This Was

Quick as you can say it,
It's already true:
This was, this was, this was.

The presence of the past
Is all the present is.
We are after the fact.

After the fact, we are
Like infants in car seats
Peering at scenery,

A perpetual blur
Before us, while we're spun
Backwards into the dark.

Words

They don't exist as we know
Them to exist in our minds,
On our rocks, tablets, paper,
Or glowing screens, each alone,
A certain sound, some symbols
Tightly clustered and distinct.
They're shaped patterns we abstract

From continuous buzzing,
From the mumbling of nature,
The daydreams of deities,
The stone-crammed mouths of the muse.
They're everything about us
That gives us fits and spasms
Of genius. They don't exist.

The Night Watch of Orion

No, it is not one, not any
Of the many patterns
(Hunter, Spider) we've named
It, not a nameable, not an it

At all, but legion, an infinity
Of immeasurable distinctions
Infinitesimally approximated
And atomized by calculus.

It's a myth not even one myth,
A collection, not even
The same avec meme, a name
Among names, meaning

Whatever may be meaningless.
I see it rise in fall, fall in spring
Of one hemisphere, then turn
On its head in the other, stand

On shoulders, bow in hand
To my eyes, above the mother
Land of all of us as us, damned
Namers and ropers of random

Patterns into human stories,
Of this hunter seen in the stars,
Of this great spider made of stars,
This animal, this monster in the dark.

Mean As Little As You Can

Rip van Winkle is still sleeping.
The storyteller only pretended
He woke up so that the storyteller
Had enough story to tell.

Might as well let him sleep forever.
It wouldn't be so cute now,
With much too much changed
For a ghost to survive the shock of it.

Maybe Rip and all ghosts are real.
Maybe all of them are just sleeping
Like Baal; they whisper, snoring
Faintly the secrets they keep

From the ardently living and believing
Inheritors of their vanishing dreams.
Listen, if you truly seek contentment,
Listen to the lazy wisdom of Rip.

Stop striving, even for contentment,
Even for laziness, even for escape.
Just do as little as possible,
Mean as little as you can,

And embrace forever
Arriving late.

Under a Windy Tree

I'm free, I think
In my chair by the tree,
Sipping a drink in spring. That's fair.

Do I care what I think
When I'm under a tree,
Do I care what is fair?
I pour another drink
And rearrange my chair
And pretend I am free.

A gust of wind shakes the tree
And spills the rest of my drink.
Nothing physical is free.
I depend on solid chairs.
I can't walk, and that's unfair,
Or at least that's what I think.

Stubborn, I pour another drink
And settle myself in my chair
And swear I don't care what you think
About cripples, booze, or what's fair
When it's spring and sunlight is free
And young leaves scroll out of old trees.

I hate this uncomfortable chair.
Like everything built handsome and fair,
It's useless to use. I hate that tree,
Dripping sap and poking out thorns. Free
Thinkers end up feeling forced to think
They're freer, while wiser folks pour drinks

For friends indoors, even when weather's fair,
Knowing that nothing enjoyable's free
Nor durably enjoyable. Here, drink
Another, relax. Very soon, I think,
This game's going to be done. Poetry
Is fine for greeting cards, but an armchair,

Beer, and TV-show stories will set you free
From your worries faster than what you can think
To compose in fine words in a straight-back chair,
Drunk on fancy wine under a windy tree
In spring.  Anyways, wisdom's dumb, right? I'll drink
To that. This world can't be outsmarted. That's fair.

Loves

The gentleman in black and olive loves
The elegant lady inside the house
Printing affectionate views of the world
She spies decaying into complex life:
Broken-down trucks, crushed appliances, joy
Effervescing from lost layers of paint,

Each poured to obscure even older paint,
All reemerging, the way weather loves
To reveal backwards, the way years enjoy
Carefully disassembling the house
Of existential truths, of time and life,
Old magazines insulating the world

Against cold erasure, as if the world
Cared whether records were kept. Peeling paint,
Crumbling foundations, cracked joints, it's all life,
Rich and inevitable, and she loves
To catch it living in each canyon and house
Where time leaves its tracks of dark, secret joy.

Her man outside on the porch stoop enjoys
Being treated to her view on the world,
Her discoveries of fresh beauties housed
In the wreckage where he conjectured pain
As the architect, one reason he loves
Her who makes it possible to love life.

He had cultivated a view of life
In which all the satisfaction, the joy
Came from complete renewals, and he loved
Floods, obliterations, the way the world
Could remake itself with snow for paint,
Burying pasts to the eaves of the house,

Promising to seal him inside that house.
Glaciers and sandstorms that mummified life
Appealed to him, although he knew fresh paint
Could never seal tightly enough to joy
To keep it from decay, he dreamed a world 
Preserved that she has now exposed and loved.

He is her house now, open to her joy,
Shedding layers of life, bare to the world,
Weathered paint, exposed and exposing loves.

To a Vulnerable Bookworm in Spring

Just look out the window.
Your world is turning green,
Feasting on Easter's light
With fresh, wet appetite
To be and to eat Her,
The dawn of abundance,

Of hunger and abundance,
Of life. Perched at your window
You may feel shut off from Her,
Amused and immune, or green
With envy, your appetite
For eating what eats the light

Still quiet and your bones still light.
You have your own abundance
Of wintry notions. Appetite
Lies past that double-paned window.
In time, you'll eat what eats the green
That eats the gleam that shines off Her,

But you're withholding. You don't want Her.
You have your bookish wisdom to light
Your nights of colorless green
Ideas dreaming sleepless abundance.
You try not to look out the window
And turn to work with no appetite

For that moveable feast of appetite
Celebrating outside. You resent Her
A little when you open the window
Just a crack. She is the goddess of light
And desire, and you crave the abundance
That makes your craving possible, but that green

Bursting into leaf out there is the same green
Of death and decay, sickening appetite.
The surplus of life means death in abundance.
Again and again, you pick quarrels with Her,
Asking why there's no other way to use light
Than that glorious war outside your
window

Waged by all those ravenous green offspring of Her
Tangled banks of appetite. But you too love light,
And abundance, and lean out the open window.