REMINISCENT

Since this is all
there is, I'd recommend
taking a deep breath
before you die.

There, isn't that
better? Since starting
over presupposes some
sort of prior concluding

event, shouldn't we
take a moment to
reflect on where
we've been? There,

isn't that reminiscent
of something?

POST-CONTEMPORARY

When the post-modern poet says, Well, yes, but it's not possible to write the way Frost did in this day and age, what he or she means is it's not easy.

HOSAI (OH-SIGH)

Merry, yet more
than a tad contrary,
she inhabits her
garden in the

unmistakable guise
of a flower. The
sun pours its
yellow goodness

onto the ground and
bids her continue.
Her name pronounces
itself incorrectly

on purpose to make us
wonder who else she is.

David Shapiro

When I come across David Shapiro's comments in Facebook, I can't help wondering if he's trying (a bit too hard, I'd say) to be post-modern, or if he's actually lost his mind.

THE NEXT VILLAGE

Life feels so
foreshortened these
days that I hesitate
to turn around

for fear of bumping
into my birth and
bruising my face.
But go ahead, kids,

jump into your
buggy and whip that
tired old horse if you
actually believe

it's going to
get you anywhere.

FOUND SOUND

Forgive me. I have
taken things too
far or not far
enough and have

no idea which.
I will try again,
of course. But
taking things the

correct distance
is not as easy as
it sounds and
considerably more

difficult than
it doesn't sound.

EVERYTHING ELSE

An off-stage
voice auditioning
for the role of
God in a new

play about getting
lost on the way
to the bathroom lowers
itself until the

basement begins
to bleed. Once
that happens,
nothing else can

because everything
else already has.

DOOMED
for Halvard

Dark energy, the
invisible element
in the room of
science, is sitting

on my chest.
Exhalation is easy,
like rolling down
a hill. Inhalation

is impossible, like
rolling up a hill.
Anti-gravity is
having its way

with us. We are doomed
to be who we are.

12/25/11

A MERRY HAPPY TO ONE AND ALL!

UPON A TIME

Twice upon another
time a woman
living happily ever
after starts over.

Every other now and
then she stops
to milk a cow.
Thrice as many times

as why she switches
spots to fell a
tree. Dressed
up as many years

ago, she secretly
dreams her death.

ARS POETICA

This poem answers
underwater. Bubbles
of misunderstanding
rush to the surface

and pop. The sound
they make is inaudible,
like words
submerged in wet.

Nothing can cleanse
a poem of its meaning
as it takes another
running stab at being.

A moon should not
be but shine.

ANYMORE

When I was a boy,
the priest fell asleep
during my confession.
Then came puberty

with its taller trees
and deeper caves.
Thoughts became actions.
Actions became allegories

of uncertainty. Nights
became noon-like,
trembling in place.
Everything needed doing.

No one stopped at
nothing anymore.

VESTIGIAL

The vestigial vagina
of an angel
measures minus
three inches and

is either invisible
or nonexistent,
depending on your
point of view.

Your point of view
measures however
much you're able
to see without being

born again or
sold into slavery.

BABY

Something this is
neither the time nor
the place for happens
anyway. In order to

be all you can
be, you don't. And
because you can't
help thinking it

should have been
you, it is. Something
as easy as taking
a hand-grenade

from a baby takes
longer than expected.

MY WOMAN

Some women can
turn it on and
off, depending
on mood and on

other factors that
shall remain nameless
as long as there
is a universe.

My woman turns
it off and off,
depending on nothing.
She is the sound

of one hand
refusing to clap.

INVISIBLE

Something truer than
true love writes
its name in the
sky using cloud

cover as its excuse.
Will you marry
me or at least
be merry with me

while we may?
Rosebuds gather
without us to
celebrate our madness.

We hide in invisible
traces of ourselves.

MORTAL

With his heart giving
out, a man checks
himself in. He hooks
up with a nurse

whose bedside manner
is fur-lined. He
tries to be reasonable,
but can't remember

how. Coughing causes
him to listen to
himself. He doesn't
like what he hears.

A doctor declares
him mortal.

TOCK

Rounding a rarely
turned corner of
time, a clock
meets its maker.

It would be wonderful,
of course, to wind down
the way a clock does,
one harmless tick

at a time, the last
tick (tock) not
noticeably different
from the first.

That would be good
both starting and stopping.

BLINDNESS
(Gandhi)

An eye for
an eye for
an eye for
an eye for

an eye for
an eye for
an eye for
an eye for

an eye for
an eye for
en eye for
an eye for

an eye for
an eye for

CLICHE BOUQUET

Though I have always
done my best to
leave you with
the wrong impression

(or a second first
impression when impossible),
I have never deliberately
been honest about

anything. For that
reason I resent your
implication that I am
my own best enemy.

I have always striven to
be my own worst friend.

CORRECTLY

In this litany of
lit particulars a
dayseye dies one
day at a time.

Time tells the
truth exactly as
written. Nothing
is as sad as snow

falling inside an
empty warehouse.
Lethargy leaves a
trail no one in

his right mind
would try to follow.

ABOVE

Stacked gods do
indeed draw
lines across us
as the moon

stitches its eyelid
into a cloud.
At exactly
half midnight

noon's nimble
insistence
remains what it is,
hung brightness

in the geometric
center of sky.

TEN

Things this is
neither the time
nor the place
for may turn

out to be very
well suited to
a different time
in a different

place. It's certainly
worth a try. it's
always a good idea,
I think, to count

to ten before
killing someone.

THE QUEEN

Many of the museums
in England have no
entry fee, but charge
a rather handsome

ransom if and
when you decide
you'd like to get
out. The ransom

has to be paid
in pounds, not
euros, and has to
be delivered directly

to the Queen,
preferably before tea.

INDIGESTION

Americans eat a
lot. They eat out
of a mounting
frustration with

Jesus, who continues
not showing up for
their parties. Every
cheeseburger allows

them to believe
that God still
loves them and
approves of their

disapproval of others.
They die of indigestion.

CHANGES

A room my childhood
wants to have a
party in revisits
me in a dream.

The room is not
visible as a room.
It's more like a
series of ideas

about rooms that
have been woven
into a tapestry.
The tapestry is

hung in a painting
by Hans Holbein.

AUBADE
for Paul

A lazy moon
is saving its face
for later. Motors
turn over, letting

go of the night. A
life from which
all pronouns have
been removed

declares itself
not worth living.
A poet, in love
with a definite

article, dissolves
in a mirror of words.

MEMORY
for Maxine

Memory marks the
spot, as they say,
and even hits the
spot at times.

Sometimes memory
moves me to move
closer. Other times
it shoos me away.

I remember always
being exactly who
I was, despite a
mirror's static.

I remember remembering
who I pretended to be.

ALLEGORY

Invention's father,
a hobo with a hard-on
and a drug habit,
had abandoned

Invention's mother,
Necessity, years earlier.
This wasn't necessarily
a bad thing. It

permitted Invention
to grow up in
a world of
hurt and spared

him having to invent
reasons for his unhappiness.

HOPE

He works in the
no accounting for
taste department.
Poets, his data show,

waste paper while
wanting not to. He
locks his mother
in the closet every

morning to prevent
the darning of socks.
He calls home
continuously in a

conscientious effort to
drive the old lady insane.

LATEST

The latest in
a new series of
pushed envelopes
hatches in

imagination's
lab. A pill
proven to induce
awe in some over-

promotes death
in others and is
yanked from the
market at what

may or may not
be the last minute.

FATHER

Since there wasn't
a single wife in our
neighborhood worth
coveting, father

reluctantly obeyed
one of the commandments.
Then he died and
was buried along

with his secrets.
He lives, I guess
you could say, in
whatever memories

we still have of him.
You could say that.

TEMPORARY

When I was five.
my parents decided
we were living next
door to the wrong

Wright brothers. We
began moving. Traveling
at the speed of dark,
we arrived in a

suburb, preceded by
an example of what
everything would soon
look like. There was

a temporary orange
grove on the right.

UTTERLY

When a pyromaniac
lights a match,
the universe goes
up in flames in

his imagination.
Stairs become stars,
and stars become
distant examples of

what it means
to be utterly alone.
When the pyromaniac
dips himself in

cold water, everything
he believes in stops.

PURPOSE
for Said

The purpose of music
is to encourage hope
while simultaneously
insisting upon its

futility. In its most
twisted examples music
dances back and forth
between these two poles,

producing an electric
shock equal in
intensity to
that produced by

thrusting a hairpin
into a light socket.

NO LONGER

If I should die
before I wake,
I won't wake. I'm
not sure what

I'll do in lieu
of waking. Maybe
I'll sleep longer
then usual,

a lot
longer. Maybe
I'll dream a different
kind of dream, one

in which I keep
not waking up.

