COAT OF ARMS

November rose 

near the fence, you're 

an argument—

tattered, not fragrant;

more thorns 

than petals—yet 

fierce enough 

to be here, 

to press a point 

that no longer matters—

to voice your concern 

for childless mothers 

and endangered 

pink elephants; 

for punk rock dads 

whose roots are showing

and half-novels mired 

in dark locked drawers—

in short, 

for the lost race; 

for the cursed family tree; 

for the not-unhappy, dark

and stormy future 

of irrelevance. 

CONFLICT AVOIDANCE

The incongruously sweet 

talk of pigeons 

in the park 

as they run 

interference all 

over one another, 

scrimmaging 

for corn crumbs, plum 

pits, bread crusts—

though strange-

ly attractive, is 

not such a good trick—

this glut 

of rapprochement, 

this spurious gossip,  

this little bit 

of trouble which

adds such spice to dinner

must be indicative 

of something 

I do too, but—

I don't even want to know what. 

COMING TO TERMS

Once-noble savages 

with their hands 

on the monolith 

are now become, not death,

but hapless 

fish 

who got snagged 

in six-pack holders—

who found their fins tangled 

in a flimflam of options, 

or got strangled 

by the disembodied 

washing-hands of explication.

Great inviolate nets 

of cause and effect 

trawled through oceans 

of perspective, seaching 

for the bottom—

but such a glut 

of explanations

was less of a cure 

than a clue 

to what was missing 

and filled precious 

little of that trench 

in the truth; 

now, none are left

to acknowledge 

that depth 

is just height as seen 

from another point of view.

DRUTHERS

In this fairy tale, 

everyone dreams,

not of riches, but 

of becoming 

a meme.

Don't think

wishing stars,

think bondage constellations.

All the children 

"vibe so hard" 

with Rumpelstiltskin's 

POV. 

*

Everyone 

wants to make 

something out of nothing. 

Some would go 

so far as to say 

that truth 

is a parasite 

on beauty; 

if they had their way, 

some would say 

that rhetoric  

is not opposite, 

but prerequisite 

to plague—

that intercourse 

is poison; 

good faith, contagion's 

larval stage. 

GOD EXPLAINS THE JOKE

To the extent 

that it "existed,"

all poetic language 

was a farce 

of your mistaken 

sense of mastery 

over feeling. Sometimes, 

yes, your thoughts 

were scalding-

hot water,

and some pleasingly 

strict little poem 

was the pot;

but were you 

not so taken

with the aptness 

of that metaphor, 

you might have finally 

thought to address 

the question 

of the burner.

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 

from 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’d find the 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.