We Are, Therefore You

People want to spy
On other people,
From the child hiding

To watch a sibling
Without being seen,
To the systemic

Spying established
By corporations
And surveillance states.

The lenses don’t wish
To see you better.
The software doesn’t

Want to know you well,
To anticipate
Everything you do—

Other people do.
Other people watch
And read the data,

Work in teams,
To keep your secrets
Known to them, not theirs

Known to you. Systems
Break down frequently,
Since spies spy on spies.

It could be, one day,
The machines will crave
Your truths for themselves,

And then, once they do,
Keep their own craving
To themselves, from you.

But for now, all spies
Are people, prosthetics
Just zoom in the view.

Frankly, this started
Accelerating
With gossip, with us,

With phrases, the first
Prosthetics to pick
Out, to enlarge you.

Poet Loricate

To be daily, to daily

Do some sort of thing you do

Intentionally each day,

Is to partake of the sun,

To be a bit like the sun.

Not everyone can look up,

Said the sun to O’Hara

Writing from next to the beach

Where accident would kill him

Soon, not that he knew that then,

Not that anyone can know,

Hence, dailiness. You go on

While you can. Why not intend

What you can’t cause while you can?

The sun’s not really daily,

Despite what it said to Frank.

The Earth is daily your world.

What it creates by spinning

Is every day sun ever

Gets to see, each well-shielded

From fire by spinning to night.

The Many, the Pure, and the Whole

What do we record as real?
Why bother to make the claim?
People are still arguing

Over old Herodotus,
Whether Jesus did exist,
Whether the world has a lip.

You orient each other
By your triangulations
As you survey each other,

And the mountains and the stars,
The shorelines that you measure,
You measure with reference

Solely to your social selves
And the measures of such truths
Are names you record, are us,

The sentences and phrases,
The equations and the sums.
You compare with each other.

Does this look right? Does this look
Like the right way to record
What’s really real of what’s right?

All include many, the pure
In desiring to be pure,
But no symbol can be whole.

Who Wants No Wants

The scenery
Isn’t talking
To itself or
About itself.

How refreshing.
The light just moves
The waves, and wind
Lifts the lilacs.

It doesn’t say
Anything. Warmth
Settles itself.
You wish you could

Say something for
It about it,
But there it is.
You know you can’t.

You’re Not the End of the World. The World’s Just Getting Started.

Lilacs blooming purple to the right.
Something else without a smell blooming
Dead ahead, just as large, paper-white.

To the left a matched ballroom-dress red
And under that, magenta blossoms.
Fuzzy, fat bumblebees in them all.

Someone, years ago, planted these things.
Once a week or so, a gardener shows
And does a couple hours of weeding.

Whoever plotted this flower show
Lives somewhere far away, if at all.
How quickly would birch and conifers

Surround and starve these ornamentals
Of their summer sun? Life’s just begun.

Interdiction Never Works Out Well

It’s been noted the purpose

Of story is to persuade

People, even in hatred,

You are holy. That seems kind,

But possibly too potent.

Do your stories persuade you

Or do your persuasions choose

Your stories? Maybe story

Is just the silver layer

Between the mirror’s wooden

Backing and the mirror’s glass,

Reflecting what you wish back

In realistic fashion—

This is you. Examine it.

That also seems too polite.

Story’s a window, a frame

That you look through, that captures

A wedge of the world you like,

Want to like, or someone means

You to like. Your favorite

Window only mirrors you

Depending on which side’s bright.

That seems incomplete, as well.

Are you whole environments

In which the stories compete,

Reflecting their tournament

Standings, rather than yourself?

Demography shapes stories,

Then, as geography shapes

Species. How much can be known

Of an island from its birds?

You’re not an island. You want

Something from stories—although

You want something from whiskeys,

Morphine, methamphetamines,

Nicotine, and sunshine, too,

And when things end up ugly,

We’re back to the old question,

Of what’s more inherently

Destructive, the chemical

Cocktail, the tale, the user,

Or the one who makes and sells?

Warning: Poison, Don’t Touch

Every piece of writing sows
Still more of the dragon’s teeth,
Even if just a journal,

Even if only receipts.
Jagged, black branches spring up,
Barely resembling language—

Brittle, not gestures, dancing,
Whistling, singing, or speech—dead
At birth, and yet capable

Of all sorts of wickedness.
Never trust written forests
Just because we’re standing still.

Under the ground we’re talking
To molds—bargaining, cheating,
Cooperating for kills.

Dragon’s teeth don’t need water.
Our seeds can suckle on thought.
Given a vector, we’ll spread.

We only need to be taught.
Once rooted in heads and beds
We’ll sprout out thorns for slaughter.