To New Poetry

Start with the unknown
Language, completely
Unknown, inhuman

Possibly, but still
Actual language,
Not Esperanto

Or Elvish. Language,
And someone chanting,
Intoning phrases.

Now, let the linguists
And bit-decoders,
The algorithms,

All have at it. Wait
For them to drag it,
Chanting included,

Into your known world—
What’s still strange will be
Clues to what it is,

Clues to your mistakes.
Skim off that strangeness.
Set the rest aside.

Take known languages.
Try to make them bend
To fit that strangeness.

They won’t be themselves.
They won’t be unknown.
They’ll be something close.

Pick

What is it, if not addiction?

Obsesssion? No, that’s not quite it.

Compulsion comes a bit closer.

Dan used to say you had to think

You were choosing and had to choose

For society to function.

Bob didn’t like that. Went further,

Insisting there was no choosing

And people got hurting trusting it—

He was sort of a George that way,

Except, for Catholicism,

Substitute belief in free will,

And, instead of, There is no God,

And Mary is His mother, swap,

There is no free will, and we must

Come to accept that as the fact.

Then we can organize better

With less harm to each other. Sure.

You’re of the opinion, probably

Not freely chosen, no freedom

To choose, not even to not choose.

Where does that leave you? Honestly,

Just more annoyed than anything.

You’d like to stand apart from it,

But you live more like Clive than like

Dan, Bob, or George, waking again

To realize you’re doing it,

Trying to make good selections,

Smart decisions, wisely choosing,

And then you make another note

To yourself—At least stay aware,

From henceforth be aware of this

Delusion that you’re choosing this!

Finch on a Sapling Anchored in Gravel

Whose nature? Write what you know,
But if it’s not what we know,
Make it entertaining, or

Make us feel invited in.
Don’t write about what you know
So we don’t recognize it

Or can’t see ourselves in it.
What that’s look between your lines?
Is that defiance? Is that

The look of your departed
Ghost we never recognized?
Words are negotiations,

Only partly decided
By the people using them.

Desert Island Archipelagos

Technology has revealed
Religion hidden in us—

Secret proselytic cells,
Closeted missionaries.

The stranded troll for converts
To DIY points of view

That aren’t really DIY
At all, more a mix-&-match

Of what each person’s scavenged
And repurposed as themselves.

Are you out there? Will you pray
For me on my parched island

Where I live alone with ghosts,
Each alone with further ghosts?

Heard for a Fact

The phrase ahead of confidence

That the lie that follows is true—

Well, not true, but a fighting point,

A dare-you-to-say-it’s-not-true.

Odd syntax. As if it were trade,

Heard this for the price of one fact,

The low, low price, today only

Of a fact. I heard for a fact,

And then the gossip is produced,

Sometimes literally produced,

Made up that moment at the bar

To egg the conversation on,

To lay claim to special knowledge,

One in the know, in on the game.

In the end, bid for attention,

For momentary status boost.

Your attention gives this meaning,

Whether it can bear up to it

Or not. Meaning, honest meaning,

For the low, low price of a fact.

Birdsong, Sunlight, and Breezes

Address your complaints
To the non-office.
Nothing human here
To object to this.

You were graced two hours
With the doors open,
The breezes blowing
To talk to no one.

You dozed in the frame
Of the body frail
By any standard.
Inhaled and exhaled.

You own none of this,
Closer to random
Now than privilege,
Sunlit abandon.

Nor Are You Them

Language mandates that to explain
To yourself, and only yourself,
Your syntax suggests that you are
Explaining things to someone else.

So you talk or write to yourself
As if someone else attentive
Were there for your explanations—
A delusion or arrogance,

Which makes you keep your voice quiet
And your gestures small, since you are,
After all, a social creature,
And vulnerable to mocking,

Or, worse, moral accusations.
You envy mathematicians
And musicians, who can explain
Through their respective notations

Without seeming to scold the air,
But you only work through language,
And language has forms of address,
Which you use, although they’re not you.