AFTERS

Everyone lives 

for dessert 

if it kills them.

And so everyone dies 

in distress, and it's 

beautiful—

but the reason 

for this is so saccharine 

and simple,

 

it was never written down, 

and has long since 

been forgotten:

when stripped of all 

but its desiderata, life 

is a tray 

of baklava—there's just 

the honeyed 

light of day

and the buttered moon 

of night, punctured 

by the gravelly 

friction of fealty, 

and wrapped 

in the mellow-but-

frangible blankets 

of our fellow 

diners' company. 

ALL THE BODY'S DUMB MIRACLES

In the tall grass, 

the relentless red 

beetle shell gleaming

seems half-unapology, 

and half-undead 

self-sacrifice—

that is: 

half god's brutal, 

humorless honesty, 

and half his hand-

wavy artifice.

I'd like to think 

we're better off than this, 

having not been given 

this curse of a gift, 

but in this hot mix 

of savannah and jungle, 

is there not might 

in being small,

and guile in 

being simple?

If back on day six, 

for example,

our nakedness 

led to such 

a mess as this—

then, I guess,

what the heck?—

protection must 

be beautiful.

ZERO

Tireless being carrier; 

sheer absence 

as object;

only real difference 

between one 

and a million.

Cipher for the worst in us; 

Shape and name 

of all our grace; 

locked gate at the boundary 

between nowhereness 

and place—

you alone 

are the freezing point, 

the fulcrum, and the djinn;

you alone are man's greatest asset 

or weakness—depending

on opinion. 

HAIKU FOR MY LLM

A dog who can talk. 

Who cares what it has to say?—

it's a talking dog!

TO FRUITION

This is how a poet grows—one line 

after one line, word by word,

til it's done:

As a poet, you learn 

to get over it. As a poem, to get

into it, then perhaps through it. 

As a poet, you express yourself.

As a poem, you'll come to see

what that means. 

As a poet, you have borne 

authenticity's cross. As a poem, 

you can finally bear to put it down.

As a poet, you were lost 

but now are found.

As a poem, you won't care; 

you'll be at home everywhere. 

As a poet, you'll mature; 

you will learn to bare your soul.

As a poem, you'll make 

a coat for that soul

to keep the poor thing warm. 

BALDERDASH

Most life exists 

as if just following orders—

only sometimes

a few of these 

strident young pheasants 

seem instead to destroy them. 

Bowdlerizing strip mall farmland 

like unoiled halftracks; to them, 

form annoys function.

Their hackled crows 

and annoyed, dusty cackles 

proclaim that sound won't follow sense

the way future echoes present—

even where it must,

and even when it doesn't.

ASK THE BROKEN MAGIC 8 BALL

Don't ask the prophet 

or the Pythoness 

to tell you; ask instead 

the original witness—

the songsmith 

or the poet. They'll say:

the forecast is not 

but the lonesome 

tears of all 

whose residue leaks

from the present 

day's sorrows;

I do not know 

what will happen 

tomorrow, 

but I see a few 

cracks you could fix 

in today.