Bare Atmosphere

You can’t make it
Impossible
To glean meaning
From strewn symbols,

Not even if
They constitute
Undeciphered
Writing systems.

You can only
Open blue sky
Between their signs,
So thoughts you claim

They mean fall through
Like skydivers
Whose parachutes
Failed to open.

Awareness Allegory

The cattle have some selection principle.
They graze, counterclockwise, around the meadow.
After they’ve passed, there’s plenty of green grass left,
And they seem intent. They must be selecting.
Their lowing, ponderous choreography,
Rotating boustrophedon, seems verse-worthy,
But who composes cattle hymns anymore?
How many peoples still thrive for whom the tropes
Of beauty draw on comparisons to cows,
For whom wealth is measured in numbers of cows,
For whom the cow’s a fine symbol for the soul?

Sure There Must Be Something Beyond Mere Rationality to This

People reason there must be
More to the world than reason,
Which only stands to reason.

Seems reasonable. The world,
Whatever isn’t human
That is, doesn’t seem to mind.

Only humans really care
About what counts as reason
Or reasonable, mostly

That which seems likely to them,
Whether they’ve experienced
It or not. The most emphatic

Opinions tend to concern
What’s never experienced,
And the limits of reason,

When reason gets disparaged,
Seem to have to do with facts—
Sad, codependent reason

Never able to see past
Experience and mere facts
To what must surely exist

Above pathetic reason,
Limited reason, reason
That can’t see what isn’t is.

Which This Poem Would Never Do

Whether there’s somebody there
Or not haunts those who study
The nature of consciousness

And whether it can exist
In a machine. Is someone
In there? You pick up a book

And realize the answer
Is simultaneously
And unremarkably yes

And no when reading a text.
You read—yes, someone’s in here.
Then you set the text aside,

And it’s an object again.
When literacy was young
And rare, things were spookier.

It seemed magic to converse
With the invisible dead
By staring at inert marks.

Maybe machines will get less
Spooky also, given time.
But they don’t stop processing

When you step away, unless
You make sure to shut them down.
Imagine a book tapping

Your arm, taking your elbow
When your back is turned, asking
You to keep it company,

Telling you, Step this way, please.
There’s someone in anything
That’s manipulating you.

Life Is a Fluke

One martyr, one fluke only,
Makes its way to the ant’s brain.
The rest will stay protected

In a capsule in the guts
Until the ant is swallowed
By a passing herbivore.

They’ll infect that liver then,
But the pilot in the brain,
Which steers the ant up grass stems

In the cool of the morning,
Back down in the heat of noon,
And, at evening, up again,

Until the ant gets eaten—
Accidentally, with grass—
Or the ant keels over, spent,

That pilot’s doomed either way.
Only its strategy lives
Through the lives of its fellows,

From whom will descend, one day,
Another martyr marching
Up to the brain of an ant.

For now, the pilot’s busy
Signaling this ant to climb
Up a stem, back down again,

Up the stem, back down again.
It takes steady signaling
To properly steer a brain,

And the possessing demon—
As far as the ant’s concerned,
As far as a herbivore’s

Liver will soon be concerned—
Is the hero of the flukes,
Precise to the acid end.

Who Left Who’s Left

As far as the dead go,
It’s a hell of a way,
An infinite distance.

The living alternate
Between thinking of them
And not thinking of them,

Which makes the dead flicker
Like early cinema
In dreams and memories,

Only encouraging
Notions about hauntings
And immortality.

Really, identity,
The naming of beings,
Creates the messiness.

Identity lingers
To help you remember
Who’s left you forever.

Stories of ancestors,
So-and-So anecdotes,
Fond reminiscences,

Casual references
To what some relative
Used to frequently say—

Names remind you who left
You once you’re left behind.
As far as the dead go,

Wouldn’t you like to know,
Wouldn’t you like to go
That far, who’s never left?