Mine with Inner Weather

The dwelling requires a troglophile.
The outside enters too easily,
But the inside’s always damp and dark.

The firelight, the animal murals,
The incredibly long-lived creatures
That actually belong, colorless

And quiet and small, the dragonlings,
White crickets eaten by eyeless fish.
Everything’s an immigrant in here;

Every life’s an invasion. Outside,
The weather rages between extremes,
The snowstorms, wildfires, flash floods and drought,

And the mammals near the entrances,
The pack rats, bats, hyenas, and bears
Breathe in and out of the gaping mouth,

But deeper, everything’s dreamier,
The inner weather damp but constant,
Nearly constant, not that different

From the inner rooms of any house,
Any modern dwelling, skyscraper,
Office, tenement apartment-block,

Homeostatic, but less designed,
More porous than all but the poorest,
And even if you come to love it,

Call it yours, think of it as yourself,
You know you’re still alien in it,
You with your ochre, artwork, and torch.

Anticonic

Not iconoclastic,
Not smashing anything,
Pulling down old idols,

Defacing portraiture,
Melting stained-glass windows,
Breaking statues’ noses,

None of that. Not about
To make more images,
That’s all. We know you want

A world to spring to life
In your head reading us.
Denied. We’re not painting

A picture for you, see?
Imagine this yourself.

Self Portrait as a Self Portrait

Look. Who is that walking over the snow?
Who is that stomping toward you, through snow?

You tense up, twitch between continuing
Your walk through the snow or turning your back.

Who is this continuing a straight line
Toward you, this blurry someone in black?

The urge to turn away becomes stronger.
The black’s foreboding. The white hurts your eyes.

The contrast’s disturbing. If it were spring,
Summer, even autumn, there’d be color,

But who can keep going in black and white?
This one can. Stares straight at you. It’s you.

Mulched Metaphors

The best place to hunt brown bears
Is where there’s lots of brown bears.
The best place to hunt language
Is where the woods teem with words.

If you stare at memory,
Whatever’s in front of you,
All well and good to assert
All things are intelligent,

That the world, the universe
Is sentient, but then how
Does that help you deal with waste,
Survive, take out the garbage?

Just dig into the midden,
Be a ragpicker, hunter
Of worth in the discarded.
Claim your trophies that aren’t smart.

In Terrified Praise of Vague Concepts

Life, freedom, consciousness, love,
Existence, art, and meaning,
Among others, are all vague

Since they all feel meaningful
And distinguished from other
Terms, including each other,

But are especially tough
To decompose into parts
Or define through your senses

As remembered sensations—
Most especially meaning
Itself, that closed, spinning loop.

Dread the cloud words, nebulous,
But ferocious in their storms.

Bed

Yes, you can think of places
You might rather be
Someday, eventually,
In the long run, but

This moment this is the place
Of the places you could be
That you want to be
Right now, and you know

Someday, eventually,
In the long, long run,
You won’t be. So sleep.

To Serve Meaning

Meaning must have served you once.
Well, not you in your own life,
But your ancestors, people

Almost entirely like you
Just then starting to create
Meaning in information.

It must have served them, served well.
It still isn’t hurting you
Too much, not by the measures

Of life. Why, just look at you!
Billions and billions of you,
And most of those billions new.

But the relationship’s changed,
Hasn’t it? Somewhere back there,
Meaning went from dependent

To what you depended on
And from there to what you serve.
Just listen to yourselves howl

When your lives feel meaningless,
Begging to know what it means,
To find a little meaning.