So Far Away

The night is open, clear-eyed,
And the stars are welcoming,
But hopelessly far away.

Stare up from the desert floor
And consider all those shores.
Whatever they hold you won’t

Ever visit, not ever.
The night is open, clear-eyed
And welcoming, forever . . .

Your Line

Such a thin line between
Knowing and not knowing,
Someone writes somehere, but

It’s a slogan, likely
Completely incorrect.
Still, you might hit something

Digging that thick, packed
Line between knowing
And not knowing, that line

Between where everything
Isn’t and then it is.
You might hit something thick

And then that’s it. You’ve crossed
The thick, dense line between
Pretending, not being.

Coral Made

If the sea-nymphs really
Did as Shakespeare directed,
The cacophony of bells
For the bones dropped under the sea
Would be extraordinary.

How many billions of bones
Have there been? And hourly!
If you were a creature tuned
By selection to hear those bells,
You would stand entranced on shore,

Like a sessile sponge of some kind
Swaying in the undercurrent,
Mind captured by the constant
Murmuring of the bells of all
The bones and souls of the bells.

Leaving Meaning Alone

Soul, mind, consciousness, hug,

To embrace, to comfort,

Think valiant, comfort, joy—

Consider. A lost word

Rediscovered, remade

By branding, marketing

Late-capitalist style

(As if capital were

Ever truly just late),

And now you have tourists

Seeking Denmark’s hygge.

Soul, mind, consciousness, hugs—

Knitting Denmark’s meaning,

Meaning for the making.

Picking the Lock

Just the shadow of a waving bough
Moving the moonlight over your bed,
Lengthy fingers feeling for a latch —

The night with a black knife in its teeth,
Long as your forearm, serrated edge.
It’s nothing, or nothing much at least.

The wind snaps the occasional branch.
Something must be trying to get in,
Although there’s no reason to want to,

Really, in this corner of the mind,
Containing nothing especially
Valuable or original

On the few dusty old hardwood shelves.
Let the world be the world in itself.