OBJECT PERMANENCE

So what?—if the sun
is pinned rosy 
high and enormous

in the bright vivid  
flush of sky-
blue up above us—or if

instead—the next
day we wake up to find 
its ebullient 

and dwarfish
pathetic light vanished—

or at least 
lost in thick clots of 
grey 
white—neverending?

In real life
the sun—the actual
one

that sheer
faraway 
fierce spinning disc of a thing—

is just not the same—
as our idea 
of what it means

for a thing
to become once—and then keep-
on becoming!

the sun
that we've come
to depend on daily.

And what I mean
is precisely 
that it's almost impossible 

to notice 
such actual sameness!
without at least resorting

to calling—the fact 
of that
single great 

star's unwavering 
presence in our neighborhood—
a pattern.

DENSE FOG LIFTING

In the morning 

a few maple leaves—

low hanging 

stirring gently

to dissolve—

any lingering 

pools of chilly 

melancholy—

still obscuring

the fleet 

new light—of this very thought.

WASTING POTENTIAL

There are literally 
so many 

increasing-
ly accelerating—billions

and billions 
of tingling little

pieces of information surging—
invisibly 
ineluctably

out in all directions—
and countless 

effulgent  
bold
tantalizing 
inter-
galactic 

globular
clusterfucks of possible 
worlds they could create—that it's 

never
felt stranger—

yet
more apropos—

to just keep 
on pawing 

at this 
smart little
screen on the toilet 

until each 
of my
two legs—falls uncomfortably

fast asleep.

THE INTEGRAL CALCULUS

Things you can't

measure—you've just got to

estimate. Things

you can't estimate—you've

just got to—appreciate!

There—what once

was bearable 

is now—plain useful.

SOLIPSISTIC IN MY SPARE TIME

Sitting rumpled
damp and

lowdown—in a nonetheless
trumped-

up and
loud pivoting chair—my slippery 
existence 

starts to dilate
while I'm waiting—

accosted by several thinlipped
and skinny 
iced tea offers and

such chill!
satellite 
radio blasting;

even the crumpled up 
hair on my head
is starting to feel

a little 
less real 
than I'm sure it did 

just a minute before—on curious
account of this
insidiously 

frigid air! currently—snaking
like heck
around this little chrome

hell of a barbershop.

HEADSTONE

Seeking only
license—still

the zealous 
stop-at-nothing

young—are stirred
to dig 
and just 
dig down—

eager
and wanton—to 
remake
and remake more deeply

all the earthly letters! Not to mention
reshuffle 
all the numbers—in order 

to keep the story 
going—and so 

on
it goes—

long before
and after those pretty
inartistic looking carved-out dashes

which themselves seek
only silence.

ON THE CUSP—

Move along quick—
strange-
looking Ashland 

Avenue back-
alley trash man!

This ain't 
your plain-
old—or whatever

busted-
up manila rocket ship!

Really weird—
how
we'd been furiously 

searching—the entire universe 
for another 

dead ringer for planet Earth!
before crash-
landing old Frigidaire here 

on the corner—
of what looks like the same one?

Though honestly
I guess we'll
actually never know—for sure.