Reading Dissolves Selves

What could a message ask you
So you’d feel compelled to read
And then reread the question?

Are we speaking for ourselves,
Or for the window dresser
Of this vitrine’s mise-en-scène?

No, that’s not the one. Are we
Evolving or just pushpins
You tack up your ideas with?

No, that’s not the one, either.
Is there justice in this world?
No, that’s just a feint. We want

To ask you something you know,
Or may be able to know,
That we don’t. Where’d you just go?

Blackberry Vines

We would assume the beggar

Sleeping by the overgrown

Schoolhouse, in Whittier’s poem,

Is Theodor Kittlelsen’s

Fattigmannen in waiting.

That gray-haired man at the end

Of the sentimental scene,

Remembering the sweet girl

Who felt badly for being

A better speller, because

She loved him, is also him,

Perhaps hallucinating

On approach to starvation.

There’s an acid-green volume,

Likely dyed in arsenic,

Of Whittier’s poems buried

Somewhere in all used bookstores

In the U.S.—John Greenleaf

Printed in gilt lettering

On the front—or used to be.

The ragged beggar’s in there.

Poison Pen

No, really. Would you
Write with it, knowing
That it would both kill

You, eventually,
But write everything
You wanted it to?

The real Faustian
Bargains are always
For life, not your soul,

This world, not the next.
If you write at all,
Dream of achievement

Thanks to what you write,
Making a living,
A killing, even,

Then you’re familiar
With the poison pen.
Don’t feel so special.

Those who paint or sign,
They know the poisoned
Brush and gestures, and

Anyone who speaks
Knows the poisoned throat.
Language was the tree

And rooted serpent,
Its poisoned ivy,
Clinging with curved claws.

Language was your myth
And myth’s embodied
God in your garden,

Strolling through, calling
Your name with the words
You knew would shame you.

The Place of Strife

Such were the conventions of former times

The old laws weren’t wiser

Except for their era,

Except in their own eyes.

Their places of strife,

Questions of ownership—

Marketplaces, bedrooms—

Remain places of strife.

Maybe they rained local

Ameliorations

During a reign or two,

If that. Then violence

Sprang back, the carnivore

Sprayed, pressed back in its cage,

Released. The place of strife

Lies in your thoughts, your skull

Where you mutter cases,

Fairnesses, punishments,

Vengeance as you see fit,

Justice as you see it.

You’re muttering now, now

In your own era’s eyes.

Endless Likeness

Each time you improve
Your focus, the range
Of your depth of field,

There’s more, always more.
Every empty thing
Turns out to be full

Of smaller, farther,
Fainter, brilliant things.
Each time, something’s new

And unexpected,
While something’s ruled out.
Whether gravity

Or nothing ever
Explains this, it is
Like it likes itself.

Packaging Era

Once upon a time, the world was like this.
Helicopters landed on swanky lawns
To deposit well-to-do hotel guests.

Helicopters shot at people below
And were shot down themselves in the war zones.
Helicopters rescued lost backpackers,

Reported on the traffic and weather,
Ferried celebrity politicians,
Musicians, and athletes, some of whom died

In infamous helicopter crashes.
And that’s not half what helicopters did,
But helicopters were the least of it.

It was just like that in the world those days.
Everywhere, humans packaged everything
Including humans, in noisy machines

That floated and juddered around the world,
Crisscrossed the proverbially crisscrossed
Lanes of oceans, superhighways, tunnels

Under mountains, dirt tracks over mountains,
Rails parting monoculture waves of grain,
And that packaging packaged packaging—

Shipping containers of shrink-wrapped boxes,
Jet holds and overheads crammed with luggage,
The jets roaring over Antarctic ice.

Every kind of transported packaging,
Like every kind of loud machine transport,
Had multiple competitive uses

In war or peace, racketing back and forth,
Sometimes with more people packaged in them,
More often packing more goods or weapons.

Those helicopters were just typical,
Whether carrying or killing people,
Of that noisily packaged world back then.

The Shadow Boxer’s Split Decision

One of the neighbors
Usually sleeping
Glows through a window,

Bald head like the bright
Light bulb in his lamp,
Reflecting, reading

One of the big books
He claims that he keeps
For insomnia.

Overhead, the stars
And the galaxy,
And canyon night winds

Circle the courtyard.
You’re out and watching
As you do most nights,

Not reading, shadow
Boxing, reciting
And recomposing,

Years spent practicing
For us, your practice.
Meteor flashes.

No one else tonight.
Winning means no more
Than what you can mean.