RETROGRADE

Ever since I 

became your world, 

I'm amazed, 

looking back, how little 

anything has changed;

you are still my sun—

my moon—

my stars: 

always

you are 

far—

silent—phasing 

away in the dark—

A REAPPRAISAL

Have you seen, along the road
to ruin, how each blade
of crabgrass comes topped
with a dewdrop—

a carpet made 

of gems which runs toward 

referenda

on the wrong?

After all, a jewel
wouldn’t be a jewel
if it hadn’t been found
in a locked vault of stone,

and a praise bell wouldn’t
make a sound at all
if it wasn’t moved
to exalt when struck—

if that which pummeled it
wasn’t also part of it
and didn’t then become
the subject of its song.

SO HELP US

God we are all
such crooks—I mean,
look at us

stealing dates, furtive
glances, midnight
snacks, inhalations—it’s like 

we’re born

to be ingrates who 

go through life begging

to be caught
with our red hands
in an existential cookie jar—

and not for the rush,
or because it’s
"who we are," but

just to practice for
armageddon—
that feeling of sitting

one foot from the judge’s chair
with that very same hand
on a stiff bible, stating

nothing
but the truth,
and the whole

truth, so help us:
that Telos and Logos
could never understand

how damn often 

there are no such things 

as good explanations.

ART BRUT

I’m afraid of getting
too close to the thing

because I’ve got a funny 

feeling that, if life

were a painting,

it wouldn’t bear
a signature.

Despite oils and gessos
of extravagant color;

despite all the playful
shapes, strokes, 

and ligatures 

meant to evoke it’s subject’s 

singular features;

despite delicate and 

abstract layers of preferences

and memories;

and especially 

despite the fact that

many come to see it
and several great masters 
have claimed they're the author—

when I scanned
and turned it over,

there'd be nothing 

there to see, because nobody
made this—

it just came
to be.

MINDFULNESS AS HAMARTIA

What will nourish
day-to-day versus

punish, who can say?

What luck:
this over-
abundance of nature’s

great flavor for 

beauty in the cup 

of just one flower—

but still, I bet 

you’d end up crazy 

with hunger

if you were to pluck
one to have
as your dinner.

A BRIEF HISTORY OF LYRICISM

From a fast windmill 

joust to the

Zapruder film—

from a doomed ship 

with too few rafts

to the madeleines of Proust:

we think it's Fate conspiring 

with our truths 

to make such songs—

we assume we're

inspired—but what

are the odds

it's been you

and me all along breathing 

out the gods?

PURITANICAL FANTASY

Had a dream last night

that I could separate

the beautiful 

from the ugly

parts of my body—

and unlike

in the compos mentis bait-

and-switch of daylight,

doing so didn’t
immediately kill me.

INVOCATION FOR LIBERAL ARTS MAJORS

Just as pearls 

are less delicate, yet 

more rarified than facts,

so the artist, although
terrified, is patient 

as the windblown grit.

Call it a symbol,
a metaphor, or a lie—but 

let the statesmen

deal in worlds;
you shall traffic
in the skies.

IDEALIST HEPCAT HAS ENTERED THE CHAT

He scats
that there are no such things as 

separate events—

that he who
circulates his own blood
is the one who shines the sun.

Then he riffs that you must
see the golden
goose of life whole,

or else risk the temptation
of cutting it open.
You counterattack

that omnipotence
doesn’t have to know
how things get done

in order to transmute our
“freedom to”
to “freedom from,”

but you have to admit that,
even for a materialist, the jazz
is close enough

to say we see
independent identity
only through relation,

and that impenetrability
is just a jive word 

for drastic isolation.

GUI

The analytics
were wrong about this
evanescent present:

even though it’s 

see-through,

it’s not so plain a thing.

In fact, it’s less
of an empty glass case

than a state-of-the-art paddock
in goal attainment’s zoo;
for it acts

as the first
and the last user interface—

the only place on Earth
you can have
what it brings.

BEST BET

Sounds scary, but death 

is pure absence—

if we’re lucky.

If we’re not,
it could be
literally everything—

good and bad, all
rushing past
at full-blast, from first

to last, with
no reprieve and
no contrast.

Picture the mammoth
who went huffing
toward a tar pit—

only to get
trapped there and
gruesomely preserved.

What’s worse
than being forced 

to sleep where you shit?

A permanent habitat
made of nothing
but memory.

INTRO TO WESTERN METAPHYSICS

And then—out
of the primeval slime
of Time

which has ever been
sluicing through the grates

of Existence

crawled Structure
with that quick cement
of difficult consonants

and Practicality 

with its similar mix 

of reinforced K sounds and T’s

to ask: What is that? Where is it from?
How come? And where is it
going to fit?

Shock and Awe thought this was

the new ground 

of Reality—whereas

Diffidence saw
it was
just an emergent property

but was far too shy
to say anything—and even later on

when it finally

tried, it was 

still too polite to really 

strongly disagree.

ALL PURPOSE

Listen
to the sounds.

Feel your feet
hit ground.

