Blurry

The light in your room
Could go any time.
Probably it won’t

Anytime soon, but
It could. People lurch
In the dissonance

Between preparing
For what could happen
And knowing it won’t

Likely. Likelihood
Structures decisions
That loathe likelihood.

There’s a wire in there,
Somewhere, connecting
This contradiction

To how easily
Some people will rage
At other people

And loudly insist
They’re telling the truth.
Seems unbearable

For some to not have
Greater certainty,
So unbearable

They’ll insist they do,
Insist enemies
Love to blur the truth.

Lead by Whining

It’s a fairly standard tactic
For parrying discomfiting
Topics or aggressive questions,

None so skilled as politicians
Who pose for backers and donors
Even while equivocating—

Lead by whining, by suggesting
Bias in whoever’s pressing,
Pretend it’s your toes being trod

Then pivot, pounce, and stamp down hard.
Partners will attempt this often
When caught stumbling on the back foot

In domestic arguments, but
Even children on a playground
Or teens exchanging messages

Will try it. Lead by whining, lead
By asserting it’s already
Unfair, then lunge forward from there.

Temple Building

Which do you think would be easier,
To write mathematics in verse, or
To write poetry in notation?

Well, then, which would you think more useful?
The greatest potential audience
For both would be vanishingly small.

And why stop with verse mathematics.
Could theology be improvised
As jazz, or history presented

As entirely made of fiction? Plays,
Operas, and symphonies are built
On stages of real architecture.

Could you write an actual one act
Made of nothing but office buildings?
Who could read such buildings through their tears?

Or all at once. The symmetrical
Formula that is a poem that sings
A deity in architecture.

Meaning Is a Retrospective Thing

Thought experiment.
You have two tickets
For two lotteries
Bought for the same price
At the same kiosk.

It’s a windy day.
You walk out the door
Of the bodega,
Tickets in pocket,
And both blow away.

You try to chase them.
One of them you find
Face down in the mud.
The other’s just gone.
You give up and go.

Two tickets, the same
Numbers, your favorite
Numbers, but for two
Different lotteries.
Your numbers come in.

What if they come in
On the lost ticket?
What if they come in
On the one you found?
Which outcome means more?

Overimitating

Results in people learning
To keep making the mistakes
Of people they imitate.

Results in reinforcing
Local cultural patterns
And accruing more and more.

Results in literature,
Ritual repetition,
And more peculiar beliefs.

Results in terms competing
To be more imitated
Than all the rest of the terms.

The excess of a habit
Makes a playground for new life.