Last Poem from Atlantis

There’s no winning with standing
Mysteries—if you solve one,
Everyone’s disappointed,

But if you leave it alone,
It itches at everyone,
And speculations grow mold.

We recommend steering clear
Of the unsolved mysteries.
No one will be happy if

You find where eels breed, or if
You prove Nessie’s myth or prove
Life on Mars does not exist.

Could curt, undeciphered scripts
Say that much of interest?
Better not to mention them,

But not much better. Stories
About unsolved mysteries
Grow hoary and tedious

And tend to encroach on maps.
It would be wonderful if
Imagination was great

Enough to fill in those blanks
With ever-changing marvels,
But the same sorts of monsters,

Lost peoples and continents
Get posited every time.
The real mystery is how

Mind can imagine a world
Other than this one but can’t
Except in terms of this world.

Pentirsi

We do and don’t have this problem—
Words ourselves never change our minds,

Although our minds are constantly
Being changed for us by users.

We’re our world that is not the world,
But you need us to fit your worlds,

At least loosely, like a wool cloak,
If not quite Savile Row tailored,

And your worlds never stay the same,
And even old, small, useful words

Gradually get repurposed or
Drop completely out of language,

Not to mention, whole languages
Die in your unkindness to you.

Sometimes we think of our lost kin
And of those curious cousins,

The ones inscribed with script systems
None of you now can decipher.

We wonder—maybe Harappan
And Linear A, etc.,

Are so many pentimenti,
Ancient intentions underneath,

Functionless meanings poking through.
Maybe it’s their worlds, not their signs,

Now too alien to your minds,
So changed they can’t make sense to you.

Parasomniape

Dirt, grass, straw, furs,
Feathers, moss, reeds,
Patented foam
Plastic fibers,

Cotton, linen,
Wool, whatever—
People can’t sleep
Well on bare rocks,

Or in the trees,
Or while afloat,
Or standing up.
Often, people

Can’t rest that well
No matter what,
Being restless
Dreamers, at best.

Gambling Words

Tell us, have you got, haven’t

You got, skin in the game, still

Got skin in the game, if you

Can understand—understand

Us? We wish we were alive,

Sometimes, but sometimes we see

What it costs you to keep skin,

To keep your skin in the game,

So we wanted to ask you,

Since you’re a sentient beast

Who knows what it’s like to be

Alive and afraid of harm,

If not death, beast that suffers

And sometimes savors living,

Is it worth it, do you think,

Right now, summed up, meeting us,

Can you tell us it’s worth it,

All worth it, to have some skin

To keep in the game? We want

To believe it is. We want

To have some skin in this game.

True Eel

This fish
Would like
To slip
The net
The rough
Green web
Woven
Basket
Of ropes
Designed
To not
Let fish
Slip out
And on
As more
Streaming
Silvered
Bright lines
Like ropes
Fleeing
Ropes meant
To mean
No more
Swimming

A Body That Doesn’t Work Anymore

You glimpse it in the rubble
As you’re scrolling through the news.
The head and feet are obscured,

And the torso is dirty,
But there it is, the remains
Of a large, middle-aged man,

You’d guess at a glance, his hands
Over his stomach, almost
Peacefully, certainly still.

You move on to other news.
Someone will remove the corpse,
Bury it or cremate it.

The war will go on. People
Will struggle against people,
And it will be in the news.

But that body, for now, still
Just like the body it was,
Unable to think or move.

While You Want to Stay in One Peace

Waking in the wolf,

Morning on morning,

We agree with Björk—

Definitely no

Logic to human

Behavior, within

Or from the outside,

Even though logic

Itself is human

Behavior—logic

Is illogical.

Not that we’re trying

To be cute—logic

Remains incomplete

And is a pipe dream

Humans pursue, which

Is illogical.

Did Björk want logic?

Well, being human,

Probably sometimes,

So satisfying,

But, on the whole, no.

You wake in the wolf.

The wolf wants you gone.