POEMS ARE HOLES

Sotto voce missive 

from the little distant 

tackhammering woodpeckers: 

often, you must drill 

before the reason 

will appear; 

it takes practice, not precision 

to make swiss 

cheese out of the hidden—

hunger, not fulfillment 

to think of whispering 

for emphasis, 

to make the unlistenable 

something to hear. 

MILLENNIAL PAUSE V. THE GEN Z STARE

By the way the sun 

after 4pm 

starts to shamble 

through your window 

like some slack Byronic hero 

and ooze through the green glass 

bottles littering your shelf

like an afternoon drunk 

still too numb to feel shame,

you can tell 

there's something archetypal 

happening here,

but unlike 

those swashbuckling 

try-hard romantics,

you wouldn't dare try 

to give it a name. 

OFF-THE-SHELF

Perversely, the wrongest 

thing of them all 

is the reassuring tedium 

of grief's routine;

the TV procedural 

of nullifying feeling—

not the insanity, 

the mundanity of loss.

Everyday  

as the mouthfeel 

of dry toast 

and lunch meat—

that Wonder bread 

and Butterball taste 

of their goneness. 

NEVER FAILS

Every morning, walking 

in silence, when the ache 

of my plainness seems 

to flare up anew, 

that same tawny female 

cardinal harkens, with the crest 

of her head 

and the shape of her tune

arcing to form 

an arrow pointing—

like the flame of a candle

to show me what to do. 

I can only surmise

that the meekest among us 

might be the bearers, 

not of burdens, but pardons—

for who would have guessed 

such a small tongue of light 

could lick away such 

a preponderance of darkness? 

IMPROVED TEXT FOR THE INSIDE OF A BIRTHDAY CARD

Cut down your family tree;

make kindling 

out of memory,

because each day you live

will demand the sacrifice 

of at least one small defeat. 

This is not the feeling, 

of course; these are just the words 

that the feeling might be trapped in:

in order to consider 

the trackless ocean, it helps

to be a speck of flotsam—

just like to ponder 

the mystery of your childhood, 

you have to be a grownup. 

But the last thing on Earth 

you will learn 

before you leave it, 

is that everything 

you finally know

will have to be forgotten.

MISSIVE

The reddest 

cardinal in the greenest 

fern tree

as the sun 

is dragged, kicking 

and screaming toward the west;

a streak of geese
whose strident hollers seem 

to ricochet

off every rain-

quickened building 
and slickened city street;

just watching light
as it falls 

through colored glass

and lands 

with a glimmer on 

drab vestibule carpeting—

Alleluia, goes the only 

lyric in the hymnal, who 

would have guessed? 

Sometimes, it's like 

you get paid 

to be impressed. Once 

or twice, what you want

and what you need 

are the same thing.

NEW WAVE

All you need

is love, they said—

and,

as the Earth's 

rotation slows, one might

hasten to add—

supposing 

that the wolves 

have been recently fed. 

MISE-EN-SCÈNE

What if time 

wasn't time, 

but the flow of information 

from the five starving senses

to a full-

to-bursting mind? 

And space, 

the last few stage flats 

of an off-broadway production 

that has already been shut down 

which have yet to be 

rolled away?

What would that 

suggest about the cost

of doing business? 

What would that say

about the price 

of our admission

when we're bitter 

enough to part 

with our credulity, 

but still 

willing enough 

to pay? 

WRITING PROMPT

Dreamt I went 

to a workshop taught

by my reflection. 

He said, in order to be a poet, 

you must ask

the right questions.

What is nostalgia? 

I cautiously invited.

All the memories, he replied, 

with none 

of the hindsight. 

What's imagination? 

I solicited next.

Some hoodoo hex; 

an atomic pile, throwing off 

art like radiation.

what is this purgatory 

where we reside?

Simply a purging 

through repetition, he sighed. 

What then, is heaven?

I stammered, losing patience.

That which lies 

all the time 

outside your vision. 

MODUS PONENS

If lies 

make baby 

Jesus cry, 

what would 

make him 

laugh—the truth?

Would shyness 

soothe? Or 

verbal abuse? 

Mirth is not 

a thing 

to cling too

tightly to, 

anyway, I think 

he'd say. Why, 

seems like just 

the other day 

his friends

ignored him 

til he cried. Then 

flattered him 

until he puked. 

And lastly

told him: if P, 

then Q; if on

our side, then 

crucified. 

THINGS TO REMEMBER

Take it from the grubby 

thirsty sparrows 

singing something 

very like A

Pirate's Life For Me

as they stake their 

claim on the fat 

gems of rain

which are caught 

in wild magenta nets 

of redbud blossoms 

that weren't so much as 

hinted at yesterday:

in the forest, 

as elsewhere, hallowed be 

consistency's name—

and yet, the proudest 

and most 

illustrious histories 

are easily

the shortest. 

