Gremlin

It does feel like a plan,
Doesn’t it, a whiteboard filled
With algorithmic scribbles.

In their middle, that green dot,
Designated enemy,
Mutant within the mutant,

Little devil, cries havoc,
So let slip the dogs of war.
We’ll do this, then we’ll do that.

We’ll call in the outsiders.
We’ll get ourselves organized.
We’ll get to know that devil,

Get to hunt that gremlin down.
Confidence! Gear! Strategy!
Almost exhilarating

The stone cold diagnosis.
Everything’s purposeful now.
Death could have been anywhere

In probability’s clouds,
But now we know it’s calling
From somewhere inside the house.

Looking Back

The point of certain
Kinds of languages
Seems to be to close

In on the quarry
Of beyond language—
To go beyond words,

Reach the numinous,
At least get a glimpse.
That yearning’s intense

In the dream’s dreaming
Of dream’s transcendence,
As if words were clouds

Near the edge of space,
Voyagers crossing
The heliopause.

Aspirational.
You don’t need to go.
There’s no beyond words,

Only a before.
It’s when you entered
Language that you left,

And if you can’t reach
What you want to say,
You’re not far enough

From having too few.
The estrangement
You feel from your signs

Rolls through the far side
Of heliopause.
You’re back of beyond.

Auditions

The stars were crawling
All over themselves
In hopes of being

Appreciated.
Every night they swarmed
From the first darkness

Low enough to show,
And show off they did.
They were desperate

For your attention,
To get to be named
And fixed in stories.

They webbed the whole sky,
Jostling in patterns
They hoped looked human,

And you sat below
In judgment, making
This one a hero,

That one a monster,
The other a god.
Good and bad omens

Were given their scripts.
Then dawn hustled them
Like a broom sweeps dust.

Another cattle
Call made for tonight.
They can’t wait to try.