THE REAL CONVERGENCE OF THE TWAIN

By September, flecks 

of jaundice-yellow 

marble the once brassy 

green of leaves. So it seems 

the need to mix 

frivolity and grief—

to kiss Aurora wide-awake 

and Snow White deep-asleep—

was never the province 

of men and women 

in the street's worst 

thoughts and machinations.

The stimulus 

is ductless, 

wireless, general;

the response,

decided from the start. 

Agony is the blood 

in the heart 

of every child of levity. 

THAT'S ENTERTAINMENT

Could it be 

that your thoughts—

just like

individual pigeons—

simply take pleasure 

in glomming together, 

swooping 

in formation 

over life's roofs 

and branches—then 

fracturing again 

at the slam 

of a car door, or 

the odd boom 

of thunder, or 

the approach of another 

creature who is lost 

in just such a musing? 

At first, the observation 

is a little confusing; 

then suddenly, all this

retreating and reforming 

starts to seem 

more like 

an endgame 

than a metaphor.

You're not sure 

what it is, but 

there's probably 

a lesson here.

LOVECRAFTIAN

It's almost unreal—

how, after a particularly 

horrific showing,

we obsessively 

ravage ourselves—

conjuring the dead 

and plumbing 

the unsympathetic

depths of the encounter—

until 

we've impossibly 

managed to dredge up

some unholy. 

tentacle-dragging, 

irrefutable cause 

who's black 

hole and absolute-

zero existence,

as evinced 

by the uncategorical 

engorgement of our dread,

we'll never 

forget, but were 

better off not knowing. 

THERE ARE OTHER WORLDS THAN THESE

To the sparrow 

who must have got caught 

in the grill 

of this brand new,

fully-loaded, 

midnight black Camry:

who'll speak for you now 

as the flies close in?

I suppose 

that I will—though only 

through roundabout 

questions, I'm afraid, 

whose answers can be 

felt, but they can't 

be explained. 

For instance—how  

in the world do things stay 

where we put them? 

And—is God the you

that watches you 

from deep inside your head? 

Was anything sacred 

before that word 

was invented? 

And, if nothing at all,

does that mean

everything, then? 

GOD'S EYE VIEW

It doesn't really matter 

how closely you hover—

those thick darkened riffs 

of parkland clover,

all silky with glissandi 

of tuneful morning dew, 

cannot change your 

luck for you. It's true,

that byzantine bead structure 

is a Morse code of water 

which spells the whole story 

and moral of your future—

but in order to read it

or hear how it's singing, 

you'd have to have already 

known everything.

SPIDERWEB

Gossamer 

song;

weightless 

aubade;

terse canny 

stanzas, clad in 

dew-clotted thread—

even your maker, 

her highness, 

is frightened 

by the ticklish 

recitation of this

ravishing poem, since 

she knows 

in her soul where each 

filament came from,

yet maintains 

no awareness 

of how it 

got made.

HUMAN KINDNESS

An enigmatic  

rain puddle—

gunmetal 

gray 

as a blank-

faced cloud—

that no one 

dares step in

because 

the assurance

that it must have 

a bottom 

is only, after all, 

a milk-safe

presumption.