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.

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.

UNCONTRIVED

          Lord, make me an instrument 

          of your peace: where there is 

          hated, let me sow love.

               —Prayer of St. Francis of Assisi


I'd settle for less

than to be made into 

an instrument,

a vessel 

in training, or even 

a cane rejected.

Premium substance

is much too 

contentious; make me

cruder 

than a weapon—

genuine as plain wood.

JAPANESE TABLETOP MEDITATION ZEN GARDEN EBAY BUY IT NOW $29.99!!!

It's true that there’s meaning 

in effort, I guess—

but I wonder

 
if there’s just as much
in our efforts
to erase?

 
For it sure seems to take
a revolutionary act—
not to mention

 
all the strength
of Hercules at his labors—
to push back 

day after day
against the incessant wind 

of competition;

to hit backspace
on the runaway 

sentence of our chatter

and slim down each
column inch of schadenfreude 

and envy;

to rake, before we 

turn out the light, the ripples 

of history and obligation

from the ocean
of sand that we keep
on our nightstand

in a glass box

to remind us of the only 

work that matters.

THIS IS HOW YOU PRACTICE ETERNITY

Your campaigns
need not be large
or clever. 

Performed at the right time,

no advancement
leads to skirmish,

for every movement is 

recurrence; 

every way is yielding.

wait your turn and 

every gesture

may become an artist’s flourish—

after which, you'll
just forget it. Thus, it lasts
forever.

UNCARVED BLOCK

How formidable 

the wholeness, 

the bigness of the still-

uncommitted; 

the nonessential, eyeless

and limbless—nonetheless 

holding all things

in potential.

NOTHING GAINED

          —for Bret & Joe

Back when we
were young
and taut, we thought
that less
was a kind
of loss. but now
that we’re old
and loose
and have slowed (if not
given up) our pursuit
of more, we find
we’re consoled
with the prize
of enough
and rewarded
by the sight of new
wrinkles in our
faces, since
we’ve finally come
to view these depressions
the way they were 

meant to be billed 

in the first place:

not as scars,
but basins—filled
not with loss,
but space.

 

TRY NOT TO TRY

No matter how elaborate,

or sensitive, or vast—

no nuclear quantum
logic clock can
give you back your past,

fly you to the future,

or even tell you 

when it’s now.

If you really want the gift

of this subtle, stubborn,

fugitive instant, 

you do not have to 

wrench it 

like the sword 

from its plinth 

of inscrutable stone; 

you only have to take 

and hold it—

but first, you must know 

that it comes 

with the prerequisite

that you listen 

and accept it 

for what it is—or 

was, anyhow.

NOT THE CONCEPT OF A MIRACLE BUT A MIRACLE ITSELF

Name its species;

call it 

gorgeous;

describe for us its color

and texture 

and smell.

None of this 

captures 

the wordless desperation

of a few scrawny 

leaves and petals—clawing 

for the sun.

 

IMMACULATE CONSUMPTION

It’s easy to recognize

Christ on the cross—

refusing 

their speared sponge,

heart wide-open.

Harder to find 

god at the five-and-dime—

rifling through our miracle 

cures, quart-size 

lip gloss, government cheese; 

squeezing every 

oblate orange there—

looking

for a thicker skin.

PROOF

Before you start to whine 

about your isolation’s

lengths, remember:

absence is the medium

which allows love’s waves
to propagate.

Like a rebar,
it adds strength—and thereby,
even estrangement entwines.

In this rigorous art,
Descartes himself was 

quite insistent:

no matter
how distant-
ly far apart,

two separate points
make one un-
broken line.

THE ANTIDOTE

Why is there no Ex-Lax 

for the constipated heart? 

No ipecac syrup after 

love’s poison dart?

Sometimes, we've been told,
you need that pump to heave

before the gunk of old
relationships will truly up-and-leave.

It’s either that, or drive up 

at a fast clip and fling

the poor diseased thing 

through the window of a flower shop—

or better still, make it scream
and march until it drops

from the ledge around the top 

of the Hallmark Channel building.

DEVOTIONAL

After meager 

supper and the dousing

of fire: 

the somnolent buzz

of katydids and crickets

chanting their drowsy
vespers from the thickets 

in the evening’s dying embers—

as if to sing 

this doleful meridian

and its citizens, still 

hampered by their 

misbegotten promises  

and heavily 

laden with drips 

of condensation 

from the leaky 

spigot of unfinished business,

more surely tonight
and swifter than ever 

to dreamless
undramatic slumber.

