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.

SENESCENCE

Eventually, the set 

of {who you are}

feels like nothing 

when weighed against

the traces

of all you might have been:

things you thought

but never said,

actions you've considered

but haven't ever taken

pass out and in 

like shallow breaths

and through you 

each day like 

ionizing radiation—

like battalions of ghosts 

whom you used to 

know by name,

but now, whose 

faint collective 

hunger gnaws away 

at those serifs 

which ornament each

glyph of DNA 

until finally, it's

illegible, and you're free 

to join their army.