GUI

The analytics
were wrong about this
evanescent present:

even though it’s 

see-through,

it’s not so plain a thing.

In fact, it’s less
of an empty glass case

than a state-of-the-art paddock
in goal attainment’s zoo;
for it acts

as the first
and the last user interface—

the only place on Earth
you can have
what it brings.

BEST BET

Sounds scary, but death 

is pure absence—

if we’re lucky.

If we’re not,
it could be
literally everything—

good and bad, all
rushing past
at full-blast, from first

to last, with
no reprieve and
no contrast.

Picture the mammoth
who went huffing
toward a tar pit—

only to get
trapped there and
gruesomely preserved.

What’s worse
than being forced 

to sleep where you shit?

A permanent habitat
made of nothing
but memory.

INTRO TO WESTERN METAPHYSICS

And then—out
of the primeval slime
of Time

which has ever been
sluicing through the grates

of Existence

crawled Structure
with that quick cement
of difficult consonants

and Practicality 

with its similar mix 

of reinforced K sounds and T’s

to ask: What is that? Where is it from?
How come? And where is it
going to fit?

Shock and Awe thought this was

the new ground 

of Reality—whereas

Diffidence saw
it was
just an emergent property

but was far too shy
to say anything—and even later on

when it finally

tried, it was 

still too polite to really 

strongly disagree.

ALL PURPOSE

Listen
to the sounds.

Feel your feet
hit ground.

Nothing’s
more enormous

than one minute
of affordance 

to receive
without interpreting—

to walk around
and notice.

POEM OF THE WAY AND ITS VIRTUE

A gesture needn’t 

be enormous

in order to be
enormous.

Maybe this

is all there is: quickmud

is best 

for the yellow flag iris—

but do not sink

to pick it up;

don’t shudder

or overthink

your purpose: go

with the flow

of the current, 

sure—but don’t 

be a dumbass;

use a goddamn rudder.

RIPENING

Mercifully, by late summer

our acidity begins 

to soften;

time has accomplished
what no one could accomplish.
(Though all eyes were focused,
no one noticed how.)

Some unconscious ordeal
of blight has receded,
and the thickly salved carapace
of acceptance settles in.

Without being pressed, now
something takes shape:

decisions made in haste
hit forgiveness
with their tap roots;

fragile hunches blush and grow

sharp in wind’s changes,

thickening their outlines;

The sugared starch of “maybe”
begins to accumulate

and ameliorate the bitterness
of almost, but not quite
yet being able

to waive yesterday—nor yet
being able to say
who we'll be.

(HOW TO) PACK IT IN

To climb back down the mountain
is not to succumb;

in fact, it’s the obverse side
of the goal.

An achievement unwound 

might sound like retroactive no,

but pride in high attainment can exist 

without insisting

on permanently living
where nothing much will grow.