Thursday, October 9, 2025

ACCEPTANCE

We pride ourselves often
on becoming better people, 

but perhaps it's 
our dimness—
our thick impenetrability— 

which makes 
the affirmative grip 
of love 

not just effective,
but possible
and necessary—

perhaps priceless amalgams 
of loathing and lust, 

like gold seams, lie 
so deep at the center of us 

that our humanity 
would collapse if they 
should ever be retrieved,

and the less we 
understand about these 
fables that inhabit us, 

the more we are willing
and able to believe.

Wednesday, October 8, 2025

ONCE IN A LIFETIME

Remember when 
we thought that we could 
simply trade labor 

for a glimmer 
of its opposite—

for the long, happy, 
untrammeled, 
callus-free life 

of the children we 
once resembled 
on another distant Earth,

where the moon 
routinely takes the place 
of the sun 

without 
the mechanistic explanation 
of eclipse? 

Would those kids ever think 
that the sweat 
of the intellect 

is somehow equivalent 
to that of the flesh—

that safety is a substitute 
for the raison d'ĂȘtre
of love,

or an orbital ellipse 
for the halo's perfect circle—

that one thing 
ever truly takes 
the place of another

when they know, 
even in the throes 
of their youth,

that two pairs of lips 
cannot make,
or replace—

or even summarize
the bliss—

of that nervous 
first kiss?  

Tuesday, October 7, 2025

KILLER POEM

A shriek 
with its splinters 
and spikes sanded-off, 

its creases 
all filled, smoothed, 
and polished 

with the thick 
shellac of distance—
until 

it shines 
with all the uneasiness 
and pathos 

which play 
in the shadows that eclipse 
your own face 

as it groans
at the sight of its 
grimacing reflection 

in some 
opaque expression's 
strange transparent finish. 

Monday, October 6, 2025

MANKIND

Dreamt I tried to speak 
to the sparrows 

like the serpent 
to the woman—except,

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.