The Small

Poem is not

Important,

Has nothing

Much to say.
But it's pleased
With itself

All the same,
And laughs at
Your dismay.

The Moment that Culture Discovered Itself

The truth is a pretty, tame equation.
Fitness times the change in a trait
Equals a Russian doll of covariance
Nested within covariance, never
Reaching the end that began it.
No? You don't think so? Ok, tell me.
Go for it. Show me your big bad recipe
For saving the rest of us fools,
Saving the planet from itself
Stopping the sun before it explodes,
Putting a god you like, the one god,
Your god in charge of black holes.
Now explain how this all turns out
In favor of your own devout behavior.
I'm sorry. I don't know what I'm whining
About: the little, covarying dolls are turtles,
The little turtles go on down forever
Or until whatever clean, short, sayable
Concept like god or dharma or bang,
Like zero or pi or the beginning of life
We can concoct to say to ourselves, stop, stop, stop,
Whatever knotted symbol we carve on the rocks
And let stand for the mystery at the bottom
Of the well that is deeper than the great chain
Of being, not being, conceiving and forgetting
That we let down into the dark, whatever bucket of rhyme
Serving as imaginary container for the truth that climbs
Out of any such rickety bucket, green-eyed, hungry, time
Come to eat the closure we hoped would rescue
Our compulsive human brain from this algorithm,
The loop we can't ever control once started. Oh god. The end.
Good. Beautiful. Terror. Thank you. Let's worship.

Be Known Only

From the inside. The outside

Is either another
Inside looking out for
Another inside looking out,

Or it is neither, something
Else entirely other
And immune to looking
Even at its own hard stare,

Something complete, never
Nothing like the knowing
Of the inside looking out
From the inside, the nothing

The incomplete, the eyes
That might mean something
Lovable, frightening, scared,
If only they get glimpsed,

Wide behind the narrow
Slats of the visor, the iron mask
The barred hint that someone
Nothing cries out to nothing,

Take my side, see my side,
Believe me, you can know me,
You can know me as I know you
Only from here, from only inside.

The Weird

Unpleasant smell of old-fashioned ink
From the New Yorker's weird, old-fashioned
Print version fills my nose as I doze,
Face down on the financial page. Lord

Have mercy  on those of us who dream
That what we read is what we will be.
Snob that I am, I try to avoid
Reading at all assiduously,

As if never committing truly
To any one rag or blog at all
Kept me free of any of their dreams
For marrying one reader at all.

My Shoes Are Dead

"You can't tell who's living and who's dead."

Why doesn't any one claim

To have figured out themselves
Sufficiently to claim truth

As feature of someone else?
I'm a genius. I know all
Plebeians ask politely.

The world, you, me, will end. Peace.
The taxi-driver poet, paid, opines,
"You are doing the right job."

Our Houses

A fool and his house are never parted.

Ok, here we go, gin in hand,
Straight into the art of darkness.
(Heart my eye. There's nothing true
About a pump besides the fact
It pumps. When it's not broken.)
Follow me? I'm almost beyond
Caring anymore if you do.
What happens to the sweet child
In the wheelchair when the others
Grow into their constructed
Cruelty and leave? Write an essay,
Right a wrong. Melange adultere
De tout, you. I was a homely soul
In an unspeakably handsome frame.

Monkey Golf

Play it where
The monkey
Dropped it. Damn,

You're the one
Thought you craved
A challenge.

Play the ball,
Your good walk
Spoiled. Whack. Thwack.

Ball in paws.
Drop on green.
Hole in one

Or two, three,
Four, five. Aren't
You grateful?