Variation

The splendor of the shadows
Is the glory in the scene,
The blot that makes the brightness

Seem like something worth being
Seen as better than brilliance,
Which is never more than pain.

If there’s only a little light,
A table lamp, dim neon,
Moonlight, cloudy late twilight,

The shadows seem less welcome.
They’re still the calm that darkens
The waves, so that you can see,

By whatever instruments.
It’s not purely blinding sense.

How Much Dying

Have you witnessed, have you done,
Will you do? We’re not checking
Your morals. We’re asking you

To ask yourself and answer
Yourself, as you can, the truth.
There are many young bodies

Who have done very little
Dying yet, none of their own,
Who have seen too much, too soon.

There are peaceful elderly
Pensioners of prosperous
Nations, dying from the head

Down in assisted living
Homes who’ve never witnessed much.
Between youth and dementia,

Lie many more fortunate
Lives that will not have to do
Much dying or witnessing

Or forgetting what they saw
Before they vanish for good,
Not that they’ll see this as good.

But you may be one of those
Who will have to die so much,
Pain will obliterate thought,

Although you don’t think so yet,
Since, if you don’t hurt enough
You can’t think, can’t think you will.

The Greedy Present

July and clouds
Of flowers crowd
A window’s view

Not made for you,
But here you are,
Dazed, door ajar,

Happened to be
Near. Bumblebees,
Fuzzy monsters,

Search the flowers—
What do you have
For me to add?

Again and Against Again

What does replication do
To the topic of the poem?
Once dematerialized

And rematerialized
A few dozen times, do thoughts
Snagged on words get so worn thin

They’re more like webbing or smoke
In Monet’s views of London?
Maybe they’ll only achieve

Some dull, tub-thumping rhythm
From so much repetition.
There’s that sad idea again.

Ask any jazz musician—
A theme needs variation
To the point where one almost

Loses the ability
To sense the original
Melody. Then again, jazz

Has its own repetitive
Problems. Monet