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PALESTINE
Someone (it’s a secret) started a fire. There is one cure against the cancer of empire. The United States. Palestine is special (dire?)— the victim of the Roman Empire and the British Empire. Give...
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LIFE’S A PLACEBO
Life’s a placebo; nothing helps nor harms. You worried and calculated for nothing. Life’s a placebo. The wreck they pulled you from, loss of memory, that time you starved, the numerous diseases and...
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THE SOUL IS SO INVISIBLE
The soul is so invisible it wasn’t found in the old, holy times, the old men reading scripture, or, silent in the desert, hungry, delirious, no one saw the soul; nor did it manifest in ancient...
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I DIDN’T DO ANYTHING
In the last happy years of my life I took walks, including to the grocery store, enjoyed being at home. I never tried to contact you. I didn’t do anything. I was happy. Does this mean I am good? Do I...
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IDEALISM
Idealism was my favorite type of literature in school. I don’t think they teach it any more. Friedrich Schiller? Goethe’s friend, who died young? The English panting, on their fervent Italian tour?...
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WHEN I PEEK
When I peek at my emotions, they laugh at me, as my girlfriend did in 2003. We were tourists on the Champs-Elysees. I was in a wholly anxious mood that day. And later, on the same subject, when she...
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AFTER WE LAMENTED
After we lamented what had hurt us, our anger strengthened our resolve. Touched to the core by human suffering, we found we could not love. We found we could not love. We listened to Pound all night...
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THE LOOSENING
Strindberg went right over his head. He had driven, in his black, GPS EV. I was sitting in the audience with him, watching my son perform in the university play; he was with my daughter, a film major...
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EXCEEDINGLY GOOD
My life is exceedingly good. I don’t care when referees fix games. I stare at newspapers. I read the far-away air. I don’t gamble. “Yes? What do you want?” is the way I respond to the world. I don’t...
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A LITTLE NIGHT
What the French call “a little night” when we put all our affections into a small place; and you know yes it is easy to feel enormous pity for the distant suffering you witness. Your tiny heart feels...
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THE BEST THING
What is highbrow? How do we know we are in the presence of the highest in terms of what we understand to be the fine arts, including writing, the visual arts, and music? The answer is simple. The...
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WHEN YOU’RE IN LOVE
When you’re in love with someone you’re always saying goodbye. The happiest moments are when you cry, when you’re in love with someone. The harm done to you by love is precisely the punishment you...
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THE PROBLEM
The problem is in this poemand that is the problem. Were it on the street, in the sunlight,were it in the middle of an argument,were it articulated by a silly gesture,it wouldn’t be a problem, but...
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SILENCED BY SORROW
Silenced by sorrow, I didn’t know what to do except patiently work—in silence—for you. Silenced by sorrow and no longer brave, I used what I had—which indifferently they gave. They were oblivious to...
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WHEN I FIGURED OUT YOU LOVED ME
When I figured out you loved me using the forensic methods of Sherlock Holmes I turned to Saint Augustine’s Confessions to tackle the more difficult problem: I had to figure out if I loved you....
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INTRICACY
This vista intrigues me the most--- I cannot tell the near and far of its details. My mother had me and now she's a ghost. The vista's details are far away. The closest detail is a verdant image---...
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HER HEART
She had an affair but her heart wasn’t in it. She bravely ended it, like when a beloved cat is sick and the treatment is too expensive. She realized love was almost as complicated as life and returned...
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THE ONES WHO MESSED UP ALWAYS BLAME THE ONES WHO DIDN’T MESS UP
The ones who messed up always blamethe ones who didn’t mess up.She ruined everything. I’ll give you her name.Or not. This is a poem—so either way, it’s all the same.The poem is super-wise,assaulting...
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THE DIVINE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN THE TWO SEXES
The divine difference between the two sexes surprises our animal natures, the modesty of animal nature violated only by the lion's mane, the colorful male bird. We notice gender differences of the...
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BUT EVEN SO, IT DOESN’T MATTER
When they look back on earth, some will say, as they relax, there now being no night or day— only sleepy waves of blue dreams lapping, beautiful music almost drowning the pleasant chatter— isn’t the...
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