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. 

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. 

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. 

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?

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.

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.

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.