FINAL JEOPARDY

          (after Robert Creeley)

Walking here, 

standing there, 

killing time 

and yawning—

sitting around 

talking, thinking, 

tinkering 

with the longing 

for anything 

to start, stop, 

bind, or burst 

into flame; 

for anyone 

to come or go, 

to curse or keen-

ly call your name—

what is a life 

when you haul-

out its engine and 

take it apart? What is 

a car 

that won't start.

FREE DESIGN

In the deep end of dawn—

before our words 

have begun their 

long commutes, 

when the warm washed 

light of the sun 

overcomes last night's 

unsoothed moon—

cicadas begin 

their empty drone, 

wind-stippled 

grasses moan, 

wild birds sing 

to no purpose at all. 

Listen: nothing in this world

has a name—still

everything 

has a voice;

nothing here

has been given 

a choice—but everything 

is called. 

EXTRA ORDINARY

Being so much

wiser than her husband, 

the female cardinal 

perching on the brown branch 

knows better than 

to make a statement. 

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?