We Are Not Real Verse

We are not a real poem.
No words in print say so.
No words will vouch for us.

No words will say they wish
To read, or be like, us.
No words try to steal us.

But we are words in lines.
That we are. We are lines
Of words that claim we’re verse—

Won’t make us real to those
Who feel the need for real.
What if this poem were named

Just to say we weren’t verse?
We’d feel known, first. Then worse.

Sound Constructions in Surviving Forest

Thrushes, warblers, robins, whatever—
How the small birds’ songs fit together
While they’re singing around each other,

Against traffic noises drifting up
From even this, most rural highway,
Where few trucks come to recon small towns,

And no one around’s rich or famous,
None of the hermits highly esteemed.
It’s not weaving. It’s not tapestry.

It’s not concertare. Every bird
Exemplifies an evolved species
Whose ancestors led to it, singing

Successfully to other members
Of its mating and competing kind.
They fit around each other, the trills,

Riffs, burbles, whistles, sudden outbursts,
The thrush practicing pure three-tone scales,
The thrush that seems to fake out echoes,

The chickadees and the vireos,
All of them—when they’re numerous, when
They’re scarce, endangered, disappearing—

Until the day they’re actually gone.
Sound will go on. It went on before
Birdsong. Nothing’s been singing that long

A Good Manager Closes the Loop

Someone gets a few things done,
Celebrates by sitting down—
The pause, the coast, the moment

Unscheduled and unmeaning
As a spreadsheet’s next clean page.
Can’t we ever get a trope

For relaxing, a deep breath,
That isn’t based on some tech,
Some task, some occupation?

No, we can’t. Technology
Is all we are, languages,
Symbol systems. The minute

Things get quiet, brains recall
How rumination’s broadcast
Like the news on radio,

At every hour, on the hour.
Top of the hour—more trouble
Everywhere but here, but here,

Maybe you can get a break,
Maybe just a little pause.
Would you like to time travel,

To murder the grandfather
Paradox? Find those bipeds
Beta-testing words. Kill them.

Besides Those Stunning Space Photos, It’s All a Disaster

How can you understand yourselves
When, for instance, in a nation
Of a few hundred million selves,
Churning shifting combinations,

The only points of agreement
Seem to be the sense you are small,
That sensing so’s an achievement,
And that the world will hit a wall

Anytime now, apocalypse.
What everyone feels good about
Is staring into emptiness.
What everyone feels bad about

Is emptiness coming for you.
New space pictures of dying stars
Are cheery, not a sign of doom,
While the latest feuds down here are.

How can you understand yourselves,
Who get off on feeling so small
But absolutely loathe yourselves
For living as you live at all?

Oh, You Know

It’s sweet when you catch your tail,
For instance, when a pollster
Puts in a fictional name

As cat among the pigeons,
Polling name recognition.
How many people will claim

To recognize or even
Know a lot about that name
Made up for the poll, maybe

A higher percentage
Than claim that they recognize
Actual politicians?

Comedians play these pranks
All the time, man-on-the-street
Interviews asking passing

Pedestrians about fake
News, celebrity gossip,
Or absurdly outrageous

Imaginary events,
Preposterous suggestions.
The TV audience laughs

As the pedestrians nod
Confidently and opine
About what doesn’t exist,

About experiences
They’ve never had and couldn’t
Possibly ever have had.

Everyone knows everyone
Will lie about what you know
If you think you can fake it.

Why it’s sweet, why it’s funny,
Why it’s always surprising
To be shown this, no one knows.

Imagining Why the Owners Are Selling

You mustn’t blame yourselves when
What it was you wanted turns
Out not what you had wanted.

You’ll think you should have wanted
Something different, think that’s it,
Your foolish wanting, or think

It’s some lack of gratitude
In you now, as your back aches,
As you listen to birdsong,

Maybe in the house you dreamed
Of owning, now knowing snow
Will be back in a few months,

And you will have to work hard
With that aching back to keep
The path to your pretty door

Passable. It’s not your fault,
Not in the human habit
Of assigning praise or blame.

You can only want this world
And only suffer for it.
The thrush echoes the morning.

Remember That One Perfect Afternoon?

The preternaturally aware

Adolescent sits in the sun

On the floating dock on clear lake

And sighs, I know I’m not going

To remember this. I hate that.

She’s only turning twelve this year,

But she sees how memory works,

Hears her juvenile amnesia

In the stories of her parents

Despite the myriad pictures

Of exact moments of her life—

Perhaps more acutely for them.

You can’t tell her no. You know well

Her mind will treat these gilded days

Of summer as a golden haze

Flecked with a few vivid islands

Of episodes worn like beach glass,

Smooth and cloudy from retelling.