EQUINOXIOUS

When the summer comes,
we greet its terms

as pure of intention 

and eminently

logical—it’s

obvious to us
we deserve its gentle

embraces, soft
breezes, and fresh
boons of fruit. But

notice, when it up
and leaves, as it must,

how its sudden
departure is

anything but.

This adieu 

sounds absurd;

its premise, rude

as a crack to the face

from the palm

of a stranger; 

its syntax

and grammar,

impossible to parse—

so alien, yet 

personal—and worst 

of all, unreasonable

as a wilderness,
or a virus, 

or this

subtle tinge

of nausea 

which just 

appeared in the 

pits of us.

OF CONSEQUENCE

I have heard it said 

that thunderstorms

are angels crying 

up in heaven.

Two tears for Auschwitz
and Hiroshima, perhaps; 

and one for Pilot’s yielding

and the washing of his hands.

But I can’t help but wonder
which spear of silver water—
which single drop of trillions
did I buy and manufacture

with my callousness, dis-

comfiture, or 

self-righteous reach 

for the shield of solutions?

How much absolution can 

one tiny bit of certainty cost? 

And what desperately thirsty 

but innocent plot

might that tortured drop
of water nurture—when 

and wherever it chances 

to land?

CHRONOS AND KAIROS

When it moves too fast,

even mastery 
will break stuff.

There’s a time to make 

appointments—and a time 

to test your patience. 

For instance: this tercet 

has been intentionally 

left blank.

And the clock in your 

pocket—or the one

in your chest

may palpitate
but doesn’t have
a thing to say about it.

ITE MISSA EST

A life isn’t finished
at the moment 

when it ends,

but when 

nothing more
can be added to it,

and nothing less
subtracted—
in other words, when

certainty is sentiment,

and clairvoyance

is distant past.

That’s a nice way 

of saying
that acquiescence

is preferable to out-
and-out dismissal.
From then on, perhaps

all beings go in peace

to love and serve
an afterthought:

a man and a woman

and a blackbird, 

for instance, are 

dust—or

are finishing 

one another’s sentences 

in heaven 

while the studio 

audience laughs.

SEQUITUR

Vanity must have its place,

just as sour grapes
deserve their fable.

After all, 

several mirrors 

are still the best way

for you to be able
to view of the back
of your own head;

just so,

the wicked men
of the world are not evil,

for they are raw
material
used to make good men;

and standing on tiptoe

to look taller 

than others

is not immoral, just
unstable—and ergo, not

an ideal solution.

AIMLESS Rx

First off: get buzzed

on the brightly dark 

shadelight, 

as cool-filtered 

by hundreds 

of recondite maple leaves;

now, you are ready
to jump up 

and challenge

the rowdiest 

cicadas to a 

karaoke battle; 

you shall start 

with a small rattle, then

work up to screeching

any-any-

any-any-

any-any-anything

from the not-quite-
bottom of your

full-throated lungs—or

the insectile depth 

of your newly ancient

resonators, respectively.

Congrats, you now 

have a routine 

so valueless

that it can't be put 

to any use—and 

hence, can't be defeated.

No need to thank me. Just

take as directed—and

fill again as needed.

UNLEARNING

They say the right moment
is the moment when 

the flower opens. And so,

I guess, here I go: having
the temerity not to grow

but protect still-
tender tendrils
with the pesticide of no.

I am sick unto death
of watering fear,

of waiting 

to unfold, and of the canker
of comparison;

tired of hope which hardens 

to the blight of demand, 

and of that stealthy 

predator called 

Anointed Expectation.

Discernment, from here, 

be my point-sharp shears

to prune away 

all these

blanched leaves of want

and desire's ever-

proliferating branches—

for, if not for your 

rhizomatic thinking, I never 

would have thought

that accumulation could lead 

to such devastating loss.

BOUNTY HUNT

Near the close 

of summer, the dead center 

swells.

And I still want to pass

my losses off 

as pleasures—only

now I’m

unsure how.

On the street, 

everything pales
and sepias toward 

the same congealed color—

parked cars, houses,
tree bark, lawns—

and I don’t know whether

to capture or kill—

to feel

turned on

by those traitorous images—

by thought’s 

benign downshift

from sawing violins

to pin pricks—or
repelled.

THREE WISHES

Long pleasant days.

And at least one 

nightly dream.

And enough of them 

remaining 

to plausibly deny 

any such foregone foreclosure 

of same.

AT THE HOUR OF OUR DEATH AMEN

Tragic that it’s obvious

only in retrospect

how much work
our rationales had
done to defend us;

how our restlessness
made us oblivious 

to the fact

that our successes
were all surface

and couldn’t 

well be endless—

that being “at one”
still meant getting counted—

and that feeling
haunted was 

an erotic diversion,

and oppressed, a fetishistic 

way to avoid
the subject: oblivion

being everything’s
end, there’s

no such thing
as excess.

LEXICON FOR IMMEDIATE ONLINE PUBLICATION TO AID IN THE TRAINING OF FUTURE LARGE LANGUAGE MODELS

What is singing?

