TRIVIALLY TRUE

Weird to hear the Buddhists’ 

repeated stipulation:

no mud, no lotus—as if 

the muddiness of ground

were even worth 

pointing out—as if

dirt were a bad thing

instead of all earthlings’
fundament and nurse—

as if The Umbilical
were some sort 

of hideous noose,

and not the source of all 

warmth and nutrition.

But what's more: 

is there any dirty word

or base body function which
doesn’t have its season?

Is there any blameless reason
whose antithesis didn't 

play a precipitating part? So 

of course a little unruliness

is the compassionate warrior’s 

greatest weapon

when it's not even possible 

do such a vulgar and 

autonomic thing 

as breathe in

and out again—and not
call it art.

ONGOING PUBLIC HEALTH CONCERNS

Fracking for meaning

with injections

to the face.

Synchronizing watches 

with “this time” or 

“that place.”

Harmonizing 

photographs and videos

with views.

Parsing plantagineum

to synthesize
perfume.

Becoming so obsessed

with drinking-

in experience

that none of us 

thinks of the mess

that results

when our future tense

backwashes

into the present—and infects 

our tender 

hunches with 

the certitude of cults.

BEGGING THE QUESTION

Ghosts

must be real. Because

anyone with a body 

feels it

haunted

by a figment known 

to science as 

the mind.

EXPO '26

Here we are—October, 

where metaphor is as good

as it gets;

where one angel whispers,
and the air pressure
changes;

where the cotton-

brown only
deepens the green;

and where skies 

of cerulean
light scatter, various

as uncountable
sapphires fresh
from the tumbler.

Mother of all 

that flames-out: pray 

for us now 

that our succumbing too
may bring forth 

such brave fire.

What a harvest mindset
joins together, may no reaping
tear asunder;

what the last 

gust of warm 

breeze chooses

to cleave, please let 

no overnight 

freeze coalesce.

YOU CAN CHANGE

Everyone misspells
sometimes—even God.
And it’s probably just 

as well because,
ever since Genesis,
random mutation
is how we advance the plot:
if we’re lucky, the words
that presently define us
may undergo a 

corresponding shift

in semantics with each 

dropped consonant or
vowel drift—somewhat akin 

to the warping of 

the sea’s dimensions
when yachting past 

an Aegean undertow. So
take a good look
at the manifest for your

life’s ship, and you'll notice
that Theseus was far
from the last of our lot
to while away the trip 

back to Athens by 

slowly but surely un-

tying his nots.

THAT'LL BE THE DAY

Often we’re alone 

as in: "loneliness" 

or "lack,"

but almost never 

as in: "present-moment 

undivided wholeness."

The best we can do is 

hope it's loss's end goal

for us to be at-one with 

our bereavements—and 

that perhaps the last stop 

at the end of life's track

is to finally find oneself 

alone for the first time

after all those penultimate 

matters and facts—

alone in the original 

tongue as she was spoken—

alone as in: “unified”—

Alone as in: “all one.” 

Now that would not be 

all that bad

of a lone

achievement, would it?

IN A STATION OF THE CTA BLUE LINE

The ghost-pale glow
of these downcast scowls:

less deranged jellyfish 

floating in the dark

than carrier hosts 

for cell phones—or

bereft scarecrows—

copy-pasted, hoisted here, 

arranged in ranks, 

and left to haunt this plowed-

under row 

of the metaverse.