GENERAL RELATIVITY

Let mass 

be defined as 

that feeling 

you get 

when you push

against the boundaries, 

when you tug 

at the contours 

of your own 

nothingness.

*

Energy is simply 

the repetitive 

performance 

of the one trick 

you know how to pull

off so well

that nobody 

realizes 

you don't believe it 

at all.

*

To square the speed 

of light, you'd need

a galaxy 

of grackles—

each darting

while exchanging mock-

insults with the others—

so quick,

agitated, and turbulently 

smothered

that there's no chance 

of knowing 

how the whole thing

got started.

ELEMENTS OF DESIGN

The way 

the rebellious 

wind runs wild 

inside its enclosure 

of stainless 

steel chimes 

is, to the passerby, 

its own kind 

of speech act, 

stopping

at nothing—dying 

to remind 

that even 

that levity we

misconstrue as freedom,

even pure emptiness 

has corners 

in the mind.

ANY BODY

When was the last time 

you refused 

your own reflection? 

when was the last time 

you self-identified 

as pretty? 

* 

You want to believe 

ideologies 

are parodies—

that the goal is:

make the most

of each constraint 

imposed. 

But, like all 

living subjects

bound and bordered 

by grim logic,

you cannot stop 

the compulsive attraction 

of neurons 

to belief.

And in time, 

you find yourself 

relieved 

to be identified

 

as the object 

of ongoing 

hostage negotiations—

between the law 

of falling bodies 

and the trifling weight 

of light. 

DITTO

We say 

"I get the feeling," 

as if feeling

pre-existed.

But even our most intimate,

and antique experiences,

when recollected, 

are nothing 

but counterfeit heirlooms—

ersatz treatises, 

newly minted. So, 

either, to god's eye,

there's no such thing 

as proper order, 

or else (come to think of it), 

probably it did.

AUTUMN RHYTHM

Ethereal mounds

of aromatic asters:

hardly fairly compensated 

for all that they could

(but do not) say—

for still spinning 

sunlight into sugar 

all the dwindling day

without so much 

as even nodding 

at the urge 

to glance up 

at god's time clock

or whistle while they work 

to pass the hours 

faster.

SIMPATICO

I'm in love 

with the way

we both get sick 

and tired 

of all the arguments

in such perfect 

synchrony 

and (who would 

believe it?)

to the

very same 

degree. 

EMPIRE OF THE POSSIBLE

In the kingdom 

where I live, excess 

is kitsch,

and sentimental expressions 

are the stuff 

of class revolt. 

On the razor-thin 

line between "why not" 

and "please don't," 

perfectly balanced, 

is built the palace 

in which I sit—

declining to throw-in 

with either side 

of the divide, yet 

unassailable as king 

of my own private 

nothing.