"The Ideas We Pay For"

Most, like plots of land,
Hope chests, old hair combs,
Ceremonial beads, came free
From our parents. We keep them

Because they came free
From our parents. A few,
We're willing to pay for,
Usually too much, usually

For feeling familiar as
The ones we already own.
A rarer few we fork over
Our lives for, strange

Though they may be, alien
To our patrimony as
They are unsettling. Why?
Can strangeness ever be

A virtue to a human trying
Hard in the human way
To think exactly the one
Right, true valuable thing?

Perhaps only rebels buy
Into such notions only
Because rebellion, however home-grown,
Always needs outsiders' help.

Perhaps the species hit upon
A nice distribution of mass
Conservatism seasoned with fringes
Of radical opportunism

A million, a fifth of a million
Years ago, and so fresh notions
Are themselves deeply conserved
Strategies in our genome.

I, nothing, or at least
Nothing much, which is worse,
Don't think so. We rebel
When we do, which is rarely,

Because we are angels,
We are all on the side of angels
And angels, the best ones, the most
Beautiful, as we know, must rebel.

"All His Songs Are Stolen, Sweetheart"

The devil wrote all the good tunes
Before churchmen thought to steal them,
Not that there's so much difference
Between churchmen and the devil.

We live our lives, but by and large,
We never feel them. Lord knows this,
And his adversary as well.
Each signs numb soldiers to his side.

So what are we supposed to do?
Sing the sacred hymns? Go marching
As to war? Rebel? Fall? Be glad
That we are fallen to this world

Of battle hymns and sacred chants,
Monastic groans and gospel songs
And beer hall revels and dance halls
Thumping with desire to forget?

Tunc Pro Nunc

Driving all day,
Listening to too much
Recorded, repeated
Music, you need
A rest to catch
Your breath, adjust
Your dress, restrain
Your spinning brain.

Here's a spot.
Too late. Here's
Another, OK,
Pull over, stop.

Time was that which
You experience still,
Never what you
Thought to measure,
And your bottomless
Nostalgia for the ever
Fleeting present never
Brings you back.

Here, have some
Of this was that,
The light from the road
That reached you
As your eyes approached
Is what you think will
Happen next already
Shifting memory.

Everything is static,
Nothing ever changing
But the past, the you
That feels each then
As now for now,
Then for now again
In your hot seat
In the sun, denoting
Random observations
As sharp conversations
With yourself as if
With someone else.

The family that got out
Of their camper van
At your rest stop
And looked around
And stared at you
Have climbed back
In and gone.

Las Jeepas Strip

In winter it was almost
Empty and the emptiness
Was homey and you
Almost felt at home here.

Now it is spring and
Your jokes at the liquor
Store about tourists
Grow risky as the Jeeps

Descend for their safari,
Thousands strong, stronger
Than you will ever be, every
Last damn one of them,

Young and toothy, sunburned
Already with the joy
Of living as if the point
Of living were to deny

We could ever die,
And some will, some
Always do, and that
Is why their smiles

Remind you, solemn,
Self-righteous, reckless
Old you, bent over
Your yucca walking-stick,

Of the rictus on each
Fleshless fossil that
You teach far north
Of here, in the 'burbs

That these boys and
Girls and grown whatevers
Are fleeing in their guzzling
Jeeps that eat the landscape,

Clog the Main Street,
Fatten the tills of the shopkeepers,
And keep the name of Moab
Resonant enough for you

To boast about it to
Total strangers never been
Here, once you are far
And away from home or here.

The Purpose of Cooperating

The great pyramid of competition
Piled upon prekaryotic foundations
Grows in the starlit desert of the night,
Each successive layer adding pressure
To the fissures faulting up from below.

On top, priestly castes in conical hats
Make an interlocking web of their prayers,
Trying to raise a new point above them,
Denying and muting their warring selves,
The better to help a new game emerge
That will weigh on them in turn and crush them
Until they crack and defeat the purpose.

The Wandering Lights

What if we didn't know,
Didn't presume to know
That planets were planets,
Planes planes, satellites ours?
The sky holds only stars,
The stars are only lights,

The lights remain themselves
And us as we see them,
Different brilliances, but
Without explanations,
Without stories, without
The need to speak our names.

Wind Whistling

In our foolish calendar
It's nice to see there's a day
Specifically devoted
To the likes of clowns like me,
Fellows of infinite zest
For dreaming harlequin dreams,
Always vulnerable to pranks.

This is my high holy day.
Whatever happens today
Might turn out to be untrue,
Which is just how I like it,
Barring only one sure truth
That today you love me more,
As each day I more love you.