REPEATING OURSELVES

Like those roses which sustain 

their blanching blooms 

clear through October, 

we too 

may now look 

a bit worse for the wear 

as we hold

the last sonorous 

note we'd prepared 

in defiance of the muffling pall 

of a silently 

darkening autumn—

as if virtue consisted 

in our obliviousness 

to criticism 

and praise and thanksgiving 

in our freedom

to do the one thing 

we already know 

how to do 

without thinking. 

WHAT IS THIS?

If matter is 

slow energy 

and energy 

is fast matter, 

then what 

are we even 

talking about? 

Physics tells  

what it does, 

but can't say 

what it is—

because 

even whatness 

is really something 

else. 

*

Our favorite books 

are made 

of poems, but 

what in the world 

are poems made of? 

Us, I guess—

hot plosives,

rough edges,

and incipient glances—

and that's just

what we are;

what 

were the chances?

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 seams 

of gold, lie so 

deep at the center of us 

that our humanity 

would collapse if they 

should ever be retrieved;

the less we understand 

about these 

fables that inhabit us, 

the more 

we are willing

and able to believe.

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'être

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?  

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. 

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?

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.