CIRCUITOUS

I'm tired of leaving
my message after the
beep. I deliberately
leave it before the

beep. I do this not
so much out of
obstinacy as out
of a profound sense of

boredom with modern
technology. I am, of
course, also fascinated
with modern technology.

Please unplug me
when you're finished.

ANONYMOUS

Anonymous died on
a day when nothing
happened. That's
the good news.

The bad news is
his failure to
leave behind a
single memory

of himself in
the minds of
those of us who
cared enough

to wonder who
he was.

IMPLIED

There was a long
period of prosperity
following my great
depression. My

depression had been
brought on by science's
unanticipated discovery
that the universe was

flat and that there
was no way to comply
with the implied order
to "live happily ever

after". It ended with
the discovery of sarcasm.

PARTICULAR

We frequently ask
What's the big idea?
when we have no
particular interest

in ideas, large or
small. When bees
hear the beekeeper
coming, they

cease making honey
and begin murmuring
innumerably. In the
wake of natural disaster

we cover for God
by feeling guilty.

IN THIS ONE GALLERY
for Asad

In this one gallery
installations are
outsourced to China,
and paintings lie

flat on the floor,
wishing they were
more like sculptures.
Sculptures don't do

anything and are
justifiably ignored
in all the reviews.
Videos, seen but not

heard, refuse to
take off their masks.

DADA WORD SCULPTURE
for Hosai

A
bullet
believed
not

to
have
killed
MLK,

JFK,
President
McKinley,
or

Abraham
Lincoln.

RHETORICAL

Once again ecstasy
underlines what
cannot be explained.
We leave the rest

until later, until
it actually is
later, at which
point we leave

the rest until whenever
tomorrow turns out to
be. We don't question
why we do what

we do because the
answer is rhetorical.

ATTENTION

It's amazing how
much we haven't
accomplished, considering
how much there

is to do. It's
mind-boggling how
quickly I can
forget where

I was when
Ronald Reagan
was shot.
Someone is trying

to draw my attention
with a pencil.

DECELERATION

With the invention
of the camera,
we learned how to
cry. Artists were

called in to paint
teardrops onto our
cheeks. The teardrops
refused to roll

until the invention
of the movie, after
which so much became
possible that we had

to lock ourselves in
a closet to slow down.

FARTHER

It's always already
winter when I wake
up and try again to
reach her by phone.

She's always already
not at home. Her
telephone continues
ringing even after

I've hung up. I
can hear it in the
next room, where
she lives miles

away from me,
farther.

DARK PASSAGE

At the end of the
long arm of the
law, a heavy hand
serves up canister

after canister of
nose-numbing
"protection". Yes,
we're in Oakland,

across the Bay
from San Francisco
(only those in LA
dare call it "Frisco").

Bogie and Bacall are
driving down from Marin.

CONCEPTUAL
for Asad and Halai

A conceptual artist
suggests connecting
one street to a second,
parallel street by

means of a third
street (one that can
be called a "cross
street", should the need

to name it arise). The
city council votes down
the artist's proposal, but
compensates by electing

him mayor and allowing him
to marry the woman of his choice.

TWINS

Do as I do,
not as I say.
Or do as I
say I won't

do unless you
agree to do
it too. That way
we'll both arrive

at the same exact
moment, neither
of us an iota
later (or earlier)

than the other.
We'll be twins.

INNER

To see the face
of God from outer
space, you have
to look up, a

direction that, like
most directions,
doesn't really
exist in outer

space. The only
direction I can
think of that
might exist

in outer space
is inner.

NOT

The ultimacy of
intimacy seems to
be a kind of elongated
ecstasy that leads

inevitably to lunacy
and dry rot. A literal
inward tilting fails
to prevent the

wholesale sublimation
of birds into bungled
attempts at clarity.
Analogues to error,

once thought to be
the answer, aren't.

EVEN NOWHERE

Because everything is
constantly in flux,
we now train our pilots
to fly flight simulators

by having them first
learn how to fly actual
airplanes. The
advantage of the

flight simulator is,
of course, its similarity
to a video game, but also,
and more importantly,

its ability to take you
anywhere, even nowhere.

TO THE ONE PERCENT

Turning the other
cheek and then the other
other cheek is my
way of saying no,

not anymore. If you
see me coming,
drop whatever you're
doing and become

someone else, someone
better. Someone a
lot better. Otherwise,
I'll turn my back

on you and make
you disappear.

HOW LONG

I have this feeling
that someone is
constantly trying
to convince me of

something. But of
what? And for what
reason? There is
a "what" inside

every "why" and
a "why" inside
every "what".
But where?

And when? And
for how long?

ANVIL

Music is inadmissible
as evidence because
it speaks directly
to the inner ear.

Candles light the way
to lethargy and God.
Murderers make light
of life in the moment

they murder, but often
feel weighted down
with worry afterwards.
This is known in

psychology as the
"dropped-anvil effect".

SEMICIRCULAR

The beginning of an
end no one could have
foreseen turns out
to be nothing more

than the continuation
of an ongoing
struggle between the
possible and the

singularly semicircular.
An autopsy of the
difference between what
we want and what we

can expect to get results
in the hospitalization of hope.

AWARE

The moon, when
viewed through the
word "moon", is
somehow less

interesting than hoped
for. I had wanted
something haphazard,
like a snail that

wanders away from
its "trail". A dog
I'm aware, but
not beware, of

is refusing to
keep off the grass.

IN ERROR

An adjective accidentally
cuts into a flower
it had intended
only to describe.

This typically happens
at night as sentries
attempt to relocate
their daydreams.

If you sleep
until noon,
you will wake
with a sense of

having misplaced
morning.

OCCUPY

A guy I know makes
what many people
call a living
buying and selling

his idea of what
money will taste
like when the economy
ripens. He hoards

gold bars in a
basement based
on the assumption that
actual slavery will

flourish again in what
masqueraded as our land.

HORACE

I believe it was
Horace who said
that mortality bruises
a man's thoughts.

He probably would
have added that
it bruises a
woman's thoughts

too, but no one
knew in those days
that women also
have thoughts. They

were only known to
have babies when touched.

THE ART OF WAR

Paul Klee worked
as an artist
during the war.
His best friend

worked as a
soldier and died.
Klee painted
a portrait

of his friend
trapped in
the act of
being dead.

The war dragged
on until it ended.

OUT

The average person
has no desire to
travel to outer space.
The below-average

person has no desire
to travel to inner
space. There is no
gravity in outer

space. There is
too much gravity
in inner space,
according to those

who have gone there,
their tongues hanging out.

SHUT

At shut of eve
(words from an
angel frozen in
youth) night

spills its oily
ink. Owls age
in the general
direction of wisdom.

A dog, asleep
at no one's
feet, paddles
toward a dream


everything it
owns is buried in.

LAST

The shortest distance
between one point
is inertia. Angels
who die of

old age are
buried in our
best intentions.
The last man

standing is required
by law to explain
what happened.
He may do so

in any language
he chooses.

GRAVY

What's in this
year is whatever's
out where the
greener grass

grows impatient.
Convinced that the
best lack all
conviction, I

invite a convict
to dinner, knowing
he can't come
because of the

bars and the
guards and the gravy.

POINTS

Points taken away
for shooting civilians
are added back in
once the corridors

have been cleared.
Gold earns you
an extra shot at
your even more

evil twin. Your
joystick is adjusted
to allow for errors
without any corresponding

reduction in your
lack of compassion.

ANYWAY

I come from a
long line of
people who would
prefer not to, but

usually do anyway.
The devil is either
in the details
or in an overly

broad outline of
what life's likely
to have been
about once all the

dust has settled, then
been kicked up again.

AT SEVEN

A woman created
out of the combined
fantasies of a hundred
henpecked men

and forced to eat
nothing but bad
publicity for a
week emerges as

a somewhat enhanced
version of what we
had always considered
highly unlikely.

She will be expecting
you at seven.

OPENING
for Asad

At a young artist's
opening critics
were surprised to
find a gallery

devoid of a single
visible work. That
was, of course, the
whole point. An

attempt to paint
movement into a
canvas had resulted
in an imageless

video that droned
on forever.

DISCREETLY

A man keeps
his fear of
public speaking
in a file labeled

"private". His teeth
marks have been
found on the elbows
of nineteen fallen

angels. An inability
to express emotion
causes his toilet
to clog. Helium

balloons are discreetly
released into the air.

MORE PROGRESS

In earlier times
a man was presumed
dead unless he
twitched when poked

with a stick. Then
progress stepped in
with its fancy tools
and store-bought

knowledge. Now
a man is not
considered truly
dead unless or

until he vomits
gold when kicked.

PROGRESS

In the Old West
a man was told
to dance as bullets
painted the area

around his feet.
In the New West
a man is asked
to think as bullets

penetrate the air
around his head.
This will be called
"progress" until the

idea men can come
up with a better term.

