Vultures

A local storm
Brews up a spot
Of wind and wet.
Somewhere, people

Are perishing
In serious
Weather, but here
It’s more like fun,

Feels fun at least
To the children
Beside the pond,
Until adults

Make them get back
In pickup trucks
And drive them off.
The storm goes on.

Until and Maybe Even After

Don’t care too much what you mean.
If you’re the part expressing
Mind into the world, you won’t

Be the source of the meaning
Anyway. You made the thing.
However well or poorly

Made, it can only invite
Others to bring their meanings
To throw some glow out of it.

Good for you, you made a lamp.
It’s not lighting anything
Until or maybe even after

Someone else brings the candle,
Or bulb and wire, kerosene—
Whatever they’ve got burning.

Or Sleep Then Go

Dying isn’t going.
Dying’s loss of function.
The functions go—that’s kind

Of going. Something goes,
But dying can complete
Itself in present flesh,

The present corpse before—
Sometimes long, long before—
The corpse goes. Hi, Ötzi.

The functions go, and then
Taphonomy varies
Widely—in bogs, in caves,

In ice, sand, bitumen.
In a way, dying is
Only what’s first to go.

Not to be cute, but death
Is just the beginning
Of disintegrating.

So no, life’s not going
For naught anytime soon,
Not for the likes of you.

So Moving

Desirous of triumph over
Your desire to triumph over,

You peruse the literature
Of peace in your mind, but the mind

Just pretends it can be appeased.
The mind has bigger things in mind

Than your calm, little animal.
Some pawns get to live the whole game

Sitting stilly on the first square
Where they were placed. Others are pushed

All over the world. Most are gone
Before the game is over, but

Even if you never moved once,
Never lived chilling adventures,

Were never taken, sacrificed,
The game still ends. You’re desirous

Of triumph over your desire
Since neither triumph nor desire

Have any gifts to give to you
Other than the end of them both.

You think this quietly somewhere
Waiting for something to move you.

Death’s Self Is Sorry

For all of it,
Really, and not
Just the children.

Death would take it
All back, give it
All back, since Death

Is big-hearted
Like that. Kinder
Than War, kinder

Than gods who give
Death directions
Like their gofer,

Kinder than life
By far. Death’s self,
If Death were God,

Would see to it
All the prolonged
Dying ended,

At least, at least
That much. Also,
If Death could choose

One other thing,
Please, it would be
You had a choice.

All the Vices of Our Virtues

Whether or not they exist
Independently of names
For them, the presence of names

For them, even for either
One of them, ensures their bond.
Every virtue has its vice,

And maybe every virtue
Is a vice and vice-versa.
This is only upsetting

Insofar as these labels
Are part of the fairness game,
The endless game of deserves,

And who doesn’t want to win?
It can be astonishing
When the most wicked persons

Hurl accusations of vice—
So astonishing, it’s thought
Surely they must be aware,

Self-consciously aware, how
Hypocritical they are,
But maybe they aren’t. They’re bad,

And they’re angry at the bad
In everyone else as well.
Everyone mock-humbly says

They know that they’re not perfect.
But they believe they would be
If they could, more than you would.

It’s All on the Surface

You’re just between us, now,
And what were we, ever,
If not you forever,

And what was forever,
If not what we thought you
Were, in a way, always?

We’re trying not to think
What anyone else might
Think about you as us,

But what could we think you
Were wasn’t us in you,
You in us, thinking us?

The pond’s surface wavers,
And that’s us, and clouds move,
And that’s you within us,

And everyone we don’t
Want to think of seeing
Us rows boats between us.