Ansae

Not so much wheels within wheels
As hoops atop hoops, this world,

This cosmos of fields and fires
That loop from cold near zero

To furnaces that explode.
And what should you make of this

On your downtime between wars,
Feuds, petty thefts, police states,

Lynchings, riots, elections,
Hunts, assaults, gossip, slacking,

Grooming, barn raising, races,
Supply chains, education,

And all the rest of the strange
And instructive games you play?

What extends swings round again.
Every journey is an arc

Connecting disparate parts
To get a handle on them.

Fierce stars burn throughout the sky
That will never touch your eyes,

But somewhere a messenger
From your species, from your Earth,

Traces its long hinge from life
To deep space and back again.

You read that right. Back again.
Voyager will come again,

Like Jesus and like Harlem,
But don’t go waiting up nights.

Mirror, Doorway, Window, Walls

So, you want to get outside of art.
What doesn’t reflect or protect entraps,
Something like that.

                                   Funny about writers,
How, if a house is the day’s metaphor,
They want to inhabit it forever or
Tear it all down. No one seems content

To step out for a short while, to not stare
At the mirror or glumly out the window, not
Lean in the doorway, head against the wall

Nonchalantly or despairingly or being
Banged again and again ‘til it bleeds
And the ears ring. Just take it outside,

And not for some heroic hike or walkabout,
Not for some organized event, some
Gossipy lunch where you can take notes

For that novel life already wrote.
There. In the borrowed courtyard, on
The busy street, the quiet lane, the park

Bench. Art. Can’t see yourself, can’t lurk
Behind a tree trunk or lamppost as well
As at a window, can’t keep your hand

On the handle of that front door you open
And close.

                     Open and close.

                                                 Open and
Close. Weather is the best weather
For a poem, and the sky will tell you how
Things are. Really are. Really good or bad

They are.
                 Hot this morning. Quiet,
Untroubled day. Who can be like you?
Fantasies cease, there’s so much time.

The mind yawns.                   It’s so quiet.

Writers don’t just go outside. Even plain
Air has to mean something more, or
They get bored. It means nothing more.

Well, unless those are drones surveilling
The protestors in the sunny square.

Wait. Don’t leave us here. Take us back
Inside to sigh. Signs start to fade outside.

Turning So Simply on Its Own Innocent Axis

This tree! All the birds and you
Can’t swallow the fruit it wastes.
It’s too much. It grew and grew,
This tree. All the birds and you,
Starved, can’t clean up all the blue
It’s left in dirt. It’s disgrace,
This tree. All the birds and you
Can’t swallow the fruit it wastes.