Where No Else Is

There is no higher,
There is no lower,
There is no other

Kind of world than this.
You can see it in
The failure of your

Imagination
To make another
World emerge as real

And in your frequent
Shock at new details
Of this only world.

But there is some strength
In the fact you can
Believe there is else,

Can conceive there could
Be otherwise world,
A not part of this.

Autologography

The drama
Of our own
Making lies

Too far back
For any
Mere writer.

What mortals
First made signs
Beyond them?

Windowsill Philosopher

Some animals, hashtag

Lazy Geoff, just sit still

For prolonged periods,

Far longer than others

Of even their species.

Hence, individuals,

Which human trackers call

Lazy and research how

Metabolism lets

Them off the hook for this,

When they should care as much

For why some animals

Like immobility

So much. What’s going on

In stillness that’s pleasing

And more so to some than

To others of their kind?

Is the real world glitching?

A Quiet Moment Seethes with Ghosts

Everyone is everywhere

But here, where a TV plays

Upstairs, and a nocturne plays

From a phone on a table

Downstairs. If you’re not busy

In your world with everyone

Still in it, will you read this

For sustenance? You will not,

Unless you’ve recently felt

Marooned from the tangible,

Island in a sea of words

Approximating voices

In your skull. We’re those voices,

Some of them. Row home. Row home.

We’re murmuring. Shut us down.

You have no choice—you have to

Choose, so you might as well choose.

Among hallucinations,

There are mainly two. The world

That dreams with no words in it.

The words that everyone dreams.

Entre Nous, No Other Ocean

Immersive journalism,
Immersive theater, or
Virtual reality—

Wait, also participant
Observation—all of these
And many similar kinds

Of trying to get inside
Other worlds and other minds—
Are not so much in danger

Of losing their own bearings,
Going native, though they are,
And mostly not in danger

Of unseemly cultural
Appropriation (some are),
But at risk of puzzlement,

Bewilderment, bemusement.
Being never not immersed,
Can you ever understand

You’re not digging into worlds
To comprehend their strangeness
But to pretend there's choosing?

Body on Bare Ground

An incident’s a pattern
In the over-eager mind,
Any incident, which is

Why so many patterns prove
Unreliable. Bad guess
Again, friend. The trees downslope

Get sparser. The trees up high
Get sparser as well. The cold
And the heat tend opposite,

But they have the same effect
On tree girth, on the thickness
Of the woods. An incident,

Any one, is a pattern,
But cross-hatchings have to cross.

From Whoever You Were

This isn’t a dream,
Only a daydream.
You’re in an airport,

Mysteriously
Emptied of other
Traveling humans,

Sealed and abandoned.
Water fountains work,
Whatever that means.

You’re not hungry yet.
The daylight’s pale green
Through terminal glass.

The floors are gleaming.
You settle yourself
On a window bench.

No planes are out there,
Only flat tarmac.
How this is freedom.