Saturday, July 26, 2025

ANIMAL CONTROL

As an idea, love 
is an easy one 
to hold; 

it's fun to imagine 
bold gestures, 
kind words. But 

when you finally 
catch it, it bites
and scratches—

it soils your lap 
with its piss 
and turds—

and the second 
you loosen 
your grip, it disappears 

down a little burrow 
where you're too 
stout to follow. 

And you say,
I've learned my lesson,
but you haven't 

learned a thing.
So you'll wait 
at the entrance

all night if you have to—
just to be near it,
just to participate.

In the rain, 
in the wind—
you're exultant 

to do it—you'll keep 
this holy vigil. You will 
softly sing. 

Friday, July 25, 2025

EVERYDAY BREAKING POINTS

From the way, July evenings,
at the tiniest quake  

in the gathering 
gray, the rodents 
all burrow,

the sparrows 
pull-up stakes,

and even the proudest 
blossoms of summer 

surrender 
and invert 
their petals—it is plain:

all must submit 
to the thunder’s
mad authority;

all beauty 
is contingent—must exist 
on the border

of abysses, 
of Charybdis's fantastic
maw of ancient chaos. 

What a precious 
and terrible gift 
we've been given—

this graceless susceptibility 
to vicissitudes of wind;

this indomitable 
ground; this savage,
hellish heaven. 

Thursday, July 24, 2025

APOGEE

Experimental
used to mean: based 
on experience.

Am I aging, then, 
less like dry 
sherry in the bottle—

not into quotidian 
tradition or senescence—
but rather

toward the vanguard, 
the eccentric, 
the unstable? 

Perhaps,
rather than enable 
its denial,

age 
is time (that daft abstraction) 
turning real.

Or—a good
scientist would add—
so it feels. 

Wednesday, July 23, 2025

MAJOR ARCANA

What does the cuttlefish 
grasp 
about water?

What do those 
winging crows behold
in the air? 

Or the wind—for her 
part, does she hear
her own singing?

As for me—fathoming
age 
and regret, 

the way day 
bends to night,
the encroachment 

of shadow—
what words 
do I expect 

to ferment 
from the experience?
Of inchoate, 

relentless, 
illiterate fear—what 
could anyone know?

Tuesday, July 22, 2025

HUMMINGBIRDS

Mono-
maniacal 

genuine 
articles—

actual 
virtual particles.

Speed 
given shape, 

given hue,
given thrum.

Messengers 
of Hermes—

whence 
did you come?

Iridescent 
temples—the place 

where thrum 
comes from.

Monday, July 21, 2025

RE-ILLUSIONMENT AT 2AM

An old sailor:
sailing, and 
sailing some more—

until finally 
moored amid 
the neon somewhere 

downtown, among 
nighthawks still-
drunk at the diner—

and halfway 
between sleep 
and awake at the counter, 

that's where
he caught his last
red weather tiger,

whom, rather than holler 
when clutched, 
roared with fury

his hot-breathed 
rejoinder: a distinct
Sayonara!

A farewell
thought the sailor,
to dithering, to clinging—

pitched halfway between
(but exquisitely 
neither)

a permanent goodbye 
and a blurry
see you later.


Friday, July 18, 2025

EQUANIMITY

Inland gull—
bobbing 
through the parking lot at dawn,

calmly 
courting alms 
from the unmoved cars;

hungry for litter, 
but mostly  
in the abstract—

lonely, 
but not 
unhappy altogether.