Nothing’s
more enormous

than one minute
of affordance 

to receive
without interpreting—

to walk around
and notice.

POEM OF THE WAY AND ITS VIRTUE

A gesture needn’t 

be enormous

in order to be
enormous.

Maybe this

is all there is: quickmud

is best 

for the yellow flag iris—

but do not sink

to pick it up;

don’t shudder

or overthink

your purpose: go

with the flow

of the current, 

sure—but don’t 

be a dumbass;

use a goddamn rudder.

RIPENING

Mercifully, by late summer

our acidity begins 

to soften;

time has accomplished
what no one could accomplish.
(Though all eyes were focused,
no one noticed how.)

Some unconscious ordeal
of blight has receded,
and the thickly salved carapace
of acceptance settles in.

Without being pressed, now
something takes shape:

decisions made in haste
hit forgiveness
with their tap roots;

fragile hunches blush and grow

sharp in wind’s changes,

thickening their outlines;

The sugared starch of “maybe”
begins to accumulate

and ameliorate the bitterness
of almost, but not quite
yet being able

to waive yesterday—nor yet
being able to say
who we'll be.

(HOW TO) PACK IT IN

To climb back down the mountain
is not to succumb;

in fact, it’s the obverse side
of the goal.

An achievement unwound 

might sound like retroactive no,

but pride in high attainment can exist 

without insisting

on permanently living
where nothing much will grow.

HOLDING SPACE

If it’s the truth

that grief
trains strength,

and stubborn
fortitude,
endurance—

then why
don’t more of us take
out insurance

and volunteer
to stand
without lapse

in the clear dead-
center of the rooms
where we gather

and push the ceiling
up with 

both hands

while trying
as hard as we 
possibly can

to exert a down-

and-outward
pressure with the feet,

in order to make
sure the floor
stays beneath

and prevent
the walls from
probable collapse?

Not to sound
like a jerk,
but if it’s good

for our character,
manufactures worth,
and is so mission-

critical to the lasting

of this world;
then why do I appear 

to be doing

all the work—in fact, 

how come

it looks 

like I’m the only 

person in here?

EVRYTHNG IS UNDR CTRL

It’s no wonder 

a plant grows, 

but an animal ages—

why a tree is
cut down, but a person
gets slaughtered.

O, to be that
capably uncertain

instead of rehearsing 

our choirs 

of expectation.

We think we can 

control the weather

because we can open 

or shut 

the window.

We think only 

what’s broken
needs to be tended—

only what’s finished

can be loved.

We think:

once I'm done holding
this situation together,

perhaps I’ll push 

the sun down again,

pull some stunning 

flowers open,

and then, just for kicks, 

go close my fist

around some running water.

PALIMPSEST ON WILLIAMS, OR: MODERNISM FOR MILLENNIALS W/ MORE SECURE ATTACHMENT STYLES

No ideas

but in things
after 10pm.

LAST DAY

No one has said 

thank you

in a very long time.

And they all fell

in love where I wanted them
to rise.

No way they’re 

getting their 

deposits back again.

Starting over 

Monday. Even still, 

amen.

WHAT AM I?

I come upon existence ike 

a student to the stacks—eager 

to peruse, but only borrow 

from their creaking shelves.

Then I attack its distractions
like an invasive insect
and burrow into boredom’s core,
until I’m where the center’s at.

When I walk down the street,
I walk like a king—always
shining the void stars
without even trying.

And my birth must be 
pretended since it can’t
be recollected, but death
is not my enemy—no,

death is just the remedy.
For in the end, it 

cures me of the bug 

of being myself.

SO WHAT

Watching evening raindrops

colonize
the windowsill

would seem
a proper study
of the activity of god.

But if god is not
a thought,
but thinking—

is a finger
pointing the way
to reality—

then haven’t we
been here already?
In fact,

haven’t we left home
just to get back?
And whence this great

need to arrive 

at a state?

why not sit back

and watch the raindrops 

constellate? Perhaps

all this time,

we have been cheek-

to-cheek-cozy

with the mystery; so

why not take it easy—
boil water,
make tea,

and abandon our-
selves to these
lives we’ve been living?

AT GREAT PAINS

Wish you could just
take the sweets—
skip the leaves—

and eat all 

you please from life’s
dish with no upset?

Sounds screwy
to say it, but
suffering

is like gluten:
life might feel healthier
the minute you lose it,

but it quickly 

gets a lot 

less structured—and let’s 

not forget toothsome—

and textured—

and chewy.

FAUSTIAN PACT

The sublime needs 

the superficial

as the angel 

breeds the animal—

as gentleness and force 

will combine

over time to commit

what violence never could.

But what’s this earthly 

crucible coming to 

when—unlike the good,

and unlike

the true—god
and the devil would

both sell you
the beautiful?

OUTFOXED

We think: 

what is all that
mountain for

if not to support
the peak? 

But o,

the shrewdness
of the humble 

old sea

to always lie
lower than its young

impulsive streams—

for have we not seen
where they all
end up? Almost
 
like life 

springs its own

crafty traps—

like one must bend
down to get
deep.