LILAC

Something a little

like florets 

of bent light

suspended 

in rainwater 

and left out 

to steep for one 

long pensive night,

the odor of which 

might only be unfurling 

more and more 

slowly the mellower 

you get. 

THEODICY

The bright side is:

god's hands 

are never tied—

and his cuticles are clean

as clean can be.

But unfortunately, 

"arm's length"

just about describes 

how far apart they are—

and of course, 

those hands are you 

and me. 

FIRST EPISTLE TO THE ANTIPODES

Angel choirs 

are trifling

fictions—confections 

dressed in marzipan, 

reciting loud

flights of juvenilia; 

what's truly 

impressive is 

one good man—

that humble antithesis 

of the proud

nude emperor, 

none see him standing 

silent before 

the zealous crowd 

in all his 

invisible regalia. 

INKBLOT

Eyes closed

and dreaming, I 

can almost see 

the catastrophe that's 

trapped inside of me—

desperate to flee 

his prison's ship's 

emergency, and so

pounding his palms 

against the insides 

of my eyelids. 

Get help, he insists; 

don't get distracted 

by dumb hunger;

or at least, get pissed- 

off enough 

at the state of affairs 

to make a wish 

to trade places with 

your less egregious half.

Then I wake 

with a gasp, but it's all

impossible to parse—

pale counterfeits 

at best—like butterflies 

under glass,

or the flickering 

necrotic shadows 

trailing-out grotesque 

behind the tree limbs 

of reality 

in the black- 

and-white kaleidoscope 

of storm clouds and moonlight—

and all I can think is 

am I saying this right? 

 

CHANGE MY MIND

So there's a violent cataclysm—

a pulverizing nothing  

pulsing away

at the galaxy's center.

So there's a shivering, 

unrepentant caterpillar 

chewing a hole 

in your prom night corsage.

What is courage 

but fear acknowledged? 

What's the fire of hell 

but god's love—rejected? 

To be wounded is

to be blessed,

but even that's 

too obvious. 

When pressed,  

to affirm all the beauty 

and the horror 

with a smile—

to be content 

to have a wasted

supernova 

for a soul—now that 

should keep your fact-

checkers busy 

and employed—at least

for a little while.

APOSTROPHE

O, dancing shafts 

of April light;

o, contagious gusts 

of bright blithe wind;

o, silvery ghosts 

of sighing rain; o, oval

of repetition, over 

and again:  

please forgive 

this outdated mode 

of address;

please forget 

the specificity of things.

Use these lexical bits 

of straw and grass 

to feather me a nest; 

weave me a fence 

to pen in my doubt; 

o, do your best

to grow me a heart 

that is jacketed 

in the genius 

of a diamond—that is, 

harder 

than the land 

which surrounds it, yet 

even more 

delicately faceted. 

NO POEM TODAY

O blessed silver-

lake mirror 

of morning—

o tulips, delicate, 

soft, and diffuse,

breathing in 

small beads 

of opalescent water 

and breathing out 

the inchoate language 

of spring—

please put this poet

in his place 

for a change;

put him 

to some better use

than these eager young 

sparrows' peckish 

chirping to distraction, 

as if trying to rustle 

up the perfect 

word for le mot juste. 

COLOR IS THE LANGUAGE OF BIRDS

Such common 

pigeons, the color 

of storm clouds—

but such

iridescent necks,

like pearls of new rain.

You could do worse, 

they seem to claim,

than the world 

at its absolute peak  

of nonplussed. 

Just you take 

a tip from us: 

make a Dadaist plan 

to be less profound. 

Say something blue; 

do something 

round; be 

as you seem. If you can 

speak, why 

wouldn't you? 

TALISMAN

In the freshening air 

of silent twilight—that abyss 

into which all our soiled 

yesterdays blow—

each squirrel 

perched on his pole like 

a sentinel—like the king of all 

the untold animal species;

and each dove, a bust 

of Palace on her throne,

sitting naked and noble 

in her nest of maple branches; 

and me 

at the window, trying 

to let the day go. 

C'est la vie.

Comme ci, comme ça.

Sig transit gloria mundi.

Que sera, sera.

Those are things my 

old proponents 

used to say. But 

to give a thing away, 

that must mean I 

used to own it. 

RECAPITULATION

Fierce first days of April 

always seem to want 

to foment the start of something 

rather rowdier than holy;

from our bone-

dry indoor hiding places, 

even we change-averse conservatives 

cannot keep from staring 

at all of the rioting 

magnolias.

OPENING DAY

How little we understand, 

for how rough 

is the draft

at the end of the month 

of March? It's almost 

simple math: 

you tell April 

what your plan is, 

and she tries not to laugh. 

A silent witness to herself 

with no one else to tell, 

and patient and calm 

as the inside 

of a church bell, 

her grim blades of rain 

extricate spiders 

from their spouts

so the sun that has been hidden 

away in all things all along 

can come out.