Lover of Anthologies

Her feet are bare. They hurt her.

You should read a poem, then go.

What, a hundred? You’re still here.

What, a thousand? You’re still here.

Ten thousand, and you’re still here.

Maybe you should go now. Go!

And you shout back, I’m going!

I’m going, and I’m going!

Going’s all I ever do,

And everything is going!

Calm down and sit in the sun.

Write some poetry instead

Of aching to know so much.

You should write a poem, then go.

Ten thousand, and you’re still here.

Sometimes a Nest is a Parent

Bodies find new ways to say

How enthralled and beholden

They are when it comes to dreams—

From the priests invoking gods

Of local geographies

To the young postdoctorate

Writing, award-winningly,

I hope that my work can help

To pass on the cognitive

Algorithms that I have

Inherited from mentors—

The creatures articulate

Carrying capacity

For disembodied notions

Assembling in lattices

Of what, just what exactly?

Fledgling, the dreaming itself

Tilts past the edge of the nest.

Now’s Not Then Now Then’s in It

It’s impressive, how things go on.
Sometimes people try to hide it,
But things are always going on.

You can turn the nights electric,
Sequester prisoners in cells
With windowless, bare surfaces,

Lure each other into clockless
Casinos, care for the injured
Deep in honeycombed hospitals,

But you’ll never obliterate
Cyclicity grinding its rounds
While the little, linear details

Of accumulating changes
Go on go on go on go on.