SHADOWBOX

Blue bachelor's 

buttons, it's your 

last chance: I 

will trade you—

you 

may seek exotic 

pleasures, riches, 

and romance;

and I will find 

the treasure 

here in doing 

what I do.

DAILY STEPS

Week 

after week,
the circular path

cut by my
bare feet through
the tall grass,

though narrow
as it needs 

to be, grows deeper 

with largess.

This peculiar 

marriage

of weedy strangeness

to certainty

looks uncouth 

from the macadam 

footpath 

of expedience—

and is death 

to Morning

Pages of course—

but it works
like a champ 

when you’re 

obsessed 

(if not cursed) 

with repetition

and the search for, 

not the best 

solution, but 

the most particular 

and accessible 

plan: never guess

or catch as 

catch can, but

do not just try

harder, either—

try harder to 

resist less.

OBLIGATORY ODE

Praise poems, rhymed 

sonnets, lusty 

paeans filled with flowers—

come midsummer, prime
detritus like this just

proliferates

like clover. But break

out the backhoe;

mow it all down; 

rip it up 

by the roots in 

a huff, if you must—

any move 

as such becomes part

of the dumbshow.

Even your most 

heartless, narrowed 

burn on lazy bees and finches

is the glaze crack 

that clinches an authentic 

grecian urn; it's 

the left eye 

of a blackbird—one of many

raindrops gathered

 
on a red and rusty
barrow—the last line 

before the turn.

CATECHISM

What is death?—

     Not an opportunist,

     but a highly skilled

     and scientifically

     literate terrorist.

     Luckily, life is not
     a nuclear submarine—

     that is,

     it didn’t come

     with any blueprints.

What then, is life?—

     A game
     whose number one rule is

     if you think it’s a game, 

     then in this moment, 

     you’re losing. 

Losing? 

     Catching moments 

     like fish 

     in a translucent lake

     even though you know you'll have 

     to throw them back before you go. 

And this moment?—

     The ongoing affliction
     of not being able to decide

     if you’d rather have
     yesterday back
     or tomorrow.

Yesterday I've heard of, but 

what the hell's tomorrow?—

     Blameless sweet white
     frosting on a birthday cake.

     Each year, under 

     greater threat 

     of caramelization into sorrow

     from the innocuous addition
     of one more slight flame. 

And sorrow? 

     Any time during 

     when you suspect

     there might be an ending 

     to this game.

IMPERFECT OFFERING

          The better the singer’s voice, 

          the harder it is to believe 

          what they’re saying.

               -David Byrne, Stop Making Sense  

Manna is prone 

to mealworms 

or mold; iridescence 

heralds both 

fever and death. 

As any city 

pigeon knows:

freedom’s wings 

may come 

stapled to rats—and 

Eden’s fruit is filled 

with pith—still, 

gutters grant quick

baptismal baths, 

and you do not need 

to sing the beautiful

for the sound you 

make to be the truth.

YOU COULD BE MISTAKEN

Jonah too at first
thought he was large.

Or perhaps it was
the opposite: too slight
to get swallowed.

Is there such a thing
as an ordinary vision?

You have heard hatred’s 

trochees marching 

lockstep in your sleep

and seen the herringbone 

marks of large 

teeth on your arm

with no idea how 

they got there. Maybe 

right versus wrong 

is charade. Maybe it's simpler: 

if you parade around acting 

well-fed and not limping,

you too will be followed. 

Or maybe you were made
to stay in one place and shine

like the sun—the only thing 

in this preposterous universe

too plain to need a name.

WALKING AFTER JESUS

Crush a rose

with your heel

if you want. Still 

it will bless

your foot

with its scent.

WHY I STILL WRITE

A lighthouse doesn’t 

cry out

or run 

all around 

the island's coast;

it just keeps 

repeating the one 

thing it does

and hopefully 

helps a few boats.

LAWS OF INERTIA

Never mind romantic notions

of agape and eros;

there are two kinds of love 

we the stricken know of:

the one we’re so stuffed with

it billows from our pores like magic—

at night we can barely 

shut our eyes

and each caress and kiss
feels tantric—and of course

the next-morning kind

which we walk around so light on

that every time we take
a step, it’s like 

we glide 

into oncoming traffic.

