AUTUMN CHILD

I am a fall child; I arrived
in October—those rough days
of angles and auburn,

the smell of thick stew,
and the texture of book pages
in light from a wonderfully shrewd
consolidation of afternoon.

So if I'm caught off-guard now
by these humid blue breezes,
the post-rain swelter
of gutter puddles evaporating—

if I am cautious
to discharge wool socks;
to fire my shirt sleeves, roll up pant
cuffs, and go wading
off into the lush quiche
of a muggy summer street festival—

it may be
because each always feels like
the first one I've ever seen,

and I'm dubious.
I still suspect I might be better off
back in the comfortable-
temperatured dark,

before there was even mock-
twilight to speak of:
just me and my heartbeat, listening
to this season, not experiencing it;

instead of believing,
make-believing
I haven't even been born yet.

DAY-TO-DAY

My body this morning—
a disheveled high-rise in the 1980s.

Blood, phlegm, lymphatic fluid—all
the disparate wearied residents
trudging reluctant through its
paper-thin halls.

Organs—online, but struggling
appliances—coffee makers,
dish washers, sputtering

and spitting out their
proxies for day-to-day existence.

Bones—the rattling ductwork,
concealed by repeat-stressed and
yellowing ligaments
of bored and boring drop ceiling.

Several lightbulbs blinking,
several gone out,
several more missing—

luckily not appendages or teeth.
Perhaps these
are my viewpoints,

affiliations, closed perspectives;
the rueful
poverty-stricken condition of

my never-inspected
subjectivity. And yet, I can feel
new ideas stirring:

those wispy stray and
secretive ones—moths in the back
of some mildewed closet;

those scattered few
which are actionable—
all hard-hats, all cool shiny

boots on the ground—black roaches
in one of the bathrooms.

WAKING UP WITHOUT AN ALARM

First thing
in the morning,

emerging
from the furniture;

clockless time—
arriving completely

as a package does, as a
newspaper

slaps against
(imaginary) edifice of brick—

light through blind slits:
hieroglyphics,

staff paper
to the musical novice.

Any guesses? Any requests? Any hints?
Hamper, bedside table, pull-

chain combination
fan and light fixture—everything

is landing—
nothing sticks.

a stiff rug,
winterwarm, the

summercold
hardwood—seasons pass over.

which
day is this?

MORTALITY

It's like—you know you know
the sky is blue;

you don't need some poem
to throttle it into you.

But every time you look through
the window,

it both thrills
and
unnerves you a little

to poke
at the smoldering discovery.

ORTHODOXY

One day
a mosquito lands
on the ashen planet of your ankle,

claims this land
in the name of Queen Whichever,
or perhaps God—

not God in the abstract,
but the immense
expanding and contracting

hide
of one heartsick African
elephant in particular—whereupon

it plants a funny kind
of flag, and makes to
refuel the ship before blast-off.

You—the you who
construes this
on a green-painted zoo bench—

you are not God.
You are no one
to it: sheer alien surface,

concealing new potentialities
of the most essential resources.
It

is most definitely
nothing to you.
Not even this. This

is artifice; another kind
of surface,
a different kind of exhibit.

The unreconstructed
truth—you never even
noticed it.

LES FLEURS DU MAL

Yes, it makes sense: Evil
always has its roots, so it must
by extension, have its
blossoms too—and Goodness

they say, in time, bears fruit,
ensuring its perpetuation
with its own sweet reward.
But what about

the potential efflorescence
of simply not caring, one
way or the other? How come
no one seems to wonder

how fresh-faced and mysterious
could be those alternate
shapes that would hang
on the stems of no preference,

no inclination, no opinion?
Imagine for a moment those
First Prize-winning specimens:
their angles razor-sharp—

from years of assiduously
doing no harm to anyone—
perfectly contrasted
with the voluptuous contours

of never having lifted one
finger in assistance.
After all, it's so common 
to be greedy and dishonest;

so garden to be a champion
of positivity in all circumstances.
How exquisite a life might look
in contrast, how achingly rare

and masterfully complex
to cultivate within in its vast
arable landscape
the Flowers of Nonchalance.

DAILY WRITING PROMPT

Not purity
initially, but

purity
by purifying.

Not inborn
beauty's

vanity, but
vanities

made and
demonstrated.

Discipline,
not punishment;

ministry,
not religion.

Revision
is musicianship;

the instrument
is rhythm.