OF TWO MINDS

Somewhere out there, 

intervening pained 

and delighted

lies the softest

landing, otherwise known 

as confused.

As a new infant 

furrows her brow at 

our humming

or the tabby cat cocks 

his head left 

and meows 

while we vent 

the day's frustrations, or try 

to say I love you—

so too, do I

find myself, once 

in a while,

when I chance upon

some photo of a life 

long-left behind,

becalmed 

as a raft between two 

agnostic oceans—

marooned on that reef 

between anguished 

and amused.

BEST PICTURE

Despite its likely 

somewhat puzzling 

lack of romance 

at the end, 

after fade-

to-black, I should 

like to 

have it said 

that my life 

was a flawed 

but ambitious 

action comedy:

full of plot 

holes 

and second-

rate songs, 

and excruciatingly 

overlong—

but somehow 

well-paced, 

and all that while

braced by its 

penchant 

for quips 

and meticulous  

send-ups  

of hardship,

humiliation, 

bad luck,

catastrophe. 

DENDROLOGY LESSON

As the trees which stand

guard on each 

side of the street 

don't so much tarnish 

as burnish 

to flame-yellow, 

all of the neighborhood 

residents are invited 

to see, at one 

instant, the impossible 

mystery 

paradoxically inherent 

in their own 

continuity—

for, although the act 

of thought remains 

ruthlessly abstract, 

the picture, for once, is made

crystalline plain: 

like these, we may 

stand straight and 

stoically die 

in order to watch our 

way of life survive, 

knowing life-after-

sacrifice snaps 

to sheer certainty 

when the seed

of all futures 

is contained 

in today. 

NOW (OR NEVER)

To live life 

in the present 

sounds defensible 

enough, but 

in practice, 

there's really 

no such thing 

as that tense. 

Try as I might 

to gain purchase 

on the current—

by declaring, for instance,

that I am of the Earth, 

and always with 

the breath of its 

silty wind, I sing—

I still cannot help 

but wail 

about death 

with the loam in my 

throat from before 

I was born. 

Not to mention—

those glowing moments 

in which I hastened 

to make my nest

all dying too soon 

of their own 

poor confusion—

that carnage 

of each passing second 

only proving 

that existence 

was not 

but an artful 

delusion. 

  

PLAN B

Oftentimes, our finest

knowledge 

cannot be applied; 

the most crucial principle 

is also 

impossible, 

like traveling masslessly 

faster than light, 

or leaving a room 

before you arrived. 

As if we were selfish 

and self-

absorbed narcissists, 

some conclusions 

have peculiar habits

of suddenly, 

cruelly breaking 

it off with us.

And all we can do 

to rebound 

when this happens

is binge 

on such junk- 

thoughts as 

nothing is random,

and absence 

of evidence is evidence 

of absence.

ARTICLE OF FAITH

Intelligence

has the talent 

to bankrupt success.

Many who are 

smart are struck 

dumb by their abilities'

prodigious proclivities 

to sidestep 

what they want.

They build cottage 

industries 

on their fondness 

for refining 

their own postulates 

out of existence—

forgetting in the process 

that the mess 

is the monument 

and that every 

best guess is 

a valuable precept:

an experiment 

is a failure 

if and only if 

if fails 

to adequately test 

a hypothesis. 

NULL HYPOTHESIS

Those words 

echo loudest which 

alienate us most 

from what we 

discursively 

refer to as "the world."

But it gets a little 

worse for the claim 

of this thesis, 

for "silence"

and "process" offer 

little succor, either:

Once I've got started, 

there is nowhere 

I can go with this—

and to "be where 

the action is" just means 

"stay the course."

And yet still, 

I might settle for 

a counterfeit slice 

from the imitation 

pie of vicarious 

happiness

if only I could 

say that I was 

genuinely sure

that its having 

been offered wasn't 

more than a little 

obligatory,

malicious, or 

coerced.