Speed Chess Poem

If there were one thing
You wished you could do
In style, fearlessly,

Daily, out of doors
Or next to windows,
Half the day some days,

Sunrise to sunset
Others, and at least
A bit inbetween

Any two sleeps—do
And win, keep winning,
Keep clearing the board

Then setting the terms
For the next graceful
Sliding and seizing

Of pieces to close
In on another
Conclusion—that’s it.

Alien Tradition

The voices of nothing are talking again,
Echoing down the long detours
They have to take through the years
And the languages to get to your ears,
Not your ears—the parts of your thoughts
That chew on old phrases, tasting
All their twists and turns. They know

They’ve made you sorrowful, or that
They’ve given your sorrow release
Like a latch lifted in mourning
Nothing much but being to mourn.
Open-mouthed over the waves of poems,
Lament until you’re satisfied,
And then we’ll bring you home.

Elliptical Curves Can Flock Like Birds

Machine learning left something
Interesting on the doorstep,
Snatched from murmurations

We didn’t know it could catch—
Curves gather over number
Systems like birds over fields

And finite fields are like clocks,
Like any kind of rhythm.
Float over one, start over

Again, like the things birds do,
Winging words, making poets
Out of mathematicians.

On the Street

Someone sits waiting
For someone to paint.

Otherwise, the street
Is wholly empty

Of any people,
Any interest.

The painter’s working
Anyway, trying

To get the exact
Shade of the pavement,

The grey that conveys
Not lonesomeness but,

What is this? Comfort?
Comforting emptiness.

On Origin’s Storage in Delirium

Who wore the first hat?
Not just some large leaf
Held over the head
And then tossed aside—
An actual hat,

A reusable
Item of headgear,
Reeds or fur or hide,
Whatever, a hat,
A purposeful hat

Where there never was
A hat. You can’t know.
No one ever will
Know exactly that,
And that’s exactly

The point—not the hat,
Not firstness in hats,
But the origin
Of any old thing,
The first this or that.

There must be someone
Just did something first
A moment ago,
Something old hat in
A lifetime or so.