Monday, October 6, 2025

MANKIND

Dreamt I tried to speak 
to the sparrows 

like the serpent 
to the woman—

but not to tempt, just 
to tell them
they were naked;

thought I'd watch 
them soar up at once 

to cover themselves 
with shorn cloud scraps. 

But instead, 
two dozen 
hard black eyes 

fixed mine back 
from the crab-
apple branches, 

and asked me not:
who told you 
what that was?

but: son of soil, doomed 
to work the earth—

who could have cursed you
to sing 
such a tuneless, 

lean, and unlovely
song to us?

Friday, October 3, 2025

TRUISM

The heart of most matters
is so trivial 
that it's radical—

crisis is the bleeding ink 
which blooms its 
beautiful terrible roses 

all through the tattered 
blotting paper 
of existence 

with the wastefulness 
of death and quiet
poise of gravity,

til you're just 
about ready to toss 
the whole mess

but still recoil 
at the thought 
that one day

you'll be forced
in any case 
to give it all away. 


Thursday, October 2, 2025

INFINITE LOOP

Perhaps consciousness is 
recognizing the motions 
as such 

while you're going 
through them, instead 
of only after—

to become, after death, 
less a ghost 
than a photon 

that has no past 
no future, 
no friction—

and for whom 
the notion of transport 
from point to point is trivial. 

It is pointless 
to establish a motive 
or inaction; 

before you walk 
through its 
unbounded door,

the future is a repeating 
remainder 
called nowhere,  

and as soon as you 
leave here, you'll 
already be there. 


Wednesday, October 1, 2025

FAILING UP

I hate to admit it 
every bit as much 
as you do, but 

it's true that our most hated 
parts might be the places 

that simultaneously 
lust most intensely 

for somebody 
(anyone) to come 
to the rescue,

and those awful weights
which tug like stubborn 
anchors at our centers 

and ground us 
to our murky strife 

are the ones that 
imbue us with the metal 
that sustains us,

drawing our hearts
like iron filings to a magnet 

to the world next door
which summons us 
to wake into

and voluntarily (if not 
enthusiastically) suffer 
through a better life.


Tuesday, September 30, 2025

NOSTALGIA

It's the way 
the slightest 
autumn breeze 

fans the blaze 
of summer's 
faded green—

tugs at the frail 
leaves of 
memory's trees, 

reminding the penitent 
who now brace
for winter

of a distant sea 
of aquamarine,
placid and reflective 

of those skies 
above of endless 
daylight,

and that humid hum 
of bliss which seemed 
to overlay each night

and sing the praises 
of everything 
it was in life

and the legend 
of how it would 
come to be 

eventually  
so fondly mistaken 
for everything it wasn't. 

Monday, September 29, 2025

ROOMS TO LET

There are no exceptions;
any love 
that comes to us 

is a love that must 
sooner or later go.

This much we know, but
to make it 
even more deceptive, 

think of all 
the disconcerting 
aliases it uses—

pity and self-
loathing, 

pride and fear 
and avarice. 

And notice, when all 
of these feelings 
flea, 

how each one
inevitably seems 
to leave the same way—

at roughly same speed, 
and from roughly 
the same place.

But luckily, as those 
who've invested 
in beauty can attest,

beauty is not a feeling;
beauty is a space.

In fact, it's the space
where all of those fugitive 
feelings were living;

and, of course, even after 
a fugitive leaves, 

the place 
where it was living 
stays. 


Friday, September 26, 2025

CHRYSANTHEMUM'S THE WORD

Frowzy mock-flowers
of beat-rug orange, 
attention-deficit red, 

and afterimage yellow—
cordial, but ragged 
as the coming autumn clouds; 

they do not offend 
with their brand 
of hocus pocus, 

nor beg for our attention 
like high summer's 
neon dandies—

because, although 
too impregnable 
to be moved by the wind, 

they know, 
deep in the closed-fisted 
swirl of each corolla, 

that it's too late 
in the year now 
to hope for a perfect body 

and was always 
just plain foolish 
to wish for an unblemished soul.