poem

 Tuesday Morning

Tuesday morning. Driving my daughter to school. Passing the house with the grim reaper mailbox. We stop at Dunkin Donuts. But she doesn’t like chocolate frosted doughnuts with sprinkles anymore. A plain glazed is fine, like she’s some anonymous middle management drone now. She stares at her phone. Hasn’t even taken a bite yet of her donut. What about the math test, I ask, do you want to review a few things before we arrive? No dad, I’m good. But you said you were worried about it, honey. Our eyes catch in the rear view mirror.  Dad! 

Rather than turning up the music to its previous volume I try again to tell her about the algebra of all bodies, how each of us has some corresponding variable expression that can be plotted on a multidimensional coordinate plane along with dozens of partial differential equations that account for the change that accrues over time. That this equation cannot be solved is beside the point. It is enough to know that very smart people have been working on it for many years and will not stop because it will prove that we are, if not here, then at least somewhere, at one time, for a very short while, in a definite position within an open-ended universe drifting in infinity. To be able to prove this mathematically would actually be very nice. Because math is true. The Hodge Conjecture and Riemann Hypothesis ought to be immediately deprioritized, or at least I would hope so. I see in the rearview mirror that her AirPods are back in her ears and her finger is jack-hammering the volume button like she’s caught in some sort of cruel rat experiment. In any event, it’s only Tuesday. The weekend is a long way off but everything that follows can be graphed. High school graduation. Then college in another state. First apartment. First promotion. Her inevitable marriage to a man who connects with me more than his own father. I only say that because that’s what he tells me. The birth of her first child. Her second. The driftless time after her mother dies. The growing older and lesser. The disillusionment. A half assed acceptance. Even my own death can be plotted with respect to x.    

10/3/24

poem

Blurred 

Moon obscured behind

A fogged shower curtain

Of clouds, blurred into the dull blue tile 

I like to watch you 

When you think you’re all alone  

Unperformative natural you

Lissome whisper of spectral illusion

Tending to your morning ablutions

In the hot exhalation of falling water 

Even the smudged edges

Of your margins exude a force

To tug the oceans

9/30/24

poem

 St Elsewhere

The patients admitted here are all extremely healthy. They come here, of their own accord, because they know something is wrong. This is a specialty hospital that caters to their very specific needs. Crisp white sheets, giant rooms for one, perfect views of ponds and forest, the sense of vigilant somnolence, the sound of lullabye and frankincense gong. None of the needles hurt. The highlight of the day is always the morning and evening rounds when the splendid young doctors go from room to room with their entourages of nurses and assistants, barking out questions, shouting out orders. Every day the patients are interrogated. How are you feeling? Any new pains? Did you eat? And what about your bowels? Was it a good hard stream? Then they are thoroughly examined head to toe— auscultation, percussion, reflex hammers, bimanual.  Sometimes additional testing is warranted.  CT scans, ultrasound, MRI.  This is always a nerve wracking time, waiting for the results. If something turns up they have to immediately leave. Transferred to a regular hospital with standard-issue doctors and silicone nurses. The sooner our doctors find the diagnosis the more they get paid. The longer it takes, the happier the patients get. Some have been there so long they don’t die. There is one doctor no one wants to see.  He comes from address unknown. He is the one who never lies. Old school crotchety, gruff bedside manner.  He has no patience for new fangled medical technologies. Doesn’t trust modern imaging. His only tool is a finely honed clinical acumen. For him, your body lights up in an alternating strobe of ancient inarticulable script. He figures out the mystery after just one visit.  He never speaks aloud, only leans over and whispers his findings into the patient's ear, who receives the news with a mixture of gratitude and fear. The eyes of the damned. The hands of the loved  

9/17/24

poem

Early Cenozoic Art

Whispering hoarsely to his beloved:

Listen to this collection of noises

I made just for you 

Sums up the generative force

For the birth of the first love song 

The first portrait was based on a mistake

Instead of being blessed to see his beloved

In all things he ever saw, he rued her ceaseless mutability

And plotted to capture on a canvas ruined by color

The only way she would ever appear again.

The first love poem preceded 

The development of language

Words cleaved of meaning

An alphabet of soundless 

Glyphs that must be pronounced

But only with your tongue, your lips 

9/15/24

poem

 The Three Contexts

The three contexts of love—

lonely 

happy

wordless

I'm grateful to see you here

But you shouldn’t have come.

I'm so very sorry. My apologies.

But now is the time to bask

In the throes of missing

every single thing about you.

