DIAGNOSTIC AND STATISTICAL MANUAL OF POEMS AND POETRY, FIFTH EDITION, TEXT REVISION

1.

A poem 

is a photograph—

a quick fun diversion, 

but mostly cruel 

in the way it 

hunts and captures 

proud wild moments 

to be gawked at 

in a zoo. 

2.

Poetry is sheet music—

a blueprint 

for performance, 

or more accurately, 

empty manuscript paper 

you can use 

to overlay 

a landscape onto, 

assigning pitches and duration 

to randomness itself, 

putting tone-

deaf reality 

on a clef. 

3.

A poem is a handbill 

for the ambient soul—

a greeting card sent 

by thought 

to confusion—

an afterword 

on sentiment—

propaganda 

for more poems. 

4.

Poetry is a fire theft—

a Promethean provocation 

of the Logos in words, 

like Merriam-Webster 

defining what love is, 

or when the White Star Line 

called the Titanic 

"unsinkable."

5.

A poem is a disorder—

a disease 

you can catch, 

the prick of each enjambment 

causing inflammation, 

and each 

stanza, a mobile

ICU tent, built 

to quarantine the infection 

of an encephalitic virus 

which, for a few dozen seconds, 

may make your death 

seem more—not less— 

unthinkable.

THIRD COMING

Hate to say it, but Yeats 

had too much 

and not enough 

imagination. Why just one 

rough beast, for instance, 

slouching up the main street's 

verge—why not 

a million? Perhaps even 

a billion 

running interference, 

pressing in 

from the edges? 

Or worse yet: not even 

"pressing," since it's 

nothing so agentic, and 

therefore, not a villain? 

What if trillions 

upon trillions of dis-

interested bits—not 

Satan's digital minions 

breeching our cyber-

Utopia's privacy hedges, 

but uncountable, unknowable, 

ineffable battalions 

of inane stochastic parrots 

built to mimic us 

to pieces—start to weigh 

down all the branches

and block said-Utopian 

sunlight's path, along with 

all its oxygen—not to mention, 

due to heat- and brain-death, 

any thoughts at all—

coherent or poetic—

re. said-Utopian citizens' strategy 

for an exit?

STOP ME IF YOU'VE HEARD THIS ONE BEFORE

When have you ever 

done anything 

for the first time? 

Can you strike an unheard 

chord on an even-

tempered keyboard, 

or hit a fresh 

vein in a tapped-

out mine? 

I say: imitation 

is not flattery but 

mandatory;

iteration, less theft 

than emphasis—a frictionless 

way to underline. 

I say:

those whose ambition 

is "make it again"

may yet build ships 

to Byzantium 

out of repetition, 

but those who admonish 

"make it new" 

are just as sure 

to lose next month's 

rent check to 

fantasy football. 

I say: to plagiarize your 

soul's last will 

without a single citation;

to rebroadcast thoughts

in syndication

without getting caught;

to mix quotes of the Greats 

without the need to pay 

their estates a dime—

perhaps that 

is art's one and 

only perfect crime. 

NEWBORN PRAYER

Please, let grief 

be those 

tiny metal claws 

which show-

off exquisitely 

the facets of her being—

a prong setting, 

built 

to silhouette 

her diamond 

of delight. 

NONCONSENSUAL

The problem is that 

it happens too fast 

to make any 

sense of it, so each day, 

you forget

the way morning light, 

so golden and kind 

makes the most 

vulgar things 

sing hymns—

highlighting each 

branching vein 

on each leaf

and both quickening 

and slowing time, 

til the past 

and its future 

don't just harmonize 

but practically seem 

to sing in one voice—

such wizardry as this

take the piss 

on forever,

and your soul (unbeknownst 

to you, of course)

again picks mortality 

as the vastly 

superior choice. 

THE GOD OF TRUTH

          Sometimes we have to settle for mere 

          opinions or guesswork, but the god of truth 

          is better served by attendant deities such as 

          reason, justification, and objectivity. 

               —Simon Blackburn, On Truth 

The truth about truth 

is that the truth is 

no divinity; 

it's more like a manic 

pixie in a rom-com. 

We assume it's enough 

to seek it—

to discover it, but 

in practice, we often must 

court and humor;

we must take it 

on fabulous trips with 

our Christmas bonus; 

we must call it 

"god" or "goddess;" we must  

placate and cajole.

And even so, 

capricious as it is, 

we know 

it might freak out 

or ditch us at any moment—

and before it hops 

on to the back 

of the softail 

with our idiot rival 

who lives down the hall, 

the spiteful truth 

might tell us 

it hopes we slit our wrists, 

or that it's better 

off without us—so 

don't bother to call. 

THROWING ROCKS IN LAKE MICHIGAN

Now, as back then, I 

cannot resist (albeit 

with slightly 

longer pauses 

to consider)—

as a kid, to show it 

I really existed; 

to displace with a smack 

the near-infinite 

by a little bit. 

As a man, to smirk 

at the so-called effects

of my causes—not 

to cause at all, 

in fact, but just 

to convince myself 

I'm still that kid. 

OCCUPATIONAL HAZARD

I swear—the older 

you get, the more you 

can't remember, 

but far worse 

than that, the more 

you can't forget. 

It's true; it's 

a bitch. But 

most galling of all 

is how, one day 

when it's nice out,  

you find yourself 

sitting on a bench,

and just watching 

the grass ripple

tricks you into admitting

that the litany 

of your grievances

is at best 

a little 

fusillade of birdshit 

on the otherwise- 

serviceable monument 

which grace 

had commissioned—

and then 

graciousness built—

and then 

forbearance gave 

as a gift 

to existence. 

APOLOGIA

Forever and ever,

from the seraphs 

in the sons

to the demons

in their fathers: 

memory 

is an ulcer—

a hereditary 

lesion. We burn 

where you spit; 

we hurt 

since you were. 

BROWN MOTH

Light worshiper, fellow 

obsessive, 

indentured servant 

of the moon—

how like its surface 

is your chevron body: 

color of the unnoticed, striped 

with the mute button,

dirtied with dust—

your alien eyes 

are consumed 

with the burning 

reflections of grayed fires 

which must look

as enduring

as your mania  

seems stymied by windows 

to us.

ENNEAGRAM 4

The sun 

must be a very 

cruel and narcissistic man 

to be 

so beautiful, so needed—

and to know it—but, 

under pain 

of blindness, still 

prohibit us from staring. 

INCANTATION FOR THE LOST GENERATION

If I could, I would go back there

to kiss the creases 

and clefts of your injuries—

tell you 

I'm sorry 

you were disallowed 

to put your mouth 

around your anger

or your meager joy. 

But,

less for the stern spirit 

than the weeping maid 

inside you 

that drives all of us, I wish

above all to tell you this: 

it is better by far, old man, 

to be defeated 

than destroyed, 

and anyone 

who will not let go 

of a fish 

is an idiot—it's 

just a goddamned fish. 

WHY WE DANCE

Because motion 

and parallax 

are confusing  

to the senses—

the omnipotent synthesis 

of centripetal gravity

must couple 

with inertia's 

brute imperative 

and cancel, tricking us

into forgetting 

at the chorus

that someday, "we"

will no longer be.

JUST SAYING

It's good 

for the conscience 

to admit 

you'd been wrong—

edifying 

to allow, for instance, 

that spring 

should have been called 

the changing of the leaves—

not fall—

if only its first 

observers hadn't been 

cowed by trembling 

shades of green 

never named 

for never seen—

stupefied (since we're 

being honest)

into truth-

ful silence.