EASY COME EASY GO

We like to assume 

such abiding 

designs, but 

the promises we make 

are just so many 

shiny dimes:

begged from 

the stern, old,

and affluent Actual 

by the curious,

bold, but impetuous 

Possible—and then 

flung with delectation 

to the depths 

of a well 

in great hopes 

that the latent return 

on investment 

will redeem the grim

fate of poor 

President Roosevelt.

OLD STANDBY

Despite our patter

of protestations 

that we're 

all obsessed 

with novelty, 

it's pattern 

that we really seek 

and feel the most 

at home in. 

Rhythm still 

gets our motor going,

while rhyme 

feels like a cup of sugar 

our best words kindly 

lend to others. 

Is it right 

that we derive 

so much succor 

from design? 

If there were 

a difference

between right

and common,

would it matter?

SÉANCE

Would it be 

more odd 

or less 

if the dead 

did not 

leave us? 

Anyone's 

guess. But

my sense is:

a ghost 

at my disposal 

who always 

stayed the same; 

who always 

remained 

in the place 

I expected;

who never

changed clothes,

or the expression

on their face 

since the day

I watched them 

pass 

would be 

the last person 

on Earth 

I would ask 

for advice.

TENET

O, to just have faith 

enough to wake 

and stretch 

and dress and 

emerge—

not with great 

exhilaration, but at least 

with nothing specific

to resist. 

How much of our 

art—how many poems 

have wished this? 

How many of their lines,

burning in their 

earnestness, 

have yearned, 

like us, for this great 

and useless beauty—

for nothing like 

purpose, skill, or 

magnificence—

to be organized and cataloged 

by nothing but 

the date today,

and justified merely 

by declaring 

they exist?

LAST WORD

We like to think that 

matters are settled; 

we think we have the facts. 

But what we think of as truth

may only be 

the middle—or even 

the beginning—

and brief as 

dew on morning grass.

Can you picture the universe 

before it was set 

into motion? 

How about the Earth 

devoid of all creatures; 

before it even had its oceans? 

It's far simpler to hope 

in a dream 

to glimpse 

the ancient races 

and their poets: the joys 

and burdens they would carry;

the paths that they would trod. 

Next time you seek

a final answer, think first 

of all the wildly different 

names they must have had 

for god.

IN DEFENSE OF QUIET DESPERATION

Once in a while, I 

grant you: revolution's 

a necessity. 

But most 

of the time, my 

tremendous sensitivity 

would like 

to argue: it's 

too messy. I'm turned off 

by the turmoil 

and the violence 

which is crucial 

to make a clean 

break with The Current

or The Senseless;

I don't want to long 

for the change 

I need to make 

with such passionate 

defiance that I'm 

swept up in some coup;

I'd much prefer to 

fall in love with 

what little I can do.

TO APRIL

The great rabbles

of clouds in your 

quicksilver sky—

confounding,

combining, 

compounding

one another—

are somehow 

less foreboding 

than the ominous way 

they loiter there

all day, holding on

to their rain.