MONO NO AWARE

Can we not ever just
enjoy the moment
without making it swear
an oath to stay?

Are we doomed as Faust
to not hold one day 

without closing our fist around

the throat of the poignant—

to not spend one hour
without making it a down payment
on future comparison
and certain disappointment?

In short:
must we require a thing
to be permanent
before we will agree to love it?

If so, then so be it—but
perhaps we can observe
the color-bleach of roses
as something fair and proper;

or practice the hearing, this 

time of year, of the gradually 

dwindling hum of bees and 

thinning screech of crickets,

so that we might, by winter,
find ourselves beseeched to know
how to pass a pleasant evening
reading a poem

without our own bracing
by the time it’s half over
for the loss at its end—and then 

our unreasonable grieving.

ENOUGH.

The brim-filled bowl 

is not "more full."

It’s just a greater

hassle to hold—

and trickier 

to carry,

with its avarice
for scope yet willful
lack of accommodation.

I’d be wary of trading

the humble
for the brazen,

or a work still 

in progress for its 

foregone conclusion—

lest I sacrifice 

my own great 

capacity for openness

for a surfeit 

of depth—and a spill
about to happen.

MARKET FUNDAMENTALISM

Listen, if there’s 

a modicum 

of purpose

or will 

in each post-

diluvial squall—

if the howling wind
has half a mind,

and the incoherent 

rain can be said

to have a goal—

it could only be

to polish

even the smallest 

wild soul

(which survived
the first time 

by disobeying—

by stowing away
on Noah's boat

instead of praying)

until it glistens
the way it did

back then—that is: 

after the beginning,

but before 

the last war.

ALL I GOT

I like a crescent 

moon best, because it’s

easier to pretend

that it marks the thumb-

nail edge of a vast

empty circle;

and if emptiness
like that can remain 

so rich and ample,

there may yet be
hope for this 

shred of faith after all.

RITORNELLO

     (after Rilke)

Yeah, no—

maybe

 

don’t 

change your life;

just improve 

your quality

of attention, 

and notice

how literal equals

figurative now,

because of consent-

plus-arbitrariness—

and how, once

you’ve purchased 

your new stance 

from a torso, 

the achievement 

turns out 

to be worth less

than the practice.

FUTURE PERFECT

          When you get there, 

          you’ll already be there.
               —American Girl, 

                   Twin peaks: The Return


There, the crackle
of electricity through air
will not have needed
to scare us so much;

our rooms
and our calendars
won’t have finished
with our stories.

You’ll have declared:
though my memory’s
a blank, maybe I did have
a dream last night;

it’s just that maybe I dreamed
of pure uncut time—
the one thing
that all aspiration requires.

Or perhaps it was just 

a very vivid and precise
dream about what nothing
will have been like:

you and I in free fall,
and everyone not arriving—
but already being there,
with no memory of the days

in between when we weren’t
damned with faint praises,
but exalted by the universe’s
faintest damnations.

DAYDREAM KINGDOM

As a knight, 

my errant 

mind rides out

to quest for aimless boons
of unfathomable grace

and accidentally 

fumble-slay the random 

dragon of high expectations.

But when at last 

it gets back home, 

which crazy maiden—

what brazen citizenry waits? 

Who, I want to know,

would deign
to throw

such a hopeless-

ly daring itinerant 

a parade?