Finistère

How many places have been named,
In one language or another,
The edge of the earth, the world’s end?

You could make a nice collection,
A coffee-table book of them,
A podcast of visiting them,

And they’re all wrong, every last one.
Did the locals really believe,
Ever, for sure, they’d reached the end?

It’s human nature to suspect,
To imagine, this is the end,
But to wholeheartedly believe?

Space is full of whorls and ovals,
And time and space curve together,
And probably all people know

The end is only whatever
Point on the curve where you can go
No further into forever.

Comfort Views

You can see why people crave
Their echo chambers, can’t you?
Soak yourself in enough news,

Essays, and commentary
From a wide range of sources,
And you’ll feel a little sick,

Aware of all the people,
The various-sized tranches
Of the vast population,

Who could disapprove of you
And one or more of your views.
Who has the stomach for that?

Listen to people like you
If you want to think people
Like you, like most people do.

No

There needs to be a genre
Apposite the fairytale,
That, instead of starting, Once,

Or, Once upon a time, flies
Straight into the thick of things
Following a denial—

Each example begins, No,
And, instead of ending with,
Happily ever after,

Or, And if they have not died
They are still there to this day,
Concludes with, I do not know

The rest of the story. Thus,
Each tale in this genre would
Imply a course-correction,

Advancing the narrative
After cleaning up errors,
Only to get stuck again—

No . . . . I do not know the rest.
The genre would be something
Similar to a journal,

Linking traveling through life,
Via etymology,
To a journey, day to day.

No. That genre’s already
Old and boring, and it ends
In death. I don’t know the rest.

Wonder Broken

To wonder is to confess
You’re unsure of what it is
That you’re experiencing.

You like a sense of wonder?
Maybe just a little bit,
Trick by an illusionist,

Anything mysterious
That isn’t too threatening,
Beauty just hard to explain.

Wonder perches on the wall
Between bland and terrible,
And people weep when it falls.

But no one calls it wonder
When the skin begins to crawl.

Your Sunny Conversations

The day contains so many
Voices and static phrases,
With its dry wind shifting leaves,

It might as well be haunted
By demons, ghosts, or angels,
Whatever names can create.

It’s a comfort in the mind
To have this brightly lit sky
Turning the stones almost white—

No mysterious shadows
Slink about in such plain sun.
See, the world is nothing much,

Barren of signaling shades.
Your phrases come from no one.

And Who Knows Where It Hides Its Heart

What Zwicky witnessed
Was dark gravity,
Gravity greater

Than the visible
Night could account for.
Since gravity’s owned

By mass, dark matter
Had to be out there,
Fat thumb on the scales.

Nine decades later,
That matter’s still dark—
Promising, of course,

New hypotheses
Being tested, but,
You know, unwitnessed.

A non-physicist
Might suspect the dark
Subtlety resides

In no particle
Of any size, but
Gravity is dark.

Revolt

No suburban poverty’s picturesque
Next to its rural and urban cousins—

No vibrant street life, street music, street art,
No melancholy fields or scruffy woods.

To be poor in suburbia is like
Being a cockroach in a white bathroom.

You’re doomed. You can maybe hide for a while,
Live off the little scruggly bits of waste,

Be careful about when you move about,
Scramble like hell back under shadowed shelves,

But you’re going to end up flipped on your back,
Skinny legs twitching feebly, helplessly,

Or something massive’s going to stomp you flat.
Until then, when the lights are off, you crawl

Into the stacked TP and paper towels
Under the sink, where you record your life

In tiny specks on cottony white sheets
To horrify, if discovered, at least.