Earlier today I was thinking

About that time by the falls

And the sound of your laughter

Unleashed from its loosely 

fashioned knots,

an effortless dance that demands 

its own music 

Just now I remembered love

Is best experienced as all three

contexts at once

So I guess that means I’m lucky 

To find you here

In the stone citadel I’d long assumed

No one else was supposed 

to be able to find

9/15/24

poem

 Unintentional Comedy

Most funny people know very well how funny they really are. Laughter is the necessary dopamine jolt they gerrymander monologues into resembling. They barely have to work for it; in fact, the effortlessness is the very oxygen that makes it possible. For life to remain endurable, laughter is essential. The best comedians take their calling very seriously. They are always the first ones to laugh. Fight or flight is one instinct. Laugh or die is the other. There are also some funny people who don’t realize they are funny. Not that they are “laughed at”, out of malice for some unearned physical or psychological malady. They are actually "funny", in the witty, sophisticated urbane sense. You could put them on stage, extemporaneously, and before too long the entire audience would be chair writhing in raucous pleasure, tears in the eyes, in the eyes. These unintentional comedians have no idea what everybody is laughing at. But they do recognize laughter as a common social cue for expressing approval and admiration---- always a useful currency to bank for later. So they keep up the schtick, the way the peacock will instinctually splay its brilliant coral reef feathers because, hey, it always seemed to work for my ancestors. Good for the lineage. Broken hearted introverts weeping at the loss of the disinterested lover who is simply satisfied to know he is desirable. Nothing these comedic geniuses say strikes them as particularly funny or even amusing. Stories about canceled trips to the candy cane garden or rambling journeys beyond the realm of unnecessary distinction all seem so trivial and mundane. Always on the verge of apologizing for wasting their time, which just makes them laugh even harder. His comedy is merely logical. It is a biological necessity. On the inside he feels a great sadness. In fact he is crying. On the outside it’s all deadpan. He’s the only one in the room not laughing.

9/15/24

poem

 Anselm

According to the Copenhagen interpretation

Nothing exists except in a mind

That is paying attention

A wave function collapses

And suddenly it’s Sunday 

Morning and the smell of coffee

And the dawn chorus just outside

In the trees gathered like supplicants

On the edge of the frosted lawn. 

Close your eyes, disengage

And it’s a Holocaust

Of universes forever lost.

Continuity demands a witness

That stays up all night

Writing down every actualized possibility 

That emerges from the quantum cloud of probability.

Only God could make this possible,

This random life on a warm stone

Spinning pointlessly around 

And around, in the dark, toward nothing. 

And that’s the proof— ask Him yourself.

This one doesn’t want prayers 

Just pay attention.

9/12/24

poem

 Self-Own

I was having one of those days

Feeling really down and depressed

So I went online and wrote reviews

On Yelp, Google and Angie’s List

So that everyone would know 

About my miserable experience:

“One out of five stars

Worst two hours of my life.

Why does it feel like I’m not alone

In here, two shades of the same thing

Like darkness and midday light 

Fighting over what’s left of the moon.

I didn’t sign up to be the performer 

On stage in front of an audience of ghosts 

Caught in the circling vortex

Where I’ll never remember my lines

No matter how much I study,.

And the doors remain locked

So no one can ever get up and leave.”

The comments section was even more bleak:

Tried it once, won’t go back

I called the county health department the minute I got in my car

If existential dread was a felony this poor man would be facing life without parole

Although the food was good the mood was funereal

What is this? What the hell?

Made us eat in the back alley in the rain

He obviously needs help. I gave him the number to a therapist I was seeing

Honestly it was embarrassing;

51 years old and thinking I’m the one

Whose job it is to monitor the person

Out there impersonating the actor

Hired to bring this hackneyed script to life.

Buzzing my own self out like that 

For no good reason on such a fine summer evening.

I was mortified, being stuck inside his head,

Both for him and for how I would feel

The next day, musing on alienating moments

While looking at his face in the mirror.

I wouldn’t recommend his services to anyone.

Caveat emptor!

I wish I could say I’ll never return again

But I know I will.

He was at least hospitable and didn’t make excuses.

He recognized right away the truth:

It isn’t “social anxiety” or “supply chain issues”,

He just isn’t very comfortable with himself 

Even when no one else is there

Watching 

The only good part was learning

Something true about myself.

Well it’s a start, I suppose. 

The first step is summoning the courage to look.

For that I’ll probably give him another chance 

9/8/24

poem

 The Hard Part

Do the hard part first

Eat all the crust 

And save the middle for last

Waste your best lines

On dullard audiences 

Who aren’t even listening 

Show up late for the ship

That would take you

To the places you were promised 

Break your back

Pushing the heavy stone 

Halfway up the hill

Forget your name

Abandon the solace of home

Return to the wilderness

Then settle down 

With the love of your life

And savor the last bite

9/7/24

poem

 Hello, Judas

Who would you have to see to know

For sure you were actually in heaven

And not some Potemkin village trick

Manufactured by a mendacious devil?

All the haloed angels and cherubs

Might be hired gun crisis actors

Even St Peter himself could be a fraudulent

Reptilian skinned demon beneath the toga. 

For some people, seeing a deceased Nana 

Or a still born son would clinch the deal

But not me. Even Christ

Himself could make an appearance

And I’d have my doubts

But if I saw Judas Iscariot

Minding his own business

Doing whatever it is Judas 

Would do in heaven

I’d let out a sigh of relief.

Everyone in heaven would know 

It was Judas except for Judas

I’d walk up to him and say Hello, Judas

At the same time he was saying it to me 

9/2/24