THINGS TO REMEMBER

Take it from the grubby 

thirsty sparrows 

singing something 

very like A

Pirate's Life For Me

as they stake their 

claim on the fat 

gems of rain

which are caught 

in wild magenta nets 

of redbud blossoms 

that weren't so much as 

hinted at yesterday:

in the forest, 

as elsewhere, hallowed be 

consistency's name—

but the proudest 

and most 

illustrious histories 

are easily

the shortest. 

LILAC

Something a little

like florets 

of bent light

suspended 

in rainwater 

and left out 

to steep for one 

long pensive night,

the odor of which 

might only be unfurling 

more and more 

slowly the mellower 

you get. 

THEODICY

The bright side is:

god's hands 

are never tied—

and his cuticles are clean

as clean can be.

But unfortunately, 

"arm's length"

just about describes 

how far apart they are—

and of course, 

those hands are you 

and me. 

FIRST EPISTLE TO THE ANTIPODES

Angel choirs 

are trifling

fictions—confections 

dressed in marzipan, 

reciting loud

flights of juvenilia; 

what's truly 

impressive is 

one good man—

that humble antithesis 

of the proud

nude emperor, 

none see him standing 

silent before 

the zealous crowd 

in all his 

invisible regalia. 

INKBLOT

Eyes closed

and dreaming, I 

can almost see 

the catastrophe that's 

trapped inside of me—

desperate to flee 

his prison's ship's 

emergency, and so

pounding his palms 

against the insides 

of my eyelids. 

Get help, he insists; 

don't get distracted 

by dumb hunger;

or at least, get pissed- 

off enough 

at the state of affairs 

to make a wish 

to trade places with 

your less egregious half.

Then I wake 

with a gasp, but it's all

impossible to parse—

pale counterfeits 

at best—like butterflies 

under glass,

or the flickering 

necrotic shadows 

trailing-out grotesque 

behind the tree limbs 

of reality 

in the black- 

and-white kaleidoscope 

of storm clouds and moonlight—

and all I can think is 

am I saying this right? 

 

CHANGE MY MIND

So there's a violent cataclysm—

a pulverizing nothing  

pulsing away

at the galaxy's center.

So there's a shivering, 

unrepentant caterpillar 

chewing a hole 

in your prom night corsage.

What is courage 

but fear acknowledged? 

What's the fire of hell 

but god's love—rejected? 

To be wounded is

to be blessed,

but even that's 

too obvious. 

When pressed,  

to affirm all the beauty 

and the horror 

with a smile—

to be content 

to have a wasted

supernova 

for a soul—now that 

should keep your fact-

checkers busy 

and employed—at least

for a little while.

APOSTROPHE

O, dancing shafts 

of April light;

o, contagious gusts 

of bright blithe wind;

o, silvery ghosts 

of sighing rain; o, oval

of repetition, over 

and again:  

please forgive 

this outdated mode 

of address;

please forget 

the specificity of things.

Use these lexical bits 

of straw and grass 

to feather me a nest; 

weave me a fence 

to pen in my doubt; 

o, do your best

to grow me a heart 

that is jacketed 

in the genius 

of a diamond—that is, 

harder 

than the land 

which surrounds it, yet 

even more 

delicately faceted.