SPOILS

Consider 

the grimness 

of the situation—

no word ever

wants 

to be written. 

Every hellish 

minute at your 

computer 

is a clammy net 

thrust into 

roiling waters,

each sentence, 

a pitiful 

pittance of wealth—

a haul of 

foul scraps, and two 

wriggling fish 

who'd much sooner 

take their grim 

chance in the depths 

than suffocate here

in the name 

of a hunger 

you just could 

no longer keep 

to yourself. 

HOLDING BACK

Wise men say: 

only fools—and so on 

and so forth. 

Wise men also say:

time only flows where the 

entropy grows. 

But the hardest part 

of holding back

is knowing 

we cannot speak away 

that numbness 

which disobeys the lungs.

*

Prove you were here, 

they say. 

Sign your full name 

to this statement.

And date it.

*

All the words come 

with such blinding halos 

we cannot make out

the context in the background.

But where talking  

cannot solve the problem

who are we, 

the blind, to insist

that listening 

should perform that trick? 

MANIFEST DESTINY

Because true ambition 

cannot be grasped 

by the fingers;

from nowhere on earth 

are the stars 

getting closer. 

Only here and there 

a few shiny trailblazers 

still grow richer, 

look younger, 

get laid.

*

Because true darkness 

is when 

nothing gets reflected; 

not even 

ignorance.

Not even shame.

* 

Because true metaphor 

is sadistic as a

Star Trek transporter—

how willingly 

its users will

murder the tenor 

for the sake of driving 

a dangerous vehicle 

breakneck

to its destination. 

TROUBLE

Across our tensed cities, 

even the silence

gets oppressive-

ly loud.

Between gusts 

and honks and 

slithering filaments—

there rises, not rebellion,

but the bizarre 

rush of deafness. 

One cannot cup 

one's ears 

to shield them from this

invisible rush—

this turbulent 

lack of so much

which claps close around, 

yet booms far 

from profound.

How quickly

the head becomes 

clabbered, 

tumescent 

as a wet sponge, 

thick as it now is 

with the dumbness.

CONTROL

This is never far 

from the tip 

of my tongue: 

I would do anything 

to keep myself 

from dissolving. 

But perhaps this 

is wrong. 

Perhaps bliss, 

as we know it,

is the feeling 

of being 

tossed—

a warm lozenge, 

pink 

and sweet, 

lost to the gray heart 

of a cool salty sea.

*

Lately, I love 

to catch myself

being in the wrong.

As if 

winding up 

naked in a bad dream 

were proof-

positive: 

any narrative 

which recurs 

is controllable—

can be 

soothing.

ABSOLUTE

Some don't believe in 

tables and chairs. 

They insist—

objects of solid matter 

are not really there.

It's plain on their pages

the atoms 

are empty;

their electrons, 

just spooky;

and quarks are like actors 

struggling 

to stay in character.

Curiously, such sages

never question

the forces—

nor the fantastic contemporary 

invention of 

their choices.

STILL

1.

You'll never believe 

the dream I just had: 

I cannot remember 

the details—only that

in it, every action's 

relationship to stillness 

was spectacular-

ly exaggerated. 

2.

Let's just say, 

for the sake of 

the argument, 

the universe 

is made of strings 

that vibrate;

the knot 

of my guts 

might still sing 

"so what?" 

when it's 

strung up above 

the toilet.

3.

If space 

is available,

it must also be retractable.

If time is passing always,

there's no place 

for now and then.

(It has taken 

our prolapse-prone 

organs of attention 

how many 

bleak centuries 

to figure that out?)

Yet, I hardly ever 

get excited 

just to know  

I love you still

as much as I do

when I look forward to 

loving you again 

sometime soon.