APOTHEOSIS

Inside me, there's
always this

one man
who's homeless—

filthy, his greentooth grinning
obliviously,

as he pedals and pitches
what you could only

graciously call his
theories of "general relativity."

But what's worse,
there's also usually

another man in there—
with his black

and stiff collar, so
pious, clean, and holy

that he will not admit
the sheer existence of the other

which would first be necessary
in order to ignore him.

From there, it's always
the same old

stomach
ache of a story—

one of them
feeling compelled

to move around, shiftless
and aggressive, but earnest—

while the other
just likes to take

his sweet time—
saying little, moving

penitently, almost
painfully

slowly, as if
on purpose—

so that everyone else in town
notices.

IMITATION GAME

Virile little

cursor—

upright and

seductive—

uniform,

like sculpture,

but 

blinking, though,

like—

semaphore.

Ideas flow 

(could it be?)

but What's the use? 

Can a machine?

Ever really think?

Only light,

full bright

panels of it,

along with a few 

steady slits

of its absence, answer—

ping back their

steady irrelevant rhythms, 

like questions

meant to dissolve 

the opacity 

of scientific investigation—

Do words speak? 

Do boats swim? 

Do airplanes sink?

What's the use?

the thing 

now seems 

to be pantomiming:

Can a 
human being?

Ever really 
compute?

FUTURE PERFECT PROGRESSIVE

Although someday
Love 

is what
all this 

will have been for—

it doesn't take
the load off.

it still can't be the goal.
After all,

it's not
like—God

is some
renewable resource.

You and I
are old

enough, by
now, to know—

black 
won't begin
to describe it—

nor empty.

immaculate stars
don't

just explode,
they leave

precisely

unfillable holes.

COMMON SENSE

When I close my eyes
and sit quiet
at night

posed
just right,
I can finally hear my heart—

but
I'm not talking
about the beating.

It's the rhythm
of each tiny
valve opening

and then
quickly clicking
shut again which interests me—

an implicit code,
like the golden words
inscribed in thought-bubbles above

pictures of those
tortured, pious
Dark Ages saints:

everything that's now silent
must be
heard eventually.

Everything we don't see
must inevitably
be witnessed;

but—just because anything
is going to happen
for certain 

doesn't necessarily mean
it'll be
understood.

TIPPING POINT

But how am I ever supposed
to know

I'm happy
until—afterward

when things are
worse?

She's looking at me now
as if

she's seeing
I can never actually tell her

everything a CAT scan could.
You must 

begin again,
she's saying. Always again, only 

each time, try to start 
a little sooner.

Bullshit. I start to say
that ignoring things

doesn't sound a lot different
to me than ignorance.

But the difference, now
I can

finally hear
while I'm still talking, is

one of those things
always seems like

some valuable-but-
hard to use compliment—it's

a silver dollar
being tossed to me

out on the street
by a stranger

who looks
and speaks exactly like me

just for mumbling
Agnus Dei, 

qui tollis peccata mundi, 
miserere nobis—

while that
other thing

just feels
obligatory.

EYES ON THE PRIZE

Like a dream, the toothwhite
moon looms

far away,

looks
beautiful—

until you remember

this is not a dream,
because you haven't
been sleeping.

And what looks like the moon

is really nothing but
some old rock that got
stuck up there,

lumpy and
pockmarked, freezing,
bald, and barren,

and it makes you
wonder

why you ever bothered
quitting smoking—

makes you
suddenly,
in that moment, very

suspicious of the government—

makes you
want to
take something—

anything,

anything at all
that's out here
under this moonlight tonight—

take it,
make it yours,
and destroy it—

just so it
doesn't feel like it
belongs to you anymore.

FREEDOM OF CHOICE

A crowded but camouflaged
city street, so full
it's gone

crooked
with rival
words and melodies

is more
than music
to my ears; it's worse—

it's like someone dropped me off
in a store that sells
only used similes and metaphors,

and I'm sort of a buff,
so I can't help but
start picking them all up

one-by-one, giving them
each a good thump
and turning them upside

down, exhaling my breath
on them, rubbing off
the condensation, then

gazing back with passion
at my neatly
distorted reflection,

and thinking—I know
none of these is perfect
or brand-new,

but they're sure
dirt-cheap―
and they're here

and I'm
here too. . .
and I can't keep from wondering

which vanishing reaches
of otherwise
indescribable light, or

which severe-angled corner
in the close-quartered
jail of human strife

any (any!) any
of these things
might make a decent,

easy to sell
and ready to use
symbol for.