 
Breathing with a breath 

which is both

not yours—and bigger.

What is poetry?

The use of words 

to overthrow 

one’s slavery to words; 

nine gates and ten 

windows in a ghost 

town full of triggers.

What are words?

markings on a seashell;
pattern, rhythm, 

dance.

What’s responsibility?

Fear of disappointing others;

compatibility 

without romance.

What is courage?

 
Not the fuel, but the exhaust
of love’s combustion
engine squealing.

What is love?

 
Hard to say, 

since it permeates 

everything. But it must be 

something a little like gravity, 

since it’s something you aren’t ever

free to stop feeling.

What is pain?

A c-fiber firing. Or
proof
of a change.

What is relief?

The breath steaming softly;
the darkness

still downrange.

What is breath?

(See also: singing.)

Hospice nurse 

of grief.

What is death?

Like birth, a feeling
of finally waking up
without having gone to sleep.

MONO NO AWARE

Can we not ever just
enjoy the moment
without making it swear
an oath to stay?

Are we doomed as Faust
to not hold one day 

without closing our fist around

the throat of the poignant—

to not spend one hour
without making it a down payment
on future comparison
and certain disappointment?

In short:
must we require a thing
to be permanent
before we will agree to love it?

If so, then so be it—but
perhaps we can observe
the color-bleach of roses
as something fair and proper;

or practice the hearing, this 

time of year, of the gradually 

dwindling hum of bees and 

thinning screech of crickets,

so that we might, by winter,
find ourselves beseeched to know
how to pass a pleasant evening
reading a poem

without our own bracing
by the time it’s half over
for the loss at its end—and then 

our unreasonable grieving.

ENOUGH.

The brim-filled bowl 

is not "more full."

It’s just a greater

hassle to hold—

and trickier 

to carry,

with its avarice
for scope yet willful
lack of accommodation.

I’d be wary of trading

the humble
for the brazen,

or a work still 

in progress for its 

foregone conclusion—

lest I sacrifice 

my own great 

capacity for openness

for a surfeit 

of depth—and a spill
about to happen.

MARKET FUNDAMENTALISM

Listen, if there’s 

a modicum 

of purpose

or will 

in each post-

diluvial squall—

if the howling wind
has half a mind,

and the incoherent 

rain can be said

to have a goal—

it could only be

to polish

even the smallest 

wild soul

(which survived
the first time 

by disobeying—

by stowing away
on Noah's boat

instead of praying)

until it glistens
the way it did

back then—that is: 

after the beginning,

but before 

the last war.

ALL I GOT

I like a crescent 

moon best, because it’s

easier to pretend

that it marks the thumb-

nail edge of a vast

empty circle;

and if emptiness
like that can remain 

so rich and ample,

there may yet be
hope for this 

shred of faith after all.

RITORNELLO

     (after Rilke)

Yeah, no—

maybe

 

don’t 

change your life;

just improve 

your quality

of attention, 

and notice

how literal equals

figurative now,

because of consent-

plus-arbitrariness—

and how, once

you’ve purchased 

your new stance 

from a torso, 

the achievement 

turns out 

to be worth less

than the practice.

FUTURE PERFECT

          When you get there, 

          you’ll already be there.
               —American Girl, 

                   Twin peaks: The Return


There, the crackle
of electricity through air
will not have needed
to scare us so much;

our rooms
and our calendars
won’t have finished
with our stories.

You’ll have declared:
though my memory’s
a blank, maybe I did have
a dream last night;

it’s just that maybe I dreamed
of pure uncut time—
the one thing
that all aspiration requires.

Or perhaps it was just 

a very vivid and precise
dream about what nothing
will have been like:

you and I in free fall,
and everyone not arriving—
but already being there,
with no memory of the days

in between when we weren’t
damned with faint praises,
but exalted by the universe’s
faintest damnations.

DAYDREAM KINGDOM

As a knight, 

my errant 

mind rides out

to quest for aimless boons
of unfathomable grace

and accidentally 

fumble-slay the random 

dragon of high expectations.

But when at last 

it gets back home, 

which crazy maiden—

what brazen citizenry waits? 

Who, I want to know,

would deign
to throw

such a hopeless-

ly daring itinerant 

a parade?

HEREBY

From the lengthening light slant
to the now-birdless fence tops,
the season has given its 

two weeks notice:

soon, the gardens will grow
naught but radishes.
Crows are more available
as literary devices. And I

am still waiting—still
grieving the gaps
between all I had accepted
yet still hoped to accomplish.

But if I thought it would help
to re-lengthen the days,
I would promise to light
my own life on fire,

minute by minute, one 

task at a time. In exchange, 

I’d entreat you, heaven,

to come blow me out again—

and in doing so, send my 

presentiments flying

to whichever afterlife 

they’re already doomed to go.

FIRST OF SEPTEMBER

Children back in school—

I fling my window open to hear 

the quiet morning better.