OSLO

"You'll never get
the art part out of
Oslo that way," a
woman says to me,

in reference to
what she thinks
I'm doing, which
is, of course, almost

the opposite of
what I'm doing, so
different from it,
in fact, that when

I ask the woman
to marry me, she does.

SELF

A man charged
with shooting himself
in self defense
defends himself

by pleading guilty
on all counts.
Soldiers of silence
lead him away,

their tongues twisted
into recognizable knots.
Nothing new need
be added to eternal

life, which is
presumably enough.

OCCUPY

Because angels are
only visible from
within, they frighten
the under-enlightened.

Our better angels
run off with
our worst fears
as winter wipes

the smile off
our faces. My
banker, afraid
I might figure

him out, eats
all the money.

NOT NEXT

When it seemed
everything of
importance had
happened, he

slipped off his
boots and died.
Next time he'll
know better.

If there is
no next time,
he'll know
better than to

wait impatiently
for what's not next.

THIRD

I remember
once when push
came to shove
you fell into

a fish pond
and emerged wetter
than a whistle.
Good and bad

switched spots.
Beauty brought an
ugly price at auction,
and action spoke

louder than words for the
third charm this week.

ELASTIC

What goes up
stays in Vegas,
unless, in compliance
with the laws of

gravity and decent
behavior, it must
come down. If it
must, it must, in

accordance with the
far less strict laws
of language, which
are notoriously

elastic and
let things happen.

FREQUENTLY

The noise a wish
makes switching
sides is said to
be inaudible to

all but the
underappreciated.
The right to have
it all is alienable.

The right to
have it both
ways works
both ways and

is frequently mistaken
for its opposite.

OCCUPY

Poetry's a privileged
form of distance
from what's yours
and mine in

the mind's pantry.
Every highway
here's a ribbon
our mother weaves

into her hair.
A landscape whose
scape escapes
seems hopeless

to the hapless.
It's time.

LANGUAGE POETRY

If you want to understand language poetry, close your eyes and picture someone masturbating with no hands.

TEA

No one has an
inalienable right
to everything.
Or so Jefferson

said after he
laid down his
pen and repaired
to the bedroom

to taste a slave.
It's almost
impossible to
find the Founders

without a program
or a scorecard.

RECALIBRATED

Displays of strength
in the upper atmosphere
were used in past
years to pump up

the average man's
idea of what
the future held
in store. What

the future actually
held in store is
now being used to
dial back the

idea that slavery
was somehow wrong.

OCCUPY

An angel is
what's missing
from the snow
after it melts.

A snowman
and a straw man
hold hands in
a dream I once

had about being
helpless. A
beggar hands
out handouts

in a dream I'm
afraid to have.

OCCUPY

If you scrape
the scape from
landscape, the land
begins to bleed

milk and honey.
The land I'm
talking about is
the one that's

yours and mine
that was taken
from us by
those who know

who they are but
don't give a damn.

SUDDENLY
for Sayeda

They check her
out while checking
themselves in. It
goes on like this

until it goes off like
that. An unexpected
distinction between
what we want and

what we can expect
to get explains
everything. She wishes
she had the exact

opposite of everything
she ever had.

OPTICS

When seen from a
great enough distance,
past and present are
indistinguishable. A

man approaching seems
to grow taller with
each step toward you.
This is an illusion,

known in optics as
"the expanding-man
illusion". It can be
easily countered by

asking the man to
grow smaller by leaving.

SOLDIER

When viewed at
the correct angle,
a soldier's shadow
stands at attention and

casts his body into the
ground. This is
regarded as a
premonition by some,

but as history in
the making by the
soldier himself,
who kisses his

birth goodbye
at the station.

GEOMETRIC

A parachute opening
inside his body
brings a man
to his senses.

An odd symmetry
between the wreckage
within and the
moon above reminds

him of the simple
geometric shapes of
childhood: the circle,
the square, the triangle.

Time is not the
right place for this.

GONE

I think I can
pinpoint the exact
moment I sensed
your tense shifting

from present to
past. I had
asked you a
rhetorical question,

expecting no answer.
You answered it
with a simultaneous
shaking and nodding

of the head from up
to one side to gone.

POSTCONTEMPORARY

A new school of
poetry, called tentatively
"postcontemporary", is
distinguished by the

words it refuses to
use. In place of words
it uses the heads
of headless hummingbirds

flying through the room
at the precise moment the
poem is being either
"written" or tossed

into a wastebasket
for safekeeping.

SEASONAL

A pair of black
headlights at noon
announces the end
of summer. Dark

helicopters circle
overhead, drawing
attention to the
unavoidable accident

autumn is. Halloween
dons a new
costume, woven
of worn-out ideas.

Winter hesitates for
what seemed like a second.

TWO

When one mirror
faces another
mirror, both begin
reflecting on

reflection and what
purpose, if any, it
serves in the overall
scheme of things.

If you place an
object, any object,
between them,
they change

their minds into
photographic memories.

MASTER OF CEREMONIES SQUARED

Apparently some
sub-atomic particles
have been caught
traveling in excess

of the posted speed
limit of light. A motorcycle
cop traveling behind
them (at the speed

of hope) testified
in court that he
had been unable
to chase down the

particles in time
for the Last Judgment.

RELATIONSHIPS

I've always felt
there must be a
relationship between
the fear of heights,

acrophobia, and
the fear of depths,
megalomania. Many
wonder why the two

don't cancel each other
out, the way large
and small do by
remaining medium-sized,

the way left and right
do by refusing to budge.

AGAIN

Many are born again,
but few are chosen
(for reasons I'd rather
not go into here).

If you think you may
have been born again,
stare into the mirror
for however long it

takes you to realize
how foolish you look.
Then pinch yourself.
If you still don't care

what time it is, you
have been born again.

REPORTED

When seen from
a safe distance,
everything happens
at once. Or doesn't

happen at all. When
heard from a great
height, gravity pulls
the plug. A reported

snowstorm inside
the Cathedral turns
out to be nothing
more than a long

overdue Eucharist floating
down from the ceiling.

KINK

A poem in search
of an ideal degree of
obscurity manages
to mean everything

and nothing
simultaneously
and has to be erased
before whoever I used

to think I was finds
out. There is a
seemingly ancient
kink in the center of

this that is trying
to work itself out.

ADVANCE NOTICE

The mimesis of
the painting was
the difficulty any
viewer would have

in assigning any
value whatsoever
to the work. The
artist took delight

in knowing he
had outsmarted
us by predicting
in advance that

we would not look
twice at his creation.

PAUSE

The time and
blood I have on
my hands have
decided to become

one. I wring myself
out to dry. The boy
next door, the one
who faints at the

mention of anything,
is fiddling with his
stick. Time stops
marching on for

a second, then
blunders into an ambush.

WHAT THERE'S NO ACCOUNTING FOR

Her parents locked
her in the closet
to see how long
it would take

her to eat
the darkness.
Now she is
rarely late,

but is often
too early to
calculate the speed
at which snow melts.

She lives inside an idea
her mother had about her.

NO EXCUSE

A man whose
alibi had no
excuse for not
holding up in

court was executed
yesterday in Texas.
Today we find
out his alibi

was telling the
truth about where
he was when
what happened

happened. It's too
late to be on time.

CHEAP LABOR

The people working
the graveyard
shift these days
are sleepwalkers.

Capitalism has
developed a way
of luring them into
the factory by

dangling cheese
in front of their
noses. It's cheap
labor's logical extreme.

No one knows whether
or what they dream.

ELASTIC

As I watch our
neighborhood poet
practice verbal
back-flips on the

lawn, I can't
help remembering
a time when exercise
was less poetic

and poetry less
elastic. I do my
part by performing
linguistic chin-ups

on a bar between
"rhyme" and "reason".

CLEARLY

Sometimes we try
too hard to
suggest a word
or color by

leaving it out
(or painting
over it in shades
of clear plastic).

The camera forces
everyone to stand
still if it's a
still camera. The

movie camera moves to
a new part of now.

NEVER ENOUGH

Today I had
solid-gold fixtures
installed in my
bathroom so the

poor would learn to
stop wanting so much.
The results were
mixed. Not a

single person applauded
when I twisted the
new handle, prompting
water to rush into

and out of my
beautiful toilet bowl.

LOST IN TRANSLATION

Imagine an
unheard-of head
in which the
eye-apples

ripen. Then
change your life.
A smile the
loins can't keep

under wraps
announces in
advance what's
just around every

corner. Let
go of the leaves.

NOT IN ENGLAND

A mirror that
doesn't know what
to say (much less
reflect) is replaced

by the correct spelling
of a name you
can never recall
in time to call

the woman whose
name it is and
invite her over
for tea. Then you

remember you are
not in England.

