FIRST THOUGHT, BEST THOUGHT

Basically without fail,

every single morning, 

through thick gunmetal 

clouds of your own 

unknowing

which billow 

like mad past the mountains 

of your shoulders, 

that first white-electric hot 

forked tongue 

of insight

leaps forth

to flash its arcane,

pliant pith 

and sets something 

thundering 

deep in your body; 

and then: every rogue 

wind blast 

and each zigzagging 

torrent of rain blades 

that follows 

are just 

the patterned mess

of words 

that precipitate 

as you bend 

toward a notebook 

and attempt

to express it.

THE ARRANGEMENT

In this particular 

paraphrase 

of the narrative, 

just about 

all of the time 

there are days—grave, 

or engrossing, 

or just 

frivolous days—

when no circuits 

are tripped 

by that surge of imperatives, 

and I 

have absolutely 

nothing to say.

Whenever this 

happens, I just sit

for a moment 

and sift through stray 

words I find caught 

beneath my eyelids—

and arrange them 

into reiterative 

shapes 

too simple, 

too insistent, and too 

true for explanation. 

And whether or not 

the arrangement

is great, I'll share 

what I've made in the dark 

with you anyway—

because just that kind 

of blind exchange,

to me, at least,

 is poetry.

COMEDOWN

We were told 

going into this 

that Eden sank to grief,

that going to seed 

is inevitable, since 

evergreen is rare 

as gold—

but still

we like to think

that ours will be 

the pith that lasts—

that this human fruition 

will pass 

through maturation  

without its succumbing 

to heaviness and stink—

when it's plain 

that even the dawn 

gets arrested

every single morning 

in thirty minutes or less; 

and the charge 

isn't arrogance, or even 

ostentation—

but merely of existence 

sailing past 

its expiration. 

TABLEAU

When I write, it's like 

I can sense 

without seeing 

my shadow 

in here with me—

not helping, but simply 

idly sipping coffee 

in a spare Ikea 

kitchen chair and 

staring our the window

while I sit across 

the table and winnow, 

by curving lines of light, 

the weapons he uses 

to hold me accountable 

and thrust my ego 

flush against the wall. 

I know this because 

I can feel his presence—

but only as 

that warm dark absence 

that prods imaginations 

to attend to concealed things

and which makes, 

through his unreal-

yet-substantive scrim 

this illumination of my 

waking thoughts' 

strangest inversions possible.

AD WORDS

When I see a new billboard

broadly proclaim

its succoring 

claim: that Beauty 

is everywhere—

part of me can't help 

but think 

it's a shame 

to normalize exhilaration 

simply by naming it. 

Do we not plot to deny 

the uniqueness 

that lives 

(for dirt-cheap) 

inside of ubiquity 

with each sly 

caprice we command 

to creep out 

from beneath every 

creased-up corner 

of the obvious? 

Is it thoughtless 

or insidious 

to universalize 

the sublime? 

They might as well 

try next to advertise 

the sky.

PARITY

How strange it is
to realize
we're familiar

with the feeling we get
in the tips
of our fingers

just before it
starts to rain.

How comfortably blasé 

as we peer 

from a window

to watch as a few more

ominous clouds 

approach; 

how normal it is 

for our prim little corner 

of the world 

to go intermittently dark 

and askew;

and how amenable 

we can be 

to disliking 

what we're seeing 

when we deem it coherent

with our poor, 

tortured bodies: 

these consistently abused 

but tenacious lands

within us

which periodically 

get soaked, and then 

dried off a little, 

but will never be offered

the chance 

to start new.

 

PROXY POEM

The poem I just deleted 

before I cobbled this one

was constructed 

like the elegant folds 

of a rose—

complex in all its frailties, 

perfumed with allusions, 

and yet, unmistakably 

simple and direct 

as its scent 

on the wind 

to get.

But now that its rash 

demolition is finished, 

you'll have to agree

that what's left

is much better, 

since, even though 

the substandard 

words here presented

express no sterling 

answers to your 

metaphysical questions, 

the sheer availability 

of extraneous information 

somehow short-circuits 

the demand

for counterfactuals 

and makes even these 

sad lots of ours

feel superior.