Melodic Fragment

The things that seem to come back
Mostly don’t, are mostly new
Notes being played, reminding

You of the earlier notes
In the same melodic shape.
Or maybe most of something

Does return, your partner back
From running a few errands,
Same person. But different,

Also, slightly, of course, and
Who knows, maybe a haircut!
Or a new coat. Or maybe

Your partner never comes back.
Maybe the police show up.
Maybe you will never know.

But something comes back. Something
Is awfully similar,
Although this habit is yours.

With certain kinds of strokes, you’ll
Lose the habit completely.
Every moment will be strange.

Is that it then? Your sameness
You note’s something you produce?
The melody’s haunting you.

Fun Personality Quiz!

Which of these five types are you?
First, would you prefer to know,
The rules or the instructions?

If you refuse to answer,
But ask for the history
Of the game, that’s intriguing.

If you’d rather know how games,
Rules, and instructions evolved,
You’re our lost soul in person.

And if you stare back blankly,
As if innocent of games,
You’re the cosmos spawning them.

Profound Is As Feels Profound

Captain Obvious would like to remind you
It’s a different sort of feeling, this is good,
When you’re counting on things going on this way,

Than when you think the situation’s fleeting.
It’s only since the latter good’s more troubling,
Almost worse than feeling things are briefly bad,

That an advice industry’s sprung up around
Mastering the pretense that you have no clue
Whether this good feeling will end soon or not.

There’s no core metaphysics of the present.
There’s nothing spiritually truer or wise
To feeling like this life you’re living right now

Is as good as forever, ever present,
This clear sunny morning in a parking lot
Under picturesque cliffs in brisk autumn air,

That you know you may have to leave behind soon
For something else you doubt you’ll find as pleasant.
It’s just comforting. So what? Comfort’s profound.

Memory Against Imagination

Watching a time lapse of the ovals,
Bands, and oblong blobs of Jupiter
And its moons rotating and tumbling

Against the habitual backdrop
Of largely black space, the brain
Accepts what it’s been told to see,

Beauty, science, mythology.
Try not rearranging this,
The brain whispers to itself.

It’s only more memories of pretty
Patterns in a glowing glass.
Try not to start extrapolating

Into reimagined interactions.
Stay here. Let the past pass.

Lark Was a Night Owl

You’re a creature of habit
Whose principal habit seems
To be changing your habits.

At the cafe, they know you.
You’re a regular. Then you
Disappear. At the corner

Bar they knew you, too, and at
That familiar gas station.
You had the same thing for lunch

For years and then never ate
Lunch at all ever again.
You wrote notes in a neat hand

On a folded paper kept
In the same pocket decades,
And then you stopped taking notes.

One day you’ll notice breathing
Is a hell of a habit.
Bartender asks where you’ve been.