MOTION

A movie in which
no one moves
opened last week
to rave reviews.

A critic who
labeled it "post
post-modern" was
criticized for being

prematurely prescient.
A second critic
said the movie
had moved him

to the point of no
longer giving a damn.

CONCEPTUAL

An artist who
thinks he invented
the intersection is
commissioned to

create a work no
one will be allowed
to see once it's
finished. No one

will ever know
when or whether
the work is
complete. No one

except the artist,
who is blind.

COCONUT

Every friend's death
whittles me down
to size (or words
to that effect).

I live on an
island no ship
visits. I can
swim, but not

well enough to
reach the mainland
(which is where
mankind resides).

I had coconut
for lunch.

A COUNTRY

In a country
in which no
and yes both
mean no, sincerity

meets its match.
This country also
specializes in
indoor rain

and outdoor
plumbing. Public
places are stored
inside closets

that close upon
closer inspection.

GADGET

The eternal-life
gadget, whose
patent is held
by a society

so secret it
can't remember
where it begins
or ends, is

said to be
identical in size
to the gadget
life uses to

erase us just
in time for death.

WEIGHTLESS

Because everything
in a cartoon is
weightless, you
open your eyes

to find that life
has punched a
hole in you that,
while quite large,

is insufficiently
real to erase
you from the
world. When the

cartoon ends, you
have lived forever.

PARROT

I'd rather not do
this over the phone,
but I'd also rather
not have to see

you again in whatever's
left of this lifetime.
The goldfish that
died when you looked

at it has been
replaced. The cat
that left when you
didn't returned

once you had gone.
The parrot ate its words.

TOPS

I put your father
in an old folks
home and your
sister in a headlock.

I don't know what
I was thinking,
but I don't care.
I put your mother

where no one will
find her and
your brother in an
embarrassing situation.

I put you at
the top of my list.

THE GOOD OLD DAYS There was too much available parking in the good old days. Death was in its heyday. Bits of muffled diction seemed all but silent in the face of opposition. Gold's value was glued to chaos for no discernible reason. No one was surprised when the sky declined comment.

LOUDER

I don't regret
a false move
I didn't make
with a gun

pointed at
me. The gun
came out of
nowhere, the

way weather
does when
an unexpected
storm with

thunderclaps speaks
louder than words.

GREAT

A great poem
or painting has
the good sense
to totally ignore

its sources (Eliot).
A photo-realistic
rendering in impasto
cannot be slapped

onto the canvas
carelessly. It requires
careful planning
and, in extreme

cases, revision. A
great poem squeaks.

IN ADVANCE

Back in the days
when even women
and children were
reasonable men,

the art of postponing
pleasure was at
its zenith. Different
sized doors were

used to enter a
room, depending on
one's mood. Things
that needed doing

got done in advance,
before Dad got home.

INTERRUPTED

Fantasy's clever
move releases
fidelity from its
vow. Now

what? I cannot
emphasize enough
the importance of
coffee in the morning,

chamomile tea at night.
I often wonder what
it would be like
to not be anywhere.

Then, without warning,
I stop wondering.

LEAVING THE ATOCHA STATION

I don't understand why
everyone makes such
a fuss about leaving
the Atocha Station.

What better way to
get out of Madrid
by rail? I left the
Atocha Station on a

train last time
I was in Madrid
and, honestly, I
didn't notice anything

out of the ordinary.
It was raining.

WHITE

Feel free to
run your fingers
through my white
hair in search of

wisdom. What
you find there
is all I've
managed to save.

It's the not much
that's all there
is once the famous
last words have

been erased.
Tomorrow's yesterday.

HIGH TIME

Our children have
begun violating
curfew every night
while making love

execution-style
under the bleachers.
The police, who are
busy buying lottery

tickets, are powerless
to help. No one
knows where the key
to anyone's heart is.

It's time. High
time it were time.

CHARITY

The poor live under
a bridge outside time
that's safely beyond
notice. A poet worries

that he may have
accidentally used
a pronoun in one
of his poems, knowing

he will be denounced
by the Academy Of
Utter Nonsense if
he has. Charity

tries one last time
to be the greatest of these.

THE WAX

A poet forgets how
to walk in one of
his poems and
can't get out of

the way. Fireflies
punctuate the night
with opposing thoughts
to no avail. Time

marches on anyway.
My wife is busy
funneling boiled
ecstasy into a

lidless Mason jar.
Now the wax.

TRUE COLORS

The color of fear,
long thought to be
yellow, is actually
closer to beige.

This is no surprise
to the artist, who
knows true colors
and what they stand

for. White represents
the false doctrine of
creationism, green the
sensible idea behind

evolution. Love is
colorless, but vivid.

ARS POETICA

I agree that a poem must not mean but be. But there are too many poems around these days that succeed in not meaning, but fail miserably to be.

ADIEU AMERICA

Having chopped
down the only
possible reason a
cherry tree would

have been there
in the first place,
I leave what has
left me and

set said for
France, where the
freedom fries dwell.
Bon jour, I

practice saying
through the barbed wire.

HEAD-START

I have begun
forgetting things
before they happen
to get a head-start

on old age. My
bones have begun
breaking in
anticipation of the

fall. The widow
next door wants
me to weave a
kitten out of her

hair. I promised
her I'd try.

HARVEST

My waves of grain
are especially amber
this morning. I can
hear the harvest

creaking toward the
barn. I reap what I
sow, feed a
little to the

livestock,
then eat the
rest myself.
I love to watch

the lilies in the
field spin and toil.

THE OTHER OTHER FROST

The other Frost
was Randall
Jarrell's favorite
poet (after

Rilke). Mine too
(also after Rilke).
The other other
Frost, on the

other hand, wasn't
all that good, was
often bad, in fact,
like all those

other poets
who weren't Rilke.

ELEGY FOR JERRY

Hitting rewind causes
rain to rise,
the sun to unset,
parting lovers

to reunite. Nothing
causes life to go
on as reliably
as death does,

though. Your
absence stutters
in the middle of
a sentence it

can no longer
finish.

SIXTY-NINE

Braille porn is
all the rage among
the short-sighted
these days. One

feels one's way
(gently) into the
unseen. It's said
to be a lot like

having sex at night
with the lights out,
which is when and
how 69% of all

sex acts are thought
to occur in any case.

SAFETY

A goal I gave
up on keeps
trying to reach
me, sometimes

by phone, more
often by force.
I frequently
cower in corners

goals are said to
fear (like angels
do when they're
treading). An

absence of air
vacuums me to safety.

THE MOST RECENT STUDIES

Taking medication
to control your
psychosis impedes
your ability to

control your psychosis
by beating your
neighbor to death
with a sledge hammer.

At least this is
what the most
recent studies
suggest. The most

recent studies also
suggest waiting impatiently.

JOYCE KILMER'S TREES

Think of a poem
as a made thing
God or somebody
like God planted

a tree in (God's
brother, perhaps).
The tree, an
infant sucking

at Nature's breast,
has a sibling
named "Forest".
Nobody can see

the sibling because
of the fucking tree.

OUR WOMEN

Because of the way
things are now, our
women put up snow
in place of peaches

for the sweltering
months ahead.
They can hot
water to ease us

through winter's
god-awful chill. They can't
can anything for spring,
or say they can't.

We don't question what
they can and can't can.

NEXT

The economy of pleasure
is running out of gas.
We never go anywhere
anymore unless some

oboe tells us to.
Ether's everywhere,
waiting for its chance.
The moon spits

bits of yellow light
into a cluster of
motionless trees.
Opposites grapple

in the underbrush. What
happens next doesn't.

E-Books available for purchase at Lulu.com

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August Again


New Zoos

BIG CITY

The rope I'm often
at the end of is
the same rope I use
to tie myself up

when I see a burglar
approaching my house.
I have forbidden
my neighbors to

intervene on my
behalf because I
live in a big city
and don't want to

be known as the one
who inconveniences them.

POSTPONED

Putting off suicide
until tomorrow is
actually a good
strategy. No one

knows what the
future will bring
if and when it
ever gets here.

And things do
sometimes improve
accidentally. You're
a lot more attractive

than you look, and
the sun also rises.

SONNET
(Padgett)

What shall I
write today? What
shall I write
today? What shall

I write today?
What shall I
write today? What
shall I write

today? What shall
I write today?
What shall I
write today? What

shall I write
today? A sonnet.

POETIC TRAINING

Even in the case of the best poets, only about 30% of a poet's work is actually worth reading. The other poems are akin to the sit-ups a boxer does to stay in shape. Rilke was, of course, the exception to this rule.

PICKY

I'm leaving you
because I love
you and think
you deserve better.

Oh, fuck it.
I'll change. No,
I won't. I
would, but I

can't imagine
who I'd be
if I did.
I doubt you'd

like me in any
case. You're picky.

