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Empty set, I 

eye your symbols 

with inexplicable dread, 

like a pair 

of hungry rusted 

calipers on the page

or two 

of a disappointed fence's 

warped boards, 

long past brown now 

and headed more 

towards gray

as you don't so much

circumscribe as

underline what remains:

the size of a place 

when nothing there

is left, 

and there's nothing 

left to be done;

the truth

that absence 

is not the same 

as nothingness

(for absence 

is a vacancy in space—

whereas nothingness 

is the full weight 

of space 

and vacancy's absence);

and the fear that, 

after this, quite enough 

has been said.

ENLIGHTENED PESSIMISM

As the regal sun 

processed in the sky

the only way it's able

and white gold

from the window inched 

inexorably through the room—

I was the one 

true witness 

to the sight 

of the half-empty glass 

on the bright side 

of the table.

 

PLANNED OBSOLESCENCE

Bad news for 

all that time 

and effort you'd been spending:

your heart's 

no longer warrantied 

by the lyric poem's defending.

Sure, for now, 

it still works 

to its purpose, but 

let's face it—it certainly 

is no state-

of-the-art thing. 

If your body were a car, 

for instance, it wouldn't be 

the engine; 

it'd be 

the rear defroster 

or the AM/FM radio. 

If your soul 

were a home, 

it wouldn't be the kitchen, 

or even an electric 

toaster oven; 

it'd be 

the old flip phone 

which you keep 

in a drawer,

just for those 

gray-sky kind

of sentimental days 

(it may be 

a brick, you say, 

but it still contains 

a few 

of your favorite 

dead cat's old photos). 

HUNGER

Hello, 

common thief—

back again, 

I see 

to steal 

a little 

more of my 

complacency.

FUCK IT

It's dangerous, they say, 

to paint with 

too broad a brush, but 

you know what? Sometimes 

you're in a rush. 

Plus, the predicament 

you're in couldn't be 

more legitimate: the crew 

is on a break 

which is starting to look 

more like a 

permanent hiatus—

and this guilty 

conscience of a fence 

won't just 

paint itself—so, 

holding your breath 

against the stench 

of the whitewash, 

you bust-out 

the biggest, widest 

roller of the bunch

and make short, bliss-

fully thoughtless work 

of what otherwise might 

have taken months 

to confront.

After all, you think,

what harm could it do—

just this once? 

GILDING THE QUOTIDIAN

The water birds sailing 

in search of Byzantium 

are now touching down 
on this flash-flooded town

in search of oases—some 

retention pond of youth, 

some inside-out aquifer 

or impromptu estuary—

like Ponce de León,
like Noah’s enervated raven,

like thousands of Parsifals 
burnt out on the quest—

driven by thirst to steal 

rain from gutter puddles

in a soggy pantomime 

of Promethean fire 

or nectar from some presently

nigh-uncountable 

overstock remainder 

of Holy Grails. 

FINAL JEOPARDY

          (after Robert Creeley)

Walking here, 

standing there, 

killing time 

and yawning—

sitting around 

talking, thinking, 

tinkering 

with the longing 

for anything 

to start, stop, 

bind, or burst 

into flame; 

for anyone 

to come or go, 

to curse or keen-

ly call your name—

what is a life 

when you haul-

out its engine and 

take it apart? What is 

a car 

that won't start.