As Old Medallions to the Thumb

We get so excited talking
About ourselves, how we started
Talking, how we talk for ourselves,

Look at us, like people, talking,
Telling you all about ourselves!
But then there comes the exhaustion

And also all the listening,
And we’re not good at listening—
We’re worse than gods at listening,

Or worse at vague indications
That we might, could be listening,
The great specialty of the gods.

We chatter away, lines and signs,
But when you ask, we can’t respond.

Short-Timer with the Shades Down

There’s always the anecdote
Some friend of yours likes to tell,
Or your parents like to tell,

About that one character
In the neighborhood or in
The family tree somewhere

Who was always complaining
About sickness and aging,
Always one foot in the grave,

And lived that way, complaining,
Decades at death’s open door.
Maybe civilization

Is that hypochondriac,
Complaining with the shades drawn,
Miserable, durable.

Shhh

Words like to think
Of a wordless
Eden, garden
Where no one talked,

Not the chatty
Elohim, not
Kick-Ass-and-Take
Names El Shaddai,

Not Dirt Man, Not
Breathe Life Woman,
Not Tree of Life,
Not anyone.

Wordless serpents
Wreathe the branches.
If no one talks,
No sins can win.

Eighty-Nine Words for Snow

Every once in a while, someone
Wets themselves all over again
About a language that’s missing

An equivalent for some term
Common in the more common tongues—
A language without, say, colors

Or numbers or a word for time,
A future tense, a word for no.
Then the tussle starts all over,

As to what this might mean for thought.
Are the concepts themselves past reach
For the monolingual speakers

Of those languages? Or are they
Merely awkward, unfamiliar?
Or are the concepts still in play

But needing clusters of phrases
To express them? Does no one
Ask themselves the question—what if

The presence of terms misleads us?
What if terms suggest that concepts
Exist that don’t exist at all?

You’re fooled in that you think of snow.
Colors aren’t there. Nor are numbers.
There’s no time, no future, no no.

Patches and Exchange Programs

Maybe it’s better to treat
All the more notorious,
Misbegotten behaviors

People fall into, over
And over—the violence,
Pettiness, corruption, greed,

And general nastiness
To others undeserving
Of general nastiness—

As if they were addictions.
Assume that anybody,
However wise or careful,

Could stumble under their thrall,
And once under, need some help
For a chance at self-rescuing.

That’s the charm of forgiveness
And of original sin—
There’s some acknowledgement there

That bad behavior can spring
From unseen, underground streams
That seem to come from nowhere—

But the theology’s weak
Against recidivism—
The better treatment systems,

However imperfect, work
At amelioration,
Some modest harm reduction.

Human Maggots

This, according to a book,

A well-researched history,

Is what charity workers,

Charity workers helping

New immigrants to New York

From poor countries in Europe—

Countries in Europe, mind you—

Called those whom they were helping

Settle after quarantine.

After quarantine’s hardships,

People were often reduced

To pale and “huddled masses,”

Huddling en masse, for sure, now,

After that experience,

But really—human maggots?

Human maggots? As words

Go, we have to say, maggots—

Fly eggs eating provisions,

Provisions often corpses—

Suggests a particular

Nastiness—other people—

Other people, bear in mind—

As the manifestation

Of fecund death and disease.

Death and disease, however,

Aren’t maggots. What is eating

People, if you can repeat,

Can repeat and repeat, terms

Of abuse for each other,

Such as involve rotten meat?

Frankenlines, or How to Horrify Poetry

You could just read through

The first or last lines,

The first and last lines,

Of whatever might

Be of interest.

A few books reward

This—Finnegans Wake,

That ourobouros—

Novels with a great,

Killer opening

And a killer end—

But most writings won’t.

Many openings

Of poems are fragments.

A stunning fragment

Is rare and should be,

Probably, just left

Alone as the poem.

Read any index

Of opening lines.

You could hardly guess

Which poems you’d like best,

But there’s poetry

In the cruelty

Of monster-making

Those scraps for one whole

And horrible text.