NOT GUILTY

No Greek 

Republics got 

built on their 

wiles, true—but 

no Utopia 

or Paradise could 

do without them 

either. So 

hang your 

philosophers

and jilt 

all your saints—

their self-

flagellations, 

their rhetoric 

and pedigrees; 

unlock 

and open 

the death 

row gates. Poems 

may not be 

harmless, but they are 

no one's 

enemy.

COME CLEAN

After years 

and years of being 

steeped 

in the stuff, 

incompleteness 

has begun

to feel like 

an addiction. 

How could you even begin 

to revise 

these pitifully brief  

and rough 

outlines 

of feelings? 

Where is that hand 

which 

your hand 

was designed

(or at least 

had been counting on 

the vaguest 

plans) to touch?

Admit it: you're 

entranced  

by the voice you've 

been using 

to posit all these questions—

stoned 

on surprise, strung-out

on recognition—yet, 

you're helpless to resolve 

to dispense 

with these fictions, since 

you're trembling

even now, at the threat

of a decision. 

ZOMBIES!

With respect to all 

the vampires, poltergeists,

bogeymen hiding 

underneath the bed—

the far more uncanny 

and terrifying prospect 

is just that 

the dead 

should forever 

remain dead.

While the living, 

so helpless-

ly tied

to persistence 

should recoil 

at the brutal way

inertia 

is conserved

and mindlessly 

continue 

to stagger on

believing.

TEMPERAMENT

Try as it might, 

your consciousness 

is never 

bare. Pernicious 

or otherwise, you can 

always find

a mood there—

some preexisting 

atmosphere, 

some disposition 

must envelop it. 

Just as 

vagabond clouds, 

hung like whims 

in the sky,

appear so light 

and variable, 

unassailable 

and high—so soft, 

and yet 

so permanent 

that they themselves 

weren't built 

to notice

the barometric 

pressure 

put upon them by 

this planet.

AN AFFRONT

Could anything 

but an actual

slap in the face

really be 

equivalent to 

that provocation?

Motivations 

and deeds present 

much 

to discuss—but 

is any action, 

vindictive or kind, 

truly tantamount 

to sensation? 

Could words, 

however tenderly 

or shrewdly 

inclined, 

ever stand-in as 

a double 

for feeling? 

I mean, take me 

for instance, 

taking the time 

to methodically, 

formally, earnestly 

write this—better yet,

take you, who just 

blew precious 

seconds reading?

RESTITUTION

Light, piercing yellow 

through the rowdy

kite-blue wind—

wind on which 

surfs the slightly 

succoring smell 

of fruits turning 

sour, and of leaves 

decomposing. 

Impressions—these 

sensations which you 

see, hear, and breathe—

are more than 

a bit like the glut 

of spare change 

which clatters in your 

pocket as you 

saunter though the scene.

That is: 

they're not more 

than useless lumps 

which rattle their capacities

away in your brain; 

sooner or later, 

they must be 

extricated—passed around, 

exchanged 

for favors—

in order for them 

to matter.

IN TRANSLATION

Though it's late 

in October, 

and a chill rides the air 

like a blue note 

which flattens out 

the sonorant chord of sun—

and everywhere, 

mangy trees blush 

to have realized 

how long they've 

been slowly, but

before your eyes, undressing—

some afternoons, 

when the slanted light 

is strong, 

you still can hear 

the frazzled hum 

of bees in dry roses

and the high-pitched 

and quickly 

repeating melody 

of the sparrows 

who sing for the meals 

they're now missing. 

And on days 

such as these, you can 

grasp without guessing 

the meaning 

of the enigmatic 

song being sung 

from the bushes and trees 

without knowing 

the lyric: 

the world does not 

wait, and life 

is not long—but it is

still, somehow, quite 

drawn-out 

and exhausting.