Tuesday, August 12, 2025

THE ENCOUNTER

I swear, when I wrote this
I didn't know
who would be reading—

but then again, 
I must have known roughly
how it would go, since

I could picture you singing
the tune in your head—
line after line, 

never rushing, never stumbling,
not stopping until 
you got to the end—

as if you knew which word 
should come next 
by heart,

because you and I 
were the same.
Not entirely, of course,
 
but close enough
to look the part.
It was as if our two souls 

shared a shadow; as if, 
for half a minute there,
we were so busy

that we wouldn't have
remembered, if asked, 
what our names were.

And I realized, after 
all this time, that
that was all I wanted;

the words didn't matter.
It wasn’t quite art—but it was 
a good start.


Monday, August 11, 2025

NEW POETICS

I don't know how 
Aristotle managed 

to miss this, 
but: catharsis 

is gradual;
I mean, it’s 

every little 
blade of a tear

carving-out 
an opening—

ruining your precious 
metal content 

bit by bit
by repeatedly exposing 

some of it 
to the air—but

by doing so, 
in the long run

saving you 
the hassle 

of keeping it all 
together 

and making space 
there.


Sunday, August 10, 2025

NOW

All I pretend to own, 
you loaned me; 

all that I know 
or care for 

has only just appeared here—
without my seeing 

how it came, or 
from where.

And when you bear it away—
as I believe you must do

because you have told me so 
repeatedly before—

I suppose I do not have 
to wonder 

what time 
that will be, either. 

Saturday, August 9, 2025

NOT FROM CONCENTRATE

How many hundreds 
of millions 
of years have been 

forcibly focused 
through just-this-second's 
lens—and then,

never to be used 
again, discarded as the pulp 
of the spurious past? 

What a terrible 
waste, in fact, that 
that which is now must be 

squeezed-fresh continuously 
from all that has ever happened—
not to mention

how little hope there is 
for this moment's 
perseverance, since 

every hard-won is that ever was 
didn't last much 
past its own definition.


Friday, August 8, 2025

SERMON ON THE LAWN

Bees in the clover
working, diligent
and noiseless—

too busy, 
in fact, to stop 
and challenge us thus

as we drag out
our gas mowers,
edgers, and hoses:

you think you know
how to work,
how to use,

how to speak 
to the taciturn
land like us?

Those who have nothing
want nothing,
gain multitudes;

those who know everything
have everything
to lose.


Thursday, August 7, 2025

ASKING THE ORACLE

To the gray-faced gulls 
outside my window, 

husbanded here 
by the breath of the dawn—

though my questions 
number in the millions, 

in this moment, 
I just want to know 

if you think 
every wind is distinct—

or is there, in truth, really 
only one kind 

which gets passed 
around and forward 

in space and in time?
In short, 

is it more
like the seafoam 

which drove you 
to this building, 

or the way 
we all suspect 

that there was
a first yawn—

issued-forth at the end 
of day seven by God,

and ever since then riding 
this great wave of animality 

for untold—
and as-yet-

unfolding-into
eternity—eons? 


Wednesday, August 6, 2025

TARGET AUDIENCE

Sometimes 
my soul talks 
down to my body;

says I know 
you think you hear 
the wind in the trees—

think you recognize 
the melody—
but you don't 

appreciate it 
like I can, 

since you don't 
understand 
what the lyrics mean.

Which is just 
as well, since, 
from the branches in the breeze, 

to the rippling 
of water and the wild 
screams of flowers—in fact, 

everything 
wafting out from 
life's orchestra pit—

though you may 
catch it, you are not 
the demographic, 

and don't you forget it
whatever you do:
the world may be here

to appear to you—but 
to me, it's here 
to sing