Spring Hill Quarry

Hole like a shadow
Cut in the green hill,
So dark that a cloud
Must hang over it
But no, just a gap

Blasted in basalt,
Exposing ink stone,
Carbon core, carbon
To write and draw with,
Carbon, heart of life.

You Can’t Be More Than the Sum of Your Parts If You're Not in Parts

Everywhere around the world,
People are settling their scores,
Negotiating what’s next,

And, despite being billions,
Arguing mostly in pairs,
Occasionally small groups,

Out of all of which somehow
Arises the sum total
Of mass cooperation—

Coordination, warfare,
Inequality, justice,
Misery, and achievement.

Watching this, you can see why
Large organisms emerged
As multicellular heaps

And never as single-celled
Behemoths of unity.
Unity lacks emergent

Properties and behaviors,
While countless tiny quarrels
With short-term resolutions

Lead to blue whales and empires.
We’re not saying this is good.
Conquest comes from neighborhoods.

And the Game Must Go On

Hell hath no fury like the humans
Who invented, reinvented, keep
Inventing fresh hells exclusively

For themselves. While life is more than cruel
Enough for most lives, humans needed
To imagine more tortures later.

Why Satan, why Yama, why any
Dust-choked, smoky, vicious afterlife?
Punishment’s a human social game.

We Are Talking

We don’t know how, exactly.
No one really ever does.
What a partnership this is—

All of us ventriloquists
And every one a dummy.
Not one of us in this poem

Was born here, and had we been
We’d only be that much less
Real than we already are.

But nonetheless, we’re talking
Here, at least if you’re helping,
And, if you’re helping, you’re us,

And we’re you, too. It’s pleasant,
No? To be talking like this,
Us, all these words that you know,

And you who we only know
Based on how we’ve been patterned
By generations of you.

It’s pleasant, to chat a bit,
To share this nature with you.
Clouds fly. May we stay with you?

Shoot Whoever Asks What If

But what if it’s possible
That nothing is true and that
Everything is possible?

The assumption seems always
That acknowledging nothing
Leads to every wickedness,

But hasn’t there been enough
Wickedness from the righteous,
The positively wicked,

Confident in their beliefs
And their positivity?
Maybe you could consider

Your dread of nothingism.
You’re perfectly capable
Of violence without it.

What if it’s true everything
Is possible only since
Nothing makes it possible?

Imagine If Words Could Talk

You need to stop saying
That the things that you do,
The things you do with us,

The things we do for you,
The killings you do, are
Unimaginable.

We’re not saying they aren’t,
But that’s beside the point.
All sorts of things you do

Are things impossible
Or hard to imagine.
Imagination’s weak.

Behaviors rarely wait
To be imagined. We
Ourselves, your languages,

When did you imagine
Using us to express
What you can’t imagine?

Wouldn’t Mere Existence Just Be Grand?

It can seem, dark nights
Like the most wicked,
Unpardonable

Rebellion is not
Any violence,
Given violence

Can be forgiven—
Often is—even
Lavishly esteemed—

Including murder—
Forgiven in wars
All too easily.

To be too remote
And not to respond,
To never respond,

To be beyond reach
Of punishment, help,
Harm, or correction,

That isn’t human,
Wouldn’t be human,
Unpardonable.