REAGAN'S LEGACY

A withered blue
tit, provided for
the poor to suck
on in their spare

time, is said
to be all the
filthy rich
assholes can

spare at this
time. Maybe
later, they
whisper behind

their smelly cigars,
maybe later.

CATHOLIC GIRLS

The girls from Our
Lady Of Broken Promises
let boys sleep inside them
after school. They

worship Jesus
in their spare time,
but don't like the
Father and are

ambivalent about
the Holy Ghost.
Each one has
an imprimatur

stenciled into her
titty for good luck.

JOSEPH OF CUPERTINO

Joseph of Cupertino,
the canonized saint,
is said to have
disobeyed the law

of gravity a number
of times during his
life here on earth.
He is also famous

for giggling in answer
to every question put
to him by the Inquisition.
He was ultimately

dragged before the Pope,
who though he was cute.

YANK

Some of your best
friends are language
poets. They don't
talk to you for

reasons that resist
being mentioned. I
swapped faith and
hope for charity

years ago. In fact,
I freak out when
someone loves Jesus
so much he feels he

has to grab me
by the ears and yank.

MYSELF

My goal when I
was young was
to die on the cross
and worship my

death. I got over
this as quickly as
possible and built
myself a small

house on an acre
of irony outside
town. No one
visits me now,

but that's okay.
I visit myself.

THEIR SON

A woman is
underground who
gave birth to me
before I could protest.

And her husband,
my father, underground
next door. I often
imagine them reaching

across the damp
earth holding
hands as they
discuss what has

and has not become
of me, their son.

PENDULUM

One paratrooper mows
the lawn on his
way down. Another
is reading a book.

A third (the interesting
one) falls up instead
of down to avoid
reaching the ground.

His chute gets caught
on a branch jutting
out from a low-
hanging cloud. He

swings back and
forth like a pendulum.

THE SPEED WE DIE AT

When we die, we
do so mostly
out of habit.
Getting up in the

morning becomes
not getting up
in the morning.
Remembering to

take your medicine
becomes forgetting
to take your
medicine. Getting

nowhere fast remains
getting nowhere fast.

REFUSAL

The stars, adjusting
themselves for inflation
so that the dead can go
on living in the memories

of those they've forgotten,
count their blessings
slowly as they let
go of their light. Like

a dream that repeats
itself in search of a
better outcome, the
stars refuse to turn

around into the
daylight of oblivion.

SIGHT UNSEEN

A blind neighbor
of mine watches
porn with the
sound turned

off. He insists
he can imagine
everything perfectly
well and is always

satisfied with the
way things turn
out. It always ends
the same, he says.

I know it does,
even with my eyes closed.

MUSIC
for Said

Busy is as
busy does. But
sometimes music
is as music

does not. The
silences, I mean,
planted in the
middle as quiet

echoes of what
is meant by
noise. I hear
them and applaud

what they dare
to sound like.

STARS

These recent stars
are literally anachronistic,
arriving long after they
have ceased to exist.

A dinner guest
who's a ghost,
on the other hand,
has the common

decency to not show
up and damage the party.
Stars (the other kind)
show up uninvited

in the tabloids as
often as they can.

UNDECIDED

Crimes left undone,
like the blouse
of a woman you
hope to meet someday,

fester underground
where the worms are.
This is, of course,
not the first the

first time you've
declined our invitation
to drown in our pool.
You stand in the doorway,

trying to decide between
entry and defeat.

ESSENCE

Angels at play
like to lie down
in the snow and
create themselves

out of nothing.
They name themselves
after famous angels
of the past (Michael,

Gabriel, Satan) and
take turns pretending
there's a God. When
they've had enough,

they dress up in their
essence and disappear.

INFORMATION

People have become
so hungry for
information they
will believe anything

as long as it's
being said by
someone else. My
sister disappeared

when someone on
the news said she
was missing. She
returned a few

days later with a
feather in her mouth.

BIRTHDAY

The right to have
your cake and eat
it too is not
inalienable. It's

left over from
yesterday's birthday
party. Age is an
inalienable right

and insists on
being heard in
the ear and felt
in the bones. It

doesn't go away
when the guests do.

ACCIDENTS

Accidents are said
to happen because
they can. Planned
accidents (so-called)

occur in certain
types of art and
are intended to
simulate the way

we don't really
have the faintest
idea where we're
going until it's

too late to do
anything except die.

AT NIGHT

A stroke of genius
produces strokes
in the wealthy,
releasing greed

into the common
good. This tends
to happen at night
while the world

sleeps and nervous
paramedics struggle
to undo the damage.
The greed in the

common good tries
to multiply, but can't.

NEO-ONTOLOGY

A being which can be
conceived not to exist
is not God. A tree
that can be conceived

to not exist is not a
tree. Neither is it a
god. A being that
goes by the pseudonym

"God" is not God, even
though its namesake may be.
A tree that climbs itself
may or may not be God,

who is, by the way,
either not God or not good.

DUSK

I'm here on the
porch making
difference out of
the same thing

as yesterday. I
use an unusual
set of knitting
needles to unravel

as much as I can
before sundown.
After sundown
everything gets

darker. I insert
myself into evening.

PROSLOGIUM

Occasionally a prophet
or saint will become
weightless here on
earth and ascend

into heaven. It
doesn't happen often,
and it is never witnessed
by anyone. It happens

only because some
people believe it does
and believe that what
they believe has to

be true because they're
convinced that it is.

MY TALL FRIEND

Being tall can have
its disadvantages.
A tall friend of
mine suffers from

what his doctor
calls "autoacrophobia".
Whenever this friend
closes his eyes,

he sees a parachute
fail to open inside
him. He has tried
suicide several times,

but always ends up
plunging back into life.

FRIENDS

Wanting to want you,
which should be
enough, turns out
to be too much.

We part friends.
I play the part of
one friend, you
the other. We

take our show on
the road and begin
to bask in the warm
glow of our unintended

fame. I take your
bow. You take mine.

HOLE

A hole consisting
of pure disappearance
had appeared overnight
in place of a place.

Matter mattered less
in this hole than
it had in the place
the hole replaced.

Someone who claimed
to know what to do
about this (a priest,
by all accounts)

dropped famous last
words into the hole.

AUBADE

I was trying to
look at the sun
through the words
you had used to

describe it (without
blinding myself,
of course) when it
occurred to me that

the light the sun
lets go of in
the morning has
to fight its way

through space to
get to me on time.

CURIOUS

I was raised on
a curious blend
of blind faith and
healthy skepticism.

I tend to see
all six sides
of any argument.
It makes me wonder

what all the fuss
is about. I know
what it's about,
of course, but I

can't stop dreaming
in time to wake the others.

SOMBRA

It's not your shadow,
but the shadow
your shadow casts,
that hides your

face from me.
I have to close
my eyes to see
you, to be as

dark as you are now.
I have to recite
your name backwards
slowly to know who

it is I'm calling
from so much distance.

LIKE THIS

I hear the years
adding up in
the next room
and close the door.

Counting my
blessings slowly
to prevent erosion,
I leave the best

for last without
knowing what
when is or why.
Things can't go

on like this because
they do and will.

RECENT DEITIES

Recent deities have
no clue, assigning
blame where none
exists, promoting

piety over symbolic
gestures in the
direction of imaginary
goals. Some gods

have eyes that
look like pebbles
after an afternoon
rain. Others have

ingrown vacuums angels
won't go near.

INEXACT CHANGE

One if by land,
two if the universe
is flat. Been there,
done that, but

still believe in
miracles that
miss the point.
Weight gains itself

(and the whole
world), but loses
its immortal
soul to mortality.

Don't go there unless
you have inexact change.

VICTORY

A spaceship
circles the earth
dropping bombs
on us that will never

arrive because of
gravity's reluctance to
stray too far from the
planet. The bombs

float in space
behind the spaceship.
Even so, the enemy
feels he has

made his point
and declares victory.

THE PAINTER
for Asad

The painter falls
into a trap
abstraction has
set for him

and finds himself
painting the figure
again. Then he
gets lost in an

abstract labyrinth
the figure keeps
hidden within itself.
The painter gives

up (again) and paints
with his eyes closed.

SOCKETS

Music and morphine
hid the truth
behind sixty-two
years of hardship.

Faith was a shining
example of distance,
shooing away
what only wanted

to welcome him.
He died of being
ready when the
time came. We

extracted pennies
from his eye sockets.

IDEOLOGY

My cat is so
busy being a cat
she sometimes forgets
what ideology is.

Soldiers cast bodies
instead of shadows
in the reflex action
we call "war". Chutes

fail to open inside
them. Pilots land
their planes in a
memory we have

of their nonstop
bombing raids.

Happy Birthday, Asad!

