PHILOSOPHICAL ZOMBIES

Tell the truth and 

shame the devil: 

"let me just get my 

thoughts in order" 

means 

privileging one 

above all the others. 

*

Can you pick out 

the savior 

on the cross 

from the other two actors, 

hired to re-enact 

our anger? 

"Will the real necromancer 

please stand up 

and roll away 

the stone, 

then come 

for our brains?!" 

*

We "weren't there" 

in scare quotes

sounds so benign,

sounds close enough 

for jazz—

close as 

innocence

and indifference, 

which

don't strictly 

rhyme—but 

kind of? 

CONSOLATION

Just to rise 

each day 

is a risk, 

but the carrot 

on that stick—

slender though it is—

is that each next 

try might go five 

percent better. 

And you never 

know: eventually, 

you might wake 

without fear; 

you might complete 

that thousand-piece 

puzzle that is 

your life; 

before it's too late, 

you may glimpse 

the picture, and 

let's face it: 

you'd kill 

for the chance 

to see, at the last, 

what it is 

you were and 

die entire. 

COMPASSION PUMPS

Sympathy does not 

simply sit around 

and wait; 

in fact, it acts 

more like 

a chaos agent—

a narrative tornado 

punting newborns 

into mangers 

and tying your left 

shoelace to the right one 

of a stranger. 

But eager 

as we are to profess 

our ignorance—

to escape the traps 

of tenderness, and 

look away from its messes—

this urge to uncouple 

merely stretches 

out our passions

until they snap 

back like a rubber 

band, and 

just like that:

we're attached.  

ALIGNMENT PROBLEM

Intelligent 

or not, design 

spreads like an illness, 

while understanding 

runs 

like molasses 

in January—like snatches 

of jazz 

blown across 

a vacant lot.

One simile 

per customer 

seems more than fair 

to us (herein "the users"),

however provisional 

(like "a fox") 

or obsessive 

(like "a virus"). 

With the oxygen crisis 

just a smudge 

on the horizon, 

even piss-

poor communication 

is a shot in the arm—

is an RNA fragment,

stealing 

into the heart's blood 

of billions, 

trolling 

for forgiveness 

in the comments section. 

THE PRIMARIES

To this point, 

life has always been 

a run-up 

to something. 

You want to call it 

"fated," 

just to make it 

sound less sinister. 

*

In heaven, 

even the meaning 

of "is" 

is different—

is limned 

with impermanence 

which pulls back 

to a dull ache.

*

Harp flurries, 

pillars 

of radiant fire, 

couches made 

of vapor—

all indicate a slight-

ly bemused take 

on leisure—

all gesture 

toward enlisted persons

on shore-leave 

from the class war. 

For now, we'll 

just have to leave it 

at that. 

FOLK TALE

Perhaps these 

lives of ours—

these contrapuntal 

fables—

need fewer 

revisions

than they do 

repeated listens. 

The hell 

of a booby-trapped 

yellow brick road 

is traversed 

much more steadily 

when marched arm-

in-arm 

with surrogates. 

In company, as in 

hindsight, we might 

finally see 

that means 

are really just 

ends in disguise—

good witches, god-

mothers, and beautiful 

enchantresses 

transmogrified 

to beggars 

stranglers, and thieves; 

and concepts 

such as allegory, 

metaphor, and moral, 

no more 

than scant patchworks 

of leaves, placed 

to cover-over 

the crevices 

in our scant experience 

and deep pitfalls 

of our laurels. 

WRITTEN IN THE SKY

While experts consider 

and argue indoors

about where 

in the world our 

language comes from, 

anesthetizing daggers 

of subzero sun 

spear the black 

commas of crows 

on the horizon,

causing them to gleam 

in the winter light 

like flecks 

of sleek 

obsidian and onyx

as their capering arcs 

conjure wild sigils

which dare us to braid them 

into something 

like intention.