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. 

PRACTICAL EFFECTS

Mostly, our lives 

are the portraits 

of unglamorous—

they're like movies 

that can't stop forgetting 

their own plot twists. 

Yet,

there are days 

on the set 

when the sky is a halfway-

decent watercolor, 

the distant forest 

a matte painting 

so vivid and so still 

as to border on suspicious. 

And there, 

deep in shadows 

the color of ashes, 

soundtracked 

by the lapping 

smack of water 

and the drone of bees 

far to lazy to sting, 

we can't shake the feeling 

that the air we breathe 

has been keeping 

thick secrets; 

that maybe—just maybe, 

there might be 

something to this. 

THE GIST

As ever, it is early 

when I start upon 

my journey, 

and the trees 

to whom I've pledged 

to listen 

lean down 

with their heavy 

burden of sleep, 

branches still filled 

with the thick 

mist of night, 

and whisper to me 

in their rustling stupor 

in a language which 

no man could ever 

hope to speak 

because there is 

no code to decipher. 

So who am I 

to render any of this, 

I wonder—let alone 

interpret?

No being could record 

such ancient words—

and really, 

no one has to try;

no living thing 

need sightread 

the wind's song, since 

deep inside, they've 

already got it 

memorized.