FAILING UP

I hate to admit it 

every bit as much 

as you do, but 

it's true that our most hated 

parts might be the places 

that simultaneously 

lust most intensely 

for somebody 

(anyone) to come 

to the rescue,

and those awful weights

which tug like stubborn 

anchors at our centers 

and ground us 

to our murky strife 

are the ones that 

imbue us with the metal 

that sustains us,

drawing our hearts

like iron filings to a magnet 

to the world next door

which summons us 

to wake into

and voluntarily (if not 

enthusiastically) suffer 

through a better life.

NOSTALGIA

It's the way 

the slightest 

autumn breeze 

fans the blaze 

of summer's 

faded green—

tugs at the frail 

leaves of 

memory's trees, 

reminding the penitent 

who now brace

for winter

of a distant sea 

of aquamarine,

placid and reflective 

of those skies 

above of endless 

daylight,

and that humid hum 

of bliss which seemed 

to overlay each night

and sing the praises 

of everything 

it was in life

and the legend 

of how it would 

come to be 

eventually  

so fondly mistaken 

for everything it wasn't. 

ROOMS TO LET

There are no exceptions;

any love 

that comes to us 

is a love that must 

sooner or later go.

This much we know, but

to make it 

even more deceptive, 

think of all 

the disconcerting 

aliases it uses—

pity and self-

loathing, 

pride and fear 

and avarice. 

And notice, when all 

of these feelings 

flea, 

how each one

inevitably seems 

to leave the same way—

at roughly same speed, 

and from roughly 

the same place.

But luckily, as those 

who've invested 

in beauty can attest,

beauty is not a feeling;

beauty is a space.

In fact, it's the space

where all of those fugitive 

feelings were living;

and, of course, even after 

a fugitive leaves, 

the place 

where it was living 

stays. 

CHRYSANTHEMUM'S THE WORD

Frowzy mock-flowers

of beat-rug orange, 

attention-deficit red, 

and afterimage yellow—

cordial, but ragged 

as the coming autumn clouds; 

they do not offend 

with their brand 

of hocus pocus, 

nor beg for our attention 

like high summer's 

neon dandies—

because, although 

too impregnable 

to be moved by the wind, 

they know, 

deep in the closed-fisted 

swirl of each corolla, 

that it's too late 

in the year now 

to hope for a perfect body 

and was always 

just plain foolish 

to wish for an unblemished soul. 

NECESSITY

How I've grown 

to resent you, mother 

of invention—

when I fear 

I lack the courage, 

your intention 

is always 

to rush right in 

and suckle me to sleep 

on wisdom; 

when I say 

I have a problem, 

you are quick 

to dispatch it 

with a solution. 

But although it's 

all very timely 

and clever, 

therein lies 

the contraction: 

what you give 

so freely  

is the answer; 

what I crave is 

your attention. 

THE ANSWER

It's what the angel whispered 

just before 

you were born—

and what you'll presently 

foolishly fritter 

your life away, 

scorn by scorn, trying 

to remember: 

like all you encounter, 

she'll be simple 

to understand

until you start 

to love her. 

JUDGEMENT DAY

To help make sense 

of eternity's math 

equation, let 

the afterlife 

be equal to 

endless equivocation. 

*

The real first sacred mystery 

is that, after the creation, 

god would find himself 

of several minds 

about seeing his image 

in the mirror again. 

*

After listening 

to their speeches 

and sermons for so long, 

they start to sound less

like accusations 

and more like 

clever loopholes 

or contextual breeches:

in heaven 

you'll be surrounded 

by familiar faces—

the only difference 

in hell is you'll see them 

in bewilderingly 

unfamiliar situations 

and places.