OPUS
for Asad

A god with sad
eyes and the body
of a bridesmaid
assembles itself

out of bits of
paper gathered
in slums and
pasted together

to make some
sort of recognizably
artistic statement.
The resulting "work"

elicits consistent
kudos from the critics.

LIGHT

A word like "light"
sounds brighter
than it is, and
clearer. You feel

like you can see
through it the way
the mirror sees
through you to

the other side
of you, where you
didn't realize you
were until it

was too late
to stop.

SHE

Because her tears
rimed perfectly with
her fears, I invited
her inside. She fell

into a dread of
depths, hoping it
would eliminate
her fear of

heights the way
one x cancels
out another
x in some

cockeyed equation.
It didn't.

HERO

The hero carries his
death with him in
his pocket. He
takes it out

every so often
to make sure it's
still intact. He
inspects it, puts

it back in his
pocket, then jumps
off a tall building
to see if he can

fly. He can't, even
though he's a hero.

BRIEFLY

Something I caught
you thinking yesterday
was mine, so I
took it. You may

want to replace
it with a
wish or a whim
(or an overnight

journey if you've
got one). The
thought was mine.
That's all

I have to
say about that.

FIFTEEN

Regarding the seven
deadly sins and the
corresponding number
of cardinal virtues,

I've always felt there
should be more. Same
applies to the measly
five senses. I would

have opted for fifteen.
I think there should
be at least fifteen
of anything there's

required to be
more than one of.

SO THERE

I tried to get there. But there was no "there" there when I got there. There was only a "here".

HEADLINES

The headlines don't
bother complaining
about a bird that
gets lost on its

way to winter.
They shout instead
about a politician
who trips over his

own ego in the
men's room and
is arrested with
egg on his face.

There is a photo
of the egg.

INVITATION

I remember knocking
at your body hoping
to be invited in. But
it was one of those

dreams in which
things only almost
happen. The failure
to actually occur

is disguised (in
these dreams) as
an invitation to
the nonevent of

your choosing. You
accept the invitation.

NO OPINION

I've heard it said
that death is a
small price to
pay for having

lived. I've also
heard it said that
life is much too
high a price for

not being dead.
I'm no expert
when it comes
to prices, so I

have no opinion
one way or the other.

ISOLATED

From an unlikely alliance
between stain and regret
a cinema of seeming
longer than necessary

collides with the
known world. Taste
wastes itself again
on largely irrelevant

forays into anticipated
surprise. Once a
mouth a word slips
out into the chilly

afterlife of isolated
attempts at art.

NEW WORLD

Some seem to feel we've gone as far as we can with language poetry. Personally, I think we're already gone farther than we can. The earth is in danger of becoming flat again.

THE DAY AFTER YESTERDAY

If a wall of water
washes your house
away, or if it gets
picked up by a

kink in the
wind and carelessly
tossed aside, it's
probably too late

to apply for retroactive
insurance to cover
the loss. It's also
too late to say your

prayers or waste time
wishing it were yesterday.

NO BOMB

Who knows what
my neighbor, the
terrorist, dreams
about. I hear

him dreaming
next door, but
never know what,
if anything, it

means. He hears
me dreaming and
builds a bomb
in his basement.

I have a basement,
too, but no bomb.

POETRY

A poem is made
of words and
is about words.
Not about the

words per se,
but about what
the words do and
what they talk

about when you
lock them
all up in one
room and

throw away
the key.

NIGHTFALL

A monk enters a
monstrosity due to
a spelling error
and is burned

alive for his
mistake. This
is considered just
in large sections

of the world.
These sections have
been expanding
in recent years and

are expected to reach
land by nightfall.

HIDDEN

When I look at
a thing through the
eyes of the word
that describes it

I see hidden
vowels that resist
both what they sound
like and their meanings,

if any. Consonants
go crazy when I
do this. They act
like children trying

to remember how
to look at their mothers.

SIMPLE

Lengthening leads to
increased independence.
I open my eyes at the
speed of thought, giving

rise to a radically different
approach. The day, already
blue in preparation for
sunny skies, prolongs

itself out of respect
for what endures.
I grow fonder in a
dream of what doesn't

allow itself to be
limited by simple facts.

RUNAWAY

The something there
is to be said for
this or that (it
could be either,

it could be neither)
is often hidden
inside a nutshell
no one has

bothered to crack
open. I'm speaking
in a manner of
speaking that veers

away from what it
means like a runaway train.

ENEMY

A love letter from
prison can be worse
than a black
umbrella that pops

open unexpectedly
or a narrow mountain
road that goes
on forever. Babies

that won't stop
crying are a poor
excuse for believing
in things that don't

exist. The enemy
you requested is here.

A DOOR

It's nice of a
poem not to
end, leaving a
door open others

will come through
later. The ear
hears it and
knows what to

do (or not do
if it's silence).
A sound comes
out of it, of

course, because
there is a door.

NOW

Death is a hole
man falls into
on his way to the
finite. There was a

time, of course, when
time held its breath
in bated anticipation
of some purely

hypothetical second
chance. But that was
then. This is now,
a stone no angel can

roll back in memory
of what's in store.

AGO

Nobody got too
excited in past
centuries when the
power went out.

Someone lit
another candle so
that life could
go on. Father

read from the
Bible and gently
reminded the children
of their duty to

be perfect. Then he
sold them at auction.

FABLE

Time sets its own
pace, but the young
try to speed it up
by wanting everything

at once, and the old
try to slow it down by
having seen every
movie at least twice.

A tortoise is faster
than a hare for the
time it takes for a
fable to finish, but

falls behind again
in the next telling.

NEVER

Moving at the speed
the average flower
blooms at, I reach
the middle of

nowhere. Well,
actually, it's not
the middle. More
like the outermost

edge of nowhere.
As I make my
way toward the
center (still at

flower speed), I decide
never to get there.

BLIND SPOT

My mind tells me
I am and says
it can prove it.
But who tells my

mind it is (do
I?)? I have half
a mind to stop
talking to myself

like this and half
a mind to keep
doing it. A
stone I'm staring

at has no opinion
one way or the other.

SPECIAL

The only socially
responsible thing for
a king or queen to
do is abdicate

and apologize for
having made an ass
of him or herself
by pretending to

be special. We
are all "special",
of course, but not
in the way kings

and queens have feigned
being for so many centuries.

THE ORIGIN OF UNCERTAINTY

A tree can't climb
out of itself and
crawl away disguised
as a picnic table.

The reason it can't
do this is a secret
the universe keeps
in a place so far

away it will never
be reached in time
for us to find out
why we're here or

where we're likely
to end up.

DIRECTION

A house has constructed
itself out of absence,
beam by missing beam.
The dying enter this

house in pursuit
of a subtle dislocation
into memory. We
lean away from this

awful fact in the
general direction
of a mirror that
seems to know both us

and the memory we're
scheduled to become.

MIDNIGHT

After countless hours
of snow, midnight
leaps from the window.
Footprints it punctuates

white with are all
we have to go on.
But we have to
go on anyway

because life does.
That's the way things
are around here.
Hands pointed

up toward heaven
tremble in disbelief.

NEW MACHINERY

A sun that only
rises is rumored to
be near completion.
I was reportedly

designed by the same
engineer who gave us
the now-defunct
eternal-life gadget.

A design flaw in
the eternal-life
gadget caused it
to deliver slices

of life so thin
everyone could see you.

Alexander Pope

I love a word that rimes with what it means.

TWO

Is man the least
likely metaphor for
whatever's about to
happen? Those who

don't know any
better tend to
think so while
those who couldn't

care less are
reluctant to venture
an opinion. I
am of two minds:

one for the time being,
one for dreaming.

SOME WORDS

Some words are
in love with the
way they sound.
These words are

famous for shouting
out their names
at funerals and for
wrapping themselves

in echoes that
don't know how
to stop or fade
away gracefully.

These words are
poisonous if swallowed.

FAKE DAYLIGHT

If I'd known
then what you
seem so sure
of now, a thousand

surprises might
have burst out
of hiding into
the fake daylight

of this poem. Giants
shrink to average
size when you shine
the right kind of

of light on what
imagination makes them.

THE ORDINARY

The ordinary comes
in two varieties,
the rough and the
smooth. Both

exhibit a surprising
brilliance when rubbed
the wrong way. The
distance from the

western edge of
the ordinary to the
eastern edge can
only be measured

in units of indifference.
The reason is extraordinary.

THE WORD

I guess there may
have been a word
in the beginning,
one that spoke

volumes. Stones
knew what they
didn't know then,
and a calm voice

spoke calmly about
the nothing that
happens in the
silence of the word.

The word was good,
I guess, though reticent.

GOODBYE

Long after she
is out of sight,
my hand is
waving goodbye.

The umbrella I
opened above
her has given
up trying to close.

