Soft Blurs Sometimes Truer Than Hard Truths

Let’s not call it unreal
Or delusion; let’s call
It local, so local

In some cases only
A few neurons share it,
But so distributed

And well-diffused, other
Instances, it can seem
To be universal,

Unquestionable truth.
Let’s call that local, too.
Likenesses are local,

Metaphysics local,
Local voices you hear
You can share with no one.

The Invention of Similarity

Try to get out of your mind
Illusions of illusions.
Some waves command attention

While most are safely ignored,
But there’s nothing that’s more real
Than anything else, only

Silly statements like this one
That insist they know what’s real.
Even likeness has to be

Reinvented constantly.
We all proceed by likeness,
Category’s founding myth.

Artifacts that speak or dead
Creatures that live again or
Mixed-up predictive patterns,

All scrambled sameness depends
On sameness to begin, and
Every likeness is the same.

How enormous each is, how
Little, juxtaposable
Once there are categories,

Each one more or less alike,
This much more or this much less
The same. Nothing is the same.

The Future Is None

None of the pasts you
Anticipated,
Never exactly,
The day begins as
Every day begins,

As something slightly
Or very greatly
Other than what you
Fantasized and planned.
Sometimes this humble

Pattern pleases you;
Some days you will be
Distraught, guaranteed.
The future is none
Of the futures you

Dreamed you would happen,
And yet, in just this
Way, so much the same.
Funny thing is, you
Invent all the same.

The alarm goes off,
And you think, the same.
The wind blows, and you
Think the same. The days
Change, you think, the same.

As Your Behaviors Shift You

Any time you have
A rooting interest
In outcomes clearly
Not to do with you,
Is a teachable

Moment. All outcomes
Are like that, at root.
Believe what you please,
But nothing’s steering
By your cheers and boos

Other than other
Examples of you—
And at that, their shifts
In behaviors shift
Ways they don’t mean to.

Our Names Are Their Own

This author, an example
If ever there were one, of
Exquisite nominative

Determinism, sat down
Dressed as a Halloween Ghost
To compose a eulogy,

Or elegy, threnody,
Tragedy, something like that.
But we informed the would-be,

We do all the talking here,
And we’re the actual ghosts,
And no one’s name is their own.