatever is left 

resembles blandness—

and the truth. 

FOR THE Nth TIME

As if brand new 

to the fierce 

wild angles 

and delirious 

verve of their 

iridescent bodies, 

hordes of starlings 

have begun 

to swarm the branches 

of the bare tulip 

poplar trees 

every afternoon 

to flap and gossip 

in madcap anticipation 

of the new season. 

For a moment, there is 

not a scrap of silence 

or of room;

then, the spell breaks, 

and the murmuration 

dissipates

as the world at large 

exhales, relaxes, 

and moves on, 

forgetting 

for the nth time, as it 

mercifully must, 

that there's still so many 

small gods at large 

on the planet—

and yet 

so little heaven. 

CONFESSION

To the tire-

marked rat corpse, 

lying half-squashed 

in the pockmarked 

asphalt of the alley's 

left wheel rut: 

yes, of course 

I hope the rain comes 

to flush you well away—

but still I can't 

wish that you didn't 

exist. 

After all, 

to whom else but you 

is it safe to confess 

all my worst 

bents and most 

hideous secrets?

The ways I've been 

callous or raised 

vindictive fists—

or worse, how I've been 

in no rush 

to make change? 

I am not proud 

of this, but what 

can I say?

The slow road to hell 

is long, but it's paved. 

And at least 

until now, I've had 

the sense to get out 

of faster traffic's way. 

CHRISTENING

We label the chutes 

and bulbs now emerging 

as aconite,

snow drop,

crocus,

or primrose—

as if it profited us 

to designate discretely 

the preludes 

to this end of repose 

as these blind and half-starved 

harbingers of spring.

But how much more

would be gained, I wonder, 

if we just let that hunger rage 

in our wonder 

and called these new feelings 

by their actual names? 

SYNCHRONIZE YOUR WATCHES

"Get with the program,"

we like to say—

as if joining the story 

already in progress—

however nebulous, 

humdrum, or rotten—

would align us 

with its future twists 

and keep us safe 

from being forgotten. 

*

There's a right way 

and a wrong way 

to get with the winning team. 

You can urge on 

your own undoing 

like a Sophocles chorus, 

or fly underneath 

the swarming angels 

of your doom, 

then sink 

to the bottom, try to 

quorum-sense the storm.

*

In the best case, 

death is a lot 

like sleep: 

less a shorting out 

of focus 

than a broadening 

of attention—

a late-

in-the-third-act 

realization 

and acceptance of that

which has 

already happened. 

WHEREAS

Vis-à-vis

our tendency to cling: 

define "nostalgia" 

as that pillow of your past 

without the suffocating weight 

of all of its minutiae. 

* 

If it hurts you, 

then it's matter; 

if not, it's 

information—

whereas:

everything in between 

is just empty space, 

and everything outside it 

is just idle 

speculation. 

*

Re: the mass 

hysteria of crowds, 

be careful

what you say 

you don't believe in, 

for hope is not one—

but many little gods, 

still so new at this 

they don't want to be 

found out. 

FRAMING DEVICES

At one certain point, 

everyone living 

has precisely 

the same amount of past 

as future. 

For this moment only, 

they no longer need to walk, 

to count, to listen;

there is nowhere to go—

they are home. 

*

Quick question—

how many descriptors 

does it take 

to denote 

an individual? 

How many individual birds 

make a pair?

and how many pairs make 

a difference? 

*

Behind each eyelid, 

there's a small, tidy room 

being held 

in reserve 

for "you." 

*

The beginning of love 

is sympathy for another, 

but the end of love 

is pity. 

How can this be?

The holy trinity was made 

when two lovers 

walked together on the shore 

and were followed 

by the gaze 

of a third-

person narrator. 

*

The structure of sentences 

like those above 

has conditioned each of us 

to value most that 

which we expect 

to see next. 

In just the same way, 

reverberation teaches 

that every word 

which comes to us 

has already been said 

at least once. 

DIAGNOSTIC

The results are in—

inside me, there's a knotted fist 

of string 

where the beginnings 

and endings 

of things ought to be—

long twisted tangles 

of some equally inaccessible 

near and far, 

some tension 

that's connected to, but doesn't 

end with me 

and the start of which has 

always been 

somewhere else entirely. 

*

I used to be more 

exact than this, 

but that was before I knew

letters and numbers.

Now, every frightened thought 

is less a mandate 

than a blundered attempt 

at a revolution—

which is 

to say: half senseless 

directionless, 

nonproductive motion

and half little battle 

for the truth 

of some previous-

ly governable situation. 

PASSING FAIR

What is there left 

to complain about now? 

Will the dead still need the living 

like the living 

need the dead? 

Has the gist of our conviction 

has been weighed down 

by old inference yet?

By way of answers, 

here comes spring again—

all penitent mallards 

wing north 

for the season 

and fingers of rain 

massage moss 

from dead tree trunks.

Things soften, then streamline; 

so certain, they're 

redundant.

Life in such times is 

tedium refined;

ease 

that's insistent;

reiteration 

with a difference. 

OLD HAND

There is, in this life,

a kind of strangeness 

so pervasive as to turn 

innocuous—

an eerie glory 

so often repeated 

that, even in its transience, 

it doesn't bear hoarding. 

Picture the proverbial 

overflowing bowlful 

of tropical citrus 

on a Midwestern table—

and tell me

we're not experts

at gorging 

on the foreign 

while ignoring 

the incongruous. 

MARCH MADNESS

Day by slowly 

swelling day, a collective fever 

becomes visible 

as the bashful sun 

tickles baubles of frost 

from the mud-mottled grass

and the geese overhead 

blare back northward 

in a huff. 

With spring still little more 

than an R.E.M. dream,

little sounds appealing  

in the rawness 

of wind and spent-

matchstick look of lawns—

but even though 

that pulpit-crowed hope

of resurrection still feels risible, 

we have to admit, 

it's a joy 

just to realize 

even our muddy, most 

juvenile feelings. 

LATE FRAGMENT OF STEPHEN DEDALUS

Dreamt I was love's 

last living vampire; 

loneliness 

was my familiar—

but for once, my lust 

and your concern came 

teetering back into 

phase with each other. 

As I opened my mouth 

to bare my teeth 

and claim consubstantiality 

of words and reality, 

your lips—which were wet 

and pressed close enough 

to, at least temporarily, 

shut mine up—

felt like not so much 

of a big deal by contrast, 

and, as such, were 

all the sweeter.