I often dream about
dreaming about
her, but change
my mind when

she dies. A daydream
closes its window.

POWERLESS

The state's in a
state of upheaval,
and no one can
state clearly enough

what the most effective
options might be.
On a sunny day
everything stays the

same, but on a
cloudy day kinks
in the wind claim
to know better.

A mime is trying to
explain this in the dark.

TWIDDLING

Pleasure is its
own reward
while virtue
sits in the corner

twiddling its thumbs.
We are, therefore
we think we should
be allowed to

do as much as
possible before
the light goes
out. The something

that must be done
about this can wait.

DELAYED

Because light gets
delayed, dawn postpones
what it had been
planning to reveal.

Trees stand on
tiptoe in anticipation
of something unusual.
They begin to

sense pleasure in
their branches, but
don't know what
it means. Unlike

man, they don't
mind not knowing.

CATHARSIS

Kathy fights her way
through layers of smudge
to fall in love with
Heathcliff, who responds

by filling his arms
with her. Later, when
Kathy falls ill, Heathcliff
hoists her up and

lugs her out onto
the balcony so she
can have one last
look at the heather.

Then she dies so
we can feel depressed.

LONG ENOUGH

The dead are famous
for the darkness they
store in their memories.
It keeps the light

out and allows them
to sleep without pause.
Some cry out
when they realize

they aren't thinking
anything. But
the majority don't,
for a reason that

becomes clear to those
who wait long enough.

TEMPORARY

I can sometimes
hear the sound
your absence makes
in the early morning.

A silence night has
whittled from a
piece of quiet
allows this to

be true temporarily.
As other sounds
begin to accumulate,
your absence resumes

its customary place
outside the window.

ROPE

If you keep ending
up at the end of
the same rope,
you may want to

consider trading
places with the
person next to you
(the one on the right

if you're right-handed,
the one on the left
if you're left-handed,
the one in the

middle if you're too
stubborn to change).

DOORNAIL

To get to a place
in time for your
arrival, it's a good
idea to leave early.

To receive what's
on its way to you,
stand still. Hum
if you have to,

but don't sing.
Singing distracts
the angels and
makes them late

for the announcement:
A doornail has died.

STALKER

On the outside
chance you may
be in love with
me, I follow

you home to
find out where
you live. I write
down the address

so I won't forget it
(or so I'll have a
record of it when
I do forget it).

Okay, so I have a
tendency to forget things.

UNEXCEPTIONAL

I try to emulate
the furniture's return,
but slip back into
an unfinished dream

about blue honey
and the time it
takes to get from
here to now. The

subject changes
its mind at the last
second, allowing
things accidental

to become the rule,
rather than the exception.

FINAL ADVICE

In the unlikely event
that this latest
prediction of the world's
end proves to be accurate,

don't move. Stand
perfectly still and
await what will
happen with or

without your consent.
This is the last bit
of advice I will be
giving you should

what we both know
won't happen happen.

ONCE

I once made a
sentence last ten
years by constantly
changing what it

meant and translating
it into languages
no one bothered
to speak anymore.

That's one way to
squeeze an extra
decade out of time.
I once had a

window that winked
when I asked it to.

STATIONARY

A mime that can't
move is speechless,
though words with
missing vowels hover

over his head. The fact
of matter seems so
matter-of-fact that
no one bothers

to believe anything
to the contrary.
A blind man shrugs
at the sight of

something not quite
dark enough to be seen.

MEDALS

Something for which
there is no excuse
waits in the next
room. The order

to go into battle
is given, but is
never communicated
to the troops, who

wait impatiently
for the opportunity
to be dead like
so many brave

soldiers before them.
Medals glisten underground.

INTROSPECTION

Having stumbled upon
a new way of meaning
less than necessary,
I fill the page with

half-word that
squawk. Paint that
dries faster than I am
is no longer beside

the point. The point
itself is beside an
increasing number of
other points that clearly

don't give a damn.
I think because I am.

SURPRISING

The right kind of
you arrives just in
time to set my
mind at ease.

We hold hands,
hoping our luck
will hold. It does.
We do again what

we have never done
before. Something
surprisingly new
raises its pretty

head and lets
us love.

CARELESSLY UNCLEVER

A standard defense of language poetry states that, although it appears arbitrary, it actually involves very careful and clever planning. But planning for which the ear can find no evidence seems far from careful, farther still from clever.

ROSE

Most things that
are have names.
Those that are
but don't wait

the way mysteries
do outside what
we know to call
them. It's cold

out there, I
imagine, and
far away from
what it's almost

next to: a rose
by any name.

NOT ILLEGAL

A lot of things are
funny the first
time they happen.
A lot of things aren't.

Death, for example, is
no laughing matter,
unless it's the death
of someone you hated

more than you should
have. Hating a man
so much that you
want him dead

is unhealthy. But
it's not illegal.

SIMPLE

Simple Simon
(not the pie man,
but this guy who
lives in our

neighborhood and
is as simple as he
is Simon) says
someday should

occur more frequently.
He's not wrong.
But he's not right.
He's something

between wrong and
right we call "simple".

WEATHER REPORT

I will do as the
season demands and
stay inside myself
another day or

two. My shadow
at noon looks
like an undecided
groundhog. I reap

what I've sown
and drag it
into the barn
to feed the animals.

Rain today, tapering
off tomorrow.

BRRRR
for Ron Padgett

In the end we are
content to lie in a
ditch someone else
has dug for us

(thank you, someone
else--it was nice
of you, I think,
or at least hope).

We can't figure out
anymore how not
to be content. If
we could, we might

not be so happy in
this ditch, which is cold.

OBJECT LESSON

Objects pass in
and out of existence
as we look and
don't look at them.

It was one of
those creaky old
philosophers who
insisted that objects

stay where they are
because God is always
staring at them.
But that was before

God stopped
looking at the world.

ELASTIC

An awkward middle
(more edge than
center) seeks out
love in order to

fold the possible
in half. An
elastic theology
lets God expand

and contract at will
(his) while preventing
anything else from
happening on time.

A misplaced verb accidentally
blurs the meaning of life.

EXIT

It's hard not to
feel lonely with the
graveyards filling
up around us.

The trick is to
focus on those
who haven't figured
out yet how to

die. Everyone figures
it out in the end,
of course. That's
why they call it

"the end". Exit
to the left.

LEAKY

In a world I visit
only in dreams two
people standing too
close to each other

become one and go
about what is now
nobody's business
but theirs. They

promptly begin dividing
and multiplying at
a rate not even the
finest accountants can

account for in their
leaky ledgers.

OVERACTIVE

No one likes to
think of a dead
angel floating
face-down in the

tub. But there
always is one,
even if only
in someone's

overactive imagination.
They said I had an
overactive imagination
when I was a child.

A different 'they'
insists I still do.

MIME

A mime's words
are so thoroughly
minced not a single
sound can escape.

Empty echoes
slip from his
fingertips, pressed
tightly against a

glass that isn't
there. At one
point he all but
swallows himself

in one last vain attempt
to parse the silence.

FOR SAID

This poem for you
shows a way I found
to be at peace
with going upstairs.

Maybe someday I will
grow into who I was
before you knew me,
standing in the doorway

with a better question
in my mouth. If I ever
forget to be with you,
remind me to bring

along a newer way
of knowing when to go on.

IN MOTION

I watch bubbles
explode on the surface
of the lake and
realize my poor

dead brother's trying
to breathe again.
I beg him to stop,
but the dream moves

on past windows
that wink and
oddities that refuse
to shrink when

placed outside to die.
No one knows anything.

STUMBLE

Despite plans to the
contrary, the average
person stumbles into
his or her death

as into any number
of similar mistakes.
Nor does there seem
to be another way

to get there short
of stumbling. The
grave is always
open. We have

only to forget
ourselves and fall in.

MESSIAH

Christ was a Jew
who converted to
Christianity at a
crucial point in

his brief life.
He was buried
under the assumption
that he would

immediately rise again.
His followers believe
he will return
one day on

a Greyhound bus
bound for glory.

THAT SHADOW

The church I liked
best as a child
was the one my
father refused to

go to. I wanted
to not attend that
church as faithfully
as my father

had. My father
believed ardently
in the unlikelihood
of the unproven.

I recently learned how
to stand in that shadow.

UNBREAKABLE

An engineer who had developed
an engine that ran on the
desire to get from here to there
was murdered in his sleep by

unidentified "corporate interests".
Those who knew the identity
of the corporate interests were
sworn to secrecy using an

unbreakable vow perfected
years earlier by a different
engineer. God, who could
have done something about

this, was busy trying to solve
the riddle of his own existence.

SLOWER

Sometimes I find
myself getting nowhere
a little too fast and
have to slow down.

Getting somewhere's not
much better. Anywhere
I am should be where
I'm happy enough

to be, but it's not
always. Someplace
else has greener
grass, or claims to.

