Faking it

of all the things we pretend
a la “fake it til you make it”
the second most dangerous is
“fine.”
...
and since you are wondering,
the most dangerous fake is “a surgeon.”








February 2020

Beneath the bridge

What lies beneath
allowing the world we know
is what was built within,
hidden against the stream
made of heavy beams we never see.
Until the anger of an afternoon
homeless in the gathering dark
drives us to this mirthless embrace,
and then we see, as we had not before
of what unyielding strength
this world is truly made.



January 2020

Why bother?

Why bother to care
if we are but passing through—
but that’s obscene; we do
of course, & sometimes that
is the only thing that lasts.

January 2020

Some days

Some days I am an animal biting myself.
Some days I am the memory of an unwanted gift.
Some days I am the blemish on a gilded picture frame.

Some days I do not fit
into the spaces meant for me; not
even on the highways built for strangers;
not even as a gentle friend.

Some days I am misplaced.
Some days I am my own dark imagination of myself.
Some days I am a thousand mild annoyances.

There will be better days
There will be worse days
These days are only middling
But when the universe has tilted
Listing to one side, still—

Some days I am the sidewalk underfoot
students bickering sourly about their love,
rotting & spoiled: no longer a comfort
but a threat, a catch in the throat, a snarl.

Some days I am all mast and no hull.

Some days I must remind myself
I have a right to be here.

January 2020

Troubles

What troubles us
who have too much?
For those with nothing
only dream of having
more—a little or a lot.
But what do we dream of,
whose lives are the stuff
of others’ dreams?
Behind our kids and schools,
our friends and marriages,
after work, after full meals,
in every thread & fabric
of our interknit community
we whisper in the dark
of an unknown malaise.
Why aren’t we happier?
You knew us well, Viktor,
to see our need for meaning—
and what is that, but love
for one another? Love
(without which we are a
clanging Nothing)—but
like everything else,
we have too much.
So then we dream,
subconscious & opposite:
of having less.

January 2020

The only one

Eventually
I realized I was the only one
who can allow me to laugh
or feel alone.

January 2020

Concrete trees

Concrete trees grow
rocky roots in the soil
and never die
but also never live.

January 2020

The highest point

You will come to a place in the road
where you can see nothing higher
no hill above you, ahead or behind
stretching off to each horizon:
the highest point this road can offer.
And it will not be your goal: you must
keep moving; not always higher up,
but always further on. Upwards is
a mystery, a majesty, a glory—but it ends.
Its limit is constrained by the Earth.
So then: you must carry on, ever on,
for you will never find a road
with no horizons.

January 2020

Explaining

my chief complaint
is that I must explain
slowly, overcoming slips of mind
recalling every detail, in order
and using clumsy words
interrupted, imperfect
to express delight
or love, or frustration—
is that I cannot touch you
and see your eyes glow
with realization, recollection.
and then I wonder
why I would expect such perfection
which surely this world has never known
like a memory
of some better place,
some more perfect time.

January 2020

Silent meanings

Say our words could speak
with no one listening
(not even us)—
confess our grave
mistakes, and how we grieve
the wide plains of hope and promise
left desolate behind
in pursuit of clever things:
caution, cynicism, cowardice, even
greasy opportunism—hope’s dark cousin
...well.
If words thus spoke
they certainly would harm, and harm,
and harm, and
so we leave them
unsaid, locked
within our unsilent hearts.

January 2020

Feigned unbelief

I do believe
but also pretend
because unbelief is so fashionable
so here is something full
feigning to be empty
since poverty is what they all expect
and I, rich coward, long to just fit in
even into imagined
expectations

January 2020

the flames at sunrise

he sets the trees aflame and rushes past
to follow sirens wailing on his long periphery—
but she will sit to watch the fires burn
for days or lives, perhaps
awaiting his return, or maybe
in silence just
to skip a dangerous light across her eyes.
who can tell? we who cannot even comfort
those who mourn: no, grief is stubborn, hot
like the tail of a burning pine.
pebbles dance upon the water
in early afternoon, and children never think
of longing, and grief, and
the burning trees upon their far horizons.

January 2020

when they kill

when they kill us without killing
and we die without dying
leaving only the undead (motion without movement,
paper in the wind) remains;
well, afterward
blameless they will blame us,
having never killed;
and innocent convict us,
we who never died,
of daring, as we did, to live again.
for when Life relieves us of herself
she drains her sweet dregs down
into the compact dawn of new life,
the virgin morning of next year
and a sunrise with no past.

January 2020