Whatever It Is, It’s Always There

In some sense, the past
Is eternal. It’s not
Unchanging.

Change comes slowly
To stone and tombs but
Inevitably,

Yet the past stays past.
It doesn’t become
The future again.

The past stays present.
There’s always the past.
So it’s eternal

Like that—ancestors
And extinct species
Belong to something

Always there, even
As ancestral names
And fossils vanish.

The past is present,
Is always with us.
There’s always a past.

The day moves that way,
Each day, something glimpsed
As it’s vanishing

Into forever,
Into the city
Of never return,

The way deer and bears,
Not small in themselves,
Only need a step

Into a forest
To vanish for good.
Look up and they’re gone.

The past was before
They appeared. The past
Remains where they’ve gone.

Jealous Ideas

Every god’s a jealous god.
The gods are always jealous,
Of you and of each other.

Not envious, mind you. No.
The gods don’t want to be you.
The gods want you for themselves.

Pratchett was right. That’s their life.
The more of you they possess,
The more alive the gods are.

But don’t get too excited.
Gods aren’t the only players.
Every idea is jealous,

Every story, every poem.
This idea gods are jealous
Is just one jealous idea.

The God Animal

Lauren Groff, recently,

Had a character state

That every human has

An animal and a

God wrestling unto death

Inside. Inside, inside. . .

Animal that ate god

That ate animal.

To know what a god is

Is to become a beast

With at least one god caught

Among thought, animal

Who’s now become, partly,

God, the god animal.

She’s right, of course. The god

Will never rest easy

As animal, never

Give up wrestling inside

With the animal who

Is forever panicked,

Terrified, trapped inside

With the god that’s thrashing

Unto death—not the same

As simply until death.

The wrestling makes the death,

Needs the death. Can the god

Get out beforehand? Yes,

But only if it lands

In some next wrestling match.

For the animal, death.

Comfort and Discomfort

Line us up in your thoughts,
And soak in, one by one,
First one than the other,

Ordinary words used
Casually and often,
Each its own world in mind—

Discomfort. Everything
From ill-fitting clothes
To social terror,

To getting through a day
Of continual aches,
Of unhappy body.

Comfort. The full expanse
Of body feeling well,
The embrace that’s a gift,

Any combination
Of simple luxury
Or kindness for sorrow.

Use your own memories.
Comfort. Discomfort. When
Is there more to explain,

When is either simple
Term something you can both
Conjure and comprehend?

Tokamak

It’s a wonderful world of mirrors, the mind,
But the mirrors aren’t what makes it wonderful.

It’s all the smuggled light between the mirrors
Makes everything happen, makes everything mad.

That’s ridiculous, you snort, light’s everywhere.
It’s only magical trapped in the funhouse.

Alright, you’re not wrong. You have a point. Mirrors
Are rarer than light and hard work to set up,

But mirrors are only responses to light,
And the mind amid wondrous bedazzlements

Came to be to catch the waves and play with them
In its own waves of tourists, silver, and glass.

The mind keeps waves going around and around,
Making visitors laugh hysterically,

Letting them get all kinds of crazy ideas
About waves and mind and the fire in the light.

Rhetorical Inquisition

Talking to what can’t talk back
Seems fairly universal
As human behaviors go.

The local cemetery
Holds many hearts and flowers
Leftover from Valentines.

People address trees and stones
Pretty routinely, and not
In any fungal language.

Let’s not get started on gods
Or all the conversation
Phantoms haunting inner skulls.

Are cats purring to themselves,
To signal anything, or
Because cats can’t not purr?

Clutch the Good Stuff, Shed the Bad Stuff

Run it from now back to then
Or from the start up to now—
It crops up, each and all whens.

Clutch the good stuff; shed the bad.
Now, if your group has done wrong,
Shuck it off, smear that blame out,

Spread the shame as far from you
As you can, but if there’s pride
To be had from things, claim them,

Say they were yours from the start,
Were yours first, all those good things,
Yours and your kin’s. Way back when,

The same thing, cell at a time.
Seek, chase, suck the good stuff in;
Flee, dodge, spray the waste stuff out.

If you want it, take it in.
If you hate it, spit it out.
That’s how life works, souls, cults, cells.