I get back to getting
nowhere, but slower.

PHOENIX

A new and improved
version of me that
lives somewhere in
the future seems

unlikely. Life
digresses at its
own pace and
ends up at some

destination no one
had bothered to think
of. A bird rising out
of its own ashes

makes believe it's
real and flies away.

THE CLOUDS

The clouds go by,
dragging the years
behind them. There's
so much I had wanted

to tell you, but
the clouds wouldn't
let me. They went
by, and when I

asked them to
slow down, they
sped up instead.
There's so much I

had wanted to be with
you with, but the clouds.

CROOKED

A "no vacancy" sign
outside our local
cemetery leads me
to believe the future's

almost here. It was
as bound to happen,
I guess, as anything
is that hasn't

happened yet. We
try to get ready
in time, but there's
not enough room in

front of the mirror we
share. My tie's on crooked.

STONES

Stones trying hard
not to serve as
monuments to anything
seem lost in some

kind of unidentified
shuffle. They pose
for photos when
the tourists gather,

but later sleep
happily under a
blanket the night
throws over them.

One of them wakes up
looking like Abraham Lincoln.

PRE-MODERN

Sometimes I forget
how post-modern we
are and inadvertently
entertain a thought

that almost makes sense.
I immediately erase it,
of course, lest I
find myself accused

of being only modern
or (God forbid!) pre-modern.
Then I promise myself
not to do it again,

using an old promise I
know I'll have to break.

IMAGINED

Occasionally a tornado
will build a house out
of pieces it has torn
from other houses

in this and neighboring
neighborhoods. This
doesn't happen often,
of course, but it does

happen because it's
theoretically possible
and fits comfortably
inside the imagination

of anyone who has
ever bothered to imagine.

HOLY WATER

A thing that looked
like the end of the
world (it glowed
in the center of

what was probably
darkness) wasn't.
It was something
someone had carved

out of a misunderstanding.
A promise of eternal
life popped when I
touched it with a

finger I had dipped
in holy water.

ELMER

A house that got
accidentally blown
together in a lumberyard
explosion was described

as a miracle by
our village priest
and as a coincidence
by our village doctor.

No one knows for
sure, of course, but
everyone except Elmer
is afraid to live

in the house. Elmer
is our village idiot.

SLOP BUCKETS

I used to watch my
grandfather carry
what he described
as "slop buckets"

to the pig pen to
feed the pigs (who
would later return
the favor by feeding

him). He hated the
pigs (except as food)
and wasn't shy about
saying so in his mixture

of Missouri English and
half-digested German.

THAT TIME

There may come a
day I'll wonder why
I didn't wake up and
ask myself again what

death looks like. I
may or may not feel
around for the light
switch. I may decide

I'm dreaming, like I
was that time I thought
I heard death knocking
and opened the door

without even stopping
to hope I was wrong.

KITCHEN

A woman whose heart
is broken hangs out
in the kitchen, pretending
to care when the meat

will be ready. So much
fails to happen to her
that she wishes it were
morning again and

that she could wake
up with a heart that
hasn't yet remembered
it's broken. She could

fly away on wings she's
not supposed to have.

EMPTY

Life likes to hide
what can't happen
in a closet hardly
anyone ever opens

because everyone's
afraid of having to
look at whatever's
in there. The fact

nothing is never
occurs to anyone,
just as the thought
"empty" is utterly

unable to make it past
the sentry at the door.

(GOD)

God, whose body's
made of paper,
paint, saliva and
a smile, hints at

what he means by
winking at regular
intervals. He removes
something from his

mind and puts it
in the world, hoping
it will catch on and
become popular

like a song. When
it doesn't, he shrugs.

AUNT SUE

When life begins to
wrinkle at the edges,
surprise buries itself
in the backyard next

to the asparagus patch.
The same rain repeats
itself, reemphasizing wet.
The sun, older than

Aunt Sue, wonders why
it bothers. The
wind, forgetting which
direction to blow in,

ties itself in knots
and carries the town away.

DIFFERENCE

A woman whose heart
is about to break
refuses to answer
the phone (which

isn't ringing). She
rescues what little
she can from a
nightmare she can't

stop riding. Inside
her solitude she
sees a stranger
whose pleasure is

showing and listens
for the sound of difference.

DUSK

Death, left for
dead by the
living, feels
awkward when

it finally arrives.
It's reluctant to
make eye contact
for a reason only

August understands.
Some say it deliberately
faces in the wrong
direction, counting to a

hundred with numbers
that refuse to exist.

EARLIER TIMES

Today only the sound a feline makes qualifies as a cat's meow. But in earlier times a really popular performer (male or female) could be the cat's meow, unless he or she was too busy being the bees' knees or twenty-three skidoo.

LOVELY

All things fall,
get built again,
and those that
build (born

dying) replaced
by what replaces
them. Every
incidental crack

is where a crack
can be. Lovely
things, too quickly
gone, make way

for things as lovely
as the dawn.

AUBADE

Morning arrives so
nonchalantly I think
it must have known.
A question whose answer

is inertia interrupts
itself again. Silence
continues exiting through
a wormhole in our wood.

Nonsense discovers what
couldn't have been gleaned
by any other means.
Something that makes

the mandatory illusory
lulls the jasmine to sleep.

SECOND

Today I dug another
hole in the backyard
and asked myself
what I'm waiting for.

I didn't answer myself
for fear of finding
out what I don't
want to know. Things

that can't go on like
this do without a
second thought. And
that's what I do

too for a reason that
seems to know me.

DEEPENING SHADES

Here we are, still
dreaming the possible,
dragging our imminent
corpses behind us.

A tree (like an
upside down finger)
thrusts itself upward
in awkward protest.

A blind man's song
elopes with the past
(riding on memory
as on a horse

that knew the way),
reaches us at last.

MAN

Man, a metaphor
for himself, made
popular by someone
whose judgment's

currently under review,
does the best he can
ten percent of the
time. The rest of

the time he sleep
walks through the
suburbs his imagination
has erected around

him and waits
for his dog to shit.

HUNCH

What seems reasonable
in retrospect is what
is cause for alarm
among the cannibals,

who munch on one
another on their way
to lunch. If I had
a hunch about

anything, it'd be
about something no
one else had bothered
to wonder about.

I'd keep it a secret, though,
that no one else could know.

AFTER LUNCH

Memory, like misery,
is negotiable only
up to a point. The
point of no return.

Turn left when the
road does if you're
really intent on arriving.
Gathering intelligence

in a land populated
by imbeciles can be
difficult. Don't
try it unless you

have gloves that won't
fit you after lunch.

BEAUTY REVISITED

A thing of beauty's
a stupid joy every
time we look at it.
Nonsense is its own

reward and knows
what it's talking
about. Spring
brings a new way

of looking at things
that's an old way.
This is not to say
anything as stupid

as the joy beauty is
each and every time.

DEEPER DOWN

Sirens screech toward
midnight. We sleep
deeper down, where
every evil's scrubbed

until it gleams.
Diving up past dawn's
watery border, we
drag a dream behind

us into daylight. It
blinks and disappears.
The world we return
to's the world we

leave to return
to the world we left.

SEASONAL

When the sea stiffens
in November, previously
incredible things hold
their collective breath.

Every inch measures
less than it did when
a much bolder sun
delighted in egging

it on. Gold, far
less electric in
December, keeps
its value closer

to its vest. Nothing
is as true as it was.

IN THE MEANTIME

When natural light
returns, displacing
this cloned light
that resembles confusion,

the sun will understand
what was meant again.
This won't happen
anytime soon and

won't come wrapped
in any of those old
newspapers the prophets
have tried to sell us.

In the meantime, be
careful not to open your eyes.

SKETCHES

Tell me everything
you know about
love and then get
the hell out of here.

The architects are
coming with their
sketches of what
matters in the end.

We don't want to
be here for whatever
the future may hold,
even less for what

it lets go of in a
last-minute fit of rage.

PANCAKES

I heard my voice
in bed beside me
and thought I was
dead, or someone

dressed as dead.
I seemed to be what
I couldn't possibly
be for a split

second and struggled
to add up to something,
if only in retrospect.
Later I had pancakes

for breakfast and wondered
what the fuss had been about.

WINDOWS


As a child she
stayed in her room
and studied a box.
When the bell rang,

she invited her mirror
to lunch. An umbrella
blossomed above her
head in wet weather.

Rose petals pretended
to bleed beneath her feet.
A telescope let her
see into the future

when she needed
to know who loved her.

NINETEEN

A nightmare rode
my sleep last night,
galloping off in
the general direction

of disarray. Arriving
there, it dismounted
and tallied up my
disappointments: a

man in love who
loves what vanishes, a
swan that disappears
into a mirror, an

ancient habit, stuck
to itself like glue.