JOB DESCRIPTION

Is your hobby 

to take 

note of things?—

is that phosphorescent sheen 

of night clouds rimming 

city skies 

greener 

or bluer than the evening 

before? 

If the time it takes 

for the furniture 

to grimace, or 

for every flower 

to earn its

own word—

and each word, 

all the time it requires 

to mean—

then, you might qualify 

as our key change, 

as our modulator,

as that flat sixth 

which transmogrifies the mode 

of the day;

redresser 

of all 

status quos, recoverer 

of songbirds—

over 

and over again, 

but always

in some 

new way.

SELF-DEFENSE WEAPONS

We all like 

to think we've 

closed the book 

on such studies, but 

could it be 

that, evolutionarily, 

the "purpose" of these 

tongues was 

not so much 

to speak 

as to 

tunnel themselves

firmly 

into our cheeks

as we 

effortfully cultivated 

a relationship 

with our melancholy 

which allowed us 

as a species 

to never mean 

what we feel,

to feel only

what we know,

and worst (read: most 

advantageous)

of all—to never know 

what that means?

DELIMITED

It's just as I thought: 

this evening's 

dim tide,

mauve-gold and 

unfolding
gradually before me, 

at last reveals 

not bewitched bliss

but tranquility—

to be just one term

of a sprawling 

equation—

to humbly read 
proofs until 

glumly convinced

that absolute 

anything 
does not exist.

QUICK HITS

As the distance

increases, all images 

dissolve themselves—

all objects, 

in the big 

bang, white hot 

mania 

of their expansion, 

are spun into the beatific 

clichés of dime-

store mysteries. 

Take that distant 

undulating 

scramble 

of pigeons, for instance;

 

to witness it 

hurtle 

toward cheap abstraction, 

like a cut-rate 

cigarette, is  

still my small pleasure—although

to not comprehend 

what the purpose 

or goal is 

still my great 

privilege.

NIGHTMARE SCENARIO

One by one, but soon

in multiplying 

throngs,

our words 

grab experiences, 

hold them down, 

crack them wide-

open, and feast upon 

their contents. 

No one had told us 

they were so strong.

Yet we fail 

to connect this 

to the zombie 

apocalypse we'd 

read about; 

so, even though 

we're doomed, we go 

right on talking—

like nothing's 

even wrong. 

LATE STYLE

Now, as then, 

we write essays—op-eds.

Only, now 

that we aren't being 

graded on them, we must 

cash-out our paychecks 

and get numb 

to feel correct.

But, 

worse than 

"not working," 

we no longer find it

necessary. 

*

What's left 

when the symbols 

we once held 

hostage 

refuse to validate us,

other than a sense 

of satisfaction 

which our children 

find embarrassing?

*

One electron, 

it's been shown,

will emit  

its own photons. 

Another electron 

swallows them 

up again.

The world is 

the world; we have had 

no effect. 

BUCKLE UP

I have held forth 

before, of course, 

about my clambering 

into language's car—

that weapon on wheels—

the loud suit 

of armor—

and imperiously putting 

the pedal to the floor. 

But what I didn't

mention earlier 

was that I

never learned 

to steer, 

so that renegade DeLorean  

just excursions 

where it wants;

and I'm frightened 

a little 

to be its servant 

from inside it—

less like a storyteller 

mowing down his readers, 

and more like 

a hapless 

country squire 

who used to dream always 

of becoming a knight 

but never 

of having to go 

to war.