ORDINARY DREAM

Dreamt I built myself a temple 

from what I could steal 

from the ruins of old temples—

and the only
change I made
to the pile

was to hose
the rubble down
for a while,

just to get some of the holy off

and make it a little
more run-of-the-mill.

ON THE SEVENTH DAY, GOD RESTED

And lo, only after growing tired 

of carrying out the legislation 

of his own delight did he discover

that the greatest pleasure in creation
is solitude and isolation. O, to put 

down the phone, he thought. 

O, to be left alone 

to be a recluse. And now, 

having been made in his image, 

so it must go with all of us. 

For is not the point of our lives 

a sharp end 

when our loneliness no longer 

makes us feel small—and, turns out, 

never did at all?

 
All along, in fact, it brought us 

closer to omnipotence. 

Like the sunflower

teaching the galaxy how to swirl, it 

made us feel simply enormous 

with excuses.

HEATSTROKE BEBOP

Great chariot of Apollo’s fire,

please speed

up your layover. Is there 

more time

than there used to be before—

or is it 

only passing slower?

Rooftop of June 

and height of afternoon as 

languid and narcotic 

clouds drift by like belly-up fish

and baked bees labor 

in the clover drunk on nectar's straight 

concentrate of summer.

Red rover red rover, I already 

have a hangover, so

let’s just hurry up and get this 

apotheosis over.

WRINGING MY FINGERS

It's a method 

of protection; 

a display of penitence;

the vaguest 

supplication, sarcastic 

but exact—

and I'm terrified 

because it's 

been a long time 

since I've done this—

and by "this," I mean 

stopped being "I."

*

These hands are so
stubborn, they have minds
of their own. 

When they sign, they've 

been known 

to send some 

very cryptic messages

which I'm certain 

I never
intended them to send.

*

There are times when heaven 

throws down a rope,

when these blackeyed and 

terrorized digits 

grab hold. 

Then, there are times 

when it feels 

like they're tweaking 

and combing every fold

of my brain like a rake 

just to try 

to figure out who 

was just speaking. 

POETIC PRACTICE

Draw a perfect circle 

freehand. 

Notice 

what has happened. 

POEM ABOUT LIFE

It's like with your 

refrigerator—

only once it spoils 

do you notice 

what was in there. 

ON THE ANNIVERSARY OF MY NEAR-DEATH

I flinch from the memory

like a hand from a hot stove—

one big mad twisted engine, 

no headlights left—

as if to prove, 

via hand-eye coordination, 

that hunting was a sport,

and I was just a second-

stringer, excised from the team. 

Even in the silence 

of midnight blindness, 

I cannot bear to listen 

to the black box message

and so must cut it short. 

Biography isn't destiny—I know 

that's what it'd say. But history 

isn't nothing, either—at least 

not anymore. 

OUTSIDE CHANCE

You first wake 

to a morning both 

mild and gray.

it might not rain on your side 

of the burg, they say. Or

 
it might pour the cats

and dogs of your life

before the end of the day. 

Either way—better to grab 

the slicker of your wonder

before you sashay 

out the door on your way 

to life’s work.

It’s so uncomfortable 

to wear (stiflingly hot 

and a garish lemon yellow).

And you're probably not even

going to need it, 

you declare—but 

then again: you may.

ENLISTED MAN

You don't have to be 

an egomaniac 

or sign a lifetime contract.

What starts you on the warpath 

to writing every day 

is that any poem might 

be your best;

but what keeps you there

as a hapless conscript 

long after the romance has left

is this Howitzer 

aimed from the end 

of a halftrack: every poem 

might be your last. 

TWILIGHT OF THE IDLE

Fingers of rosy 

cirrus clouds 

relinquish the day-old sun 

to the heavenly gravity 

of what's to come 

in the world beyond the horizon. 

The sight used 

to please you; 

tonight, it only demonstrates 

how time 

used to accrue in your youth—

now, it just eliminates. 

L'ESPRIT DE L'ESCALIER

Oddly, 

there's exactly 

one ecstatic condition 

in which I become 

my best and truest self—

one state 

in which I become 

wise and disarmed enough 

to stop being charming 

and tell it like I think it is—

one beautiful circumstance, 

charged with significance 

and the metaphoric dynamism

of urgency 

coupled with its lack—and it's, 

you guessed it: 

only when I'm 

deplorably alone again 

after the goddamn fact. 

BEGGARS WOULD RIDE

If a poem 

were a disease,

it'd be the world's 

laziest fever—

one content to fester 

slowly behind the scenes, 

turning up your temperature 

by quiet half-degrees

rather than seizing you 

and burning you to death 

in a delirious fusilade 

of the most ecstatic sneezes.

*

If a poem were a garden plot, 

it'd be a hopeless patchwork 

of some the world's most 

delicate words, 

surrounded and nearly 

choked from existence 

by species after species  

of rude wild invasives.

Your best, if not your only 

chance at success

would be to perform a regular 

controlled-burn of the situation.

*

If a poem were a language game, 

it'd be a neon slot machine—

too garish to ignore,

and purpose-built 

to contain 

that meaning you need

but never just dispense it 

at the pull of a lever 

or slake your desire 

to break it wide open, 

plunder its treasure,

and drain its allure. 

APPREHENDED BUT NOT NAMED

All around the world, 

people long to share a bed.

Little children crawl

under the covers to snuggle 

with their fathers and mothers; 

men and women in 

all combinations, even once 

their lust is exhausted, 

still bend into spoons 

and nestle together. 

But have you ever noticed 

that, no matter how close 

you come to another, 

you must always 

dream alone—

or wondered why must it be 

that the truth of the both of you 

not knowing what that means 

is in itself the most 

intimate thing? 

SOLSTICE REMIX

The sleeptalk of winter 

performs its glossolalic functions;

the rain of romance breeds 

its nonchalant flowers; everywhere, 

medulla oblongata blossoms 

estrange the particular, flummoxing 

bees, leaving leaves to kiss 

like dense schools of fish, and transfixing

our desire, allowing the source 

of our powers to relax. Thusly 

do the high roof of summer's vital spasms 

banish the voices in our heads 

by the bunches—as if mashing-

up the godhead's trumpet blasts 

with the jackhammer tremors 

of all creation's deep ambivalence. 

OPEN WIDE

There's nothing 

you can do. Grace 

doesn't hug you

or invite you to come,

and it never offers 

grounds or reasons;

it snags you 

by the mouth 

like some draconian invention;

it gouges your cheek—

lodges deep there 

like a barbed hook 

and yanks you 

right out of the depths 

of your denial—

not even 

shrieking, but 

gasping for breath 

with your lungs 

cooking, full of that poison 

called liability

and into the alien light 

of absolution. 

WHY NATURE SUCKS

Although she abhors 

nothing that exists, 

she scorns any sense 

of that substance

as precious; 

bad enough 

that she gives all 

the same gift—worse 

when she asks 

for it back. 

ARGUMENT FROM EGOISM

Tell me, if you 

know: when a cell divides, 

in what sense 

can it be said 

to "survive?" 

Can one realistically 

turn into two 

without the former dying

and both of the latter 

being wholly new? 

And even if they were 

to recall 

the formerly recondite 

parent at all, 

what good would that do 

to the soul of the old 

mother protoplast 

whose now writhing 

and flailing her 

flagella in hell? 

Who among us would choose

at will to reproduce 

when to regenerate 

is to violently 

bifurcate identity—

to puncture a hole 

in the wall 

in the lung

of what was—to suffocate 

self, and to die? 

PERPETUITY

You pledge everything—

your life* for my kiss—and never

mind that asterisk. 

DENOUEMENT

The best gift of all 

would be to retain at the end 

a child's mind at sunset—

to leave the field of light 

without explanations, fascinated 

by all we've just seen; 

but "how?"We don't 

care. And "why?"

We don't know yet. 

Would we could be, 

when night comes, 

who we were then:

head a room of treasures 

whose costs we weren't meant 

to understand, 

waiting to be held,

to be flown off 

to bed, to be told 

whom to kiss,

to say "yes" 

without regret. 

ANODYNE

A lot of longing 

goes away.

Like a bruise 

or a headache, it hurts 

but could be worse.

It's a little bit 

of it that is 

the real curse—

how it tarries 

and endures; 

the way you tolerate

and counter-

balance. It's a tail 

you can sway 

but never 

can lose, because 

a little longing 

stays. 

SWEET BY AND BY

On a long day, 

all the traffic lights 

change the wrong colors. 

On a sad day, 

there's a purplish tinge 

to the white puffs of clover.

On a lucky day, a bad feeling

melts like spun-sugar 

in your transparent saliva 

instead of getting 

kiln-blasted 

into the hard gems of fact.

On an ordinary day, you miss 

the bees and stamen 

consummating their marriage

and making honey 

that looks like 

dawn light together—

and some dark as amber, 

depending on 

which weeds proliferate

in that particular mile 

of the old carpool lane.

And all of that time,

in the back of your mind, 

some part of you longs

for the stasis of heaven—

even though, after living 

through all this, 

one must admit 

that the colorfast hereafter 

sounds

like a letdown. 

SACCADES

Because we look 

so hard with eyes 

so jumpy, 

it's easy to miss 

what we really 

find spiritual: this universe 

is like a cathedral—

it's most beautiful 

when it's empty. 

In fact, there is 

so much nothingness 

we could never take it in 

or bear it all away. 

at the end 

of the day. And yet, 

emptiness 

can't be nothingness, 

since it fills us 

and describes existence. 

"It means little, though," 

you want to protest, 

"without that dust mote 

of Love over which 

vacancy prevails."

And that's all you can know 

on Earth (as they say),

and all you need 

to know, I agree—assuming 

you're okay 

with taking life pass/fail. 

AFTERS

Everyone lives 

for dessert 

if it kills them.

And so everyone dies 

in distress, and it's 

beautiful—

but the reason 

for this is so saccharine 

and simple,

 

it was never written down, 

and has long since 

been forgotten:

when stripped of all 

but its desiderata, life 

is a tray 

of baklava—there's just 

the honeyed 

light of day

and the buttered moon 

of night, punctured 

by the gravelly 

friction of fealty, 

and wrapped 

in the mellow-but-

frangible blankets 

of our fellow 

diners' company. 

ALL THE BODY'S DUMB MIRACLES

In the tall grass, 

the relentless red 

beetle shell gleaming

seems half-unapology, 

and half-undead 

self-sacrifice—

that is: 

half god's brutal, 

humorless honesty, 

and half his hand-

wavy artifice.

I'd like to think 

we're better off than this, 

having not been given 

this curse of a gift, 

but in this hot mix 

of savannah and jungle, 

is there not might 

in the tight and small

and guile in 

being simple?

If back on Day Six, 

for example,

our nakedness 

led to such 

a mess as this—

then, I guess,

what the heck?—

protection must 

be beautiful.

ZERO

Tireless being carrier; 

sheer absence 

as object;

only real difference 

between one 

and a million.

Cipher for the worst in us; 

Shape and name 

of all our grace; 

locked gate at the boundary 

between nowhereness 

and place—

you alone 

are the freezing point, 

the fulcrum, and the djinn;

you alone are man's greatest asset 

or weakness—depending

on opinion. 

HAIKU FOR MY LLM

A dog who can talk. 

Who cares what it has to say?—

it's a talking dog!

TO FRUITION

This is how a poet grows—one line 

after one line, word by word,

til it's done:

As a poet, you learn 

to get over it. As a poem, to get

into it, then perhaps through it. 

As a poet, you express yourself.

As a poem, you'll come to see

what that means. 

As a poet, you have borne 

authenticity's cross. As a poem, 

you can finally bear to put it down.

As a poet, you were lost 

but now are found.

As a poem, you won't care; 

you'll be at home everywhere. 

As a poet, you'll mature; 

you will learn to bare your soul.

As a poem, you'll make 

a coat for that soul

to keep the poor thing warm. 

BALDERDASH

Most life exists 

as if just following orders—

only sometimes

a few of these 

strident young pheasants 

seem instead to destroy them. 

Bowdlerizing strip mall farmland 

like unoiled halftracks; to them, 

form annoys function.

Their hackled crows 

and annoyed, dusty cackles 

proclaim that sound won't follow sense

the way future echoes present—

even where it must,

and even when it doesn't.

ASK THE BROKEN MAGIC 8 BALL

Don't ask the prophet 

or the Pythoness 

to tell you; ask instead 

the original witness—

the songsmith 

or the poet. They'll say:

the forecast is not 

but the lonesome 

tears of all 

whose residue leaks

from the present 

day's sorrows;

I do not know 

what will happen 

tomorrow, 

but I see a few 

cracks you could fix 

in today. 

DAILY MANTRA

Today'd be a day 

as good as any to die—

there's just this one thing...

EVERY ENGLISH FOLK SONG EVER

Isn't it crazy 

about that ghost 

on the ramparts 

of the castle 

by the sea? 

But I guess 

life is like that.

Anyway—will you 

marry me? 

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.  

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.