IN FOR A PENNY

None of us 

actually asked 

to be born. 

Not the scorn 

or the stress; 

not the laughter 

or the sex 

(however respectively 

uproarious and fabulous); 

not to know hunger 

or the comforting tug 

of fabric on skin, 

or the dizzy 

oblivion after 

spinning pirouettes. 

All that we requested 

was to know 

how it felt 

to draw breath just once 

and to speak—

or, to wit: 

to peek out 

of these shells and 

proclaim our strange dreams. 

But in our vim 

to strike a bargain,

it seems we forgot 

to stipulate that anyone 

should be there

to listen;

and little did we know

how often 

we would need 

to keep on repeating

ourselves, over 

and over again. 

ARTIST'S MOTTO

"In artifice, 

verisimilitude." But 

vice versa? Never. 

To know

is one thing; it's another 

to know better. 

Our lies pollute, 

sure, but all lies 

contain truth,

and somehow 

or other, that truth 

stays pure.

THE SWEET SPOT

Before we forget 

what a relief 

it can be 

to subsist 

at the mercy 

of benevolent despots, 

let us recall 

how kind 

it is of light 

to strike 

a blue glass 

bottle from behind 

and, instead of rushing 

through, to luxuriate 

inside it

and make it appear 

so auspiciously 

illuminated; 

and while we're at it, 

how kind of our 

tyrannical minds 

to insist 

that we be 

captivated—

to concoct 

out of infinite 

bolts of whole cloth 

the gonzo 

conceit of some 

Goldilocks plot

in which 

anything at all's 

just right. 

COUNTDOWN

So spare now, day 

runs ever faster 

into day, 

as if being chased 

by the skeletal thing 

that waits 

at the end of the calendar—

not the birth 

of a savior 

or hard deadline 

imposed by the manic 

boss of elves;

not even 

a rough beast 

from the savagest hell 

who's time shall 

come around again at last 

at the zero hour—

just the endless 

night of unfeeling winter, 

creeping towards our windows

like the undead from the grave, 

coming to invade us 

like the same old blunt 

intrusive thought—or worse

yet, leave us 

to ourselves. 

BIG IF TRUE

Each morning, I make 

the same attempt 

to hone my attention, 

as if breaths were 

sharpened arrowheads I'd 

fashioned out of flint—

little weapons

that existed 

independently from me.

*

Suffering through 

vinyasas on the lawn 

increases one's 

hunger to become 

someone else, 

which only makes it 

harder to swallow 

the arrogant swagger 

of crows a little farther on—

they who pretend

to nothing 

and thus have 

never been uncertain. 

*

True or False? Even 

our sense of diminishment 

ebbs. 

"Even if 

the soul exists, 

what are the chances 

it persists 

outside the body?" 

is a question 

no one can 

bring themselves to ask 

once they've brushed 

up against 

a single spider's web.

ARCANUM

As a loitering kit 

of pigeons 

hears my footfalls 

on the roadway surface 

and explodes, 

so too does my 

head start 

to oscillate and flutter. 

You could say 

they've been trained 

to fear my approach, 

and I, conditioned 

to fear their departure—

but life is no trick 

in a Pavlovian circus; 

its moments chime 

in harmony, not 

on purpose. 

DAYLIGHT SAVING TIME ENDS

All has given in now 

to ponderous shadow—

to slanting, 

to shifting, 

to edges, 

to echo. 

Still, we feel 

we have come too far 

to disappear into 

the hardening air, 

and so we 

console ourselves

that we still feel okay, 

only—

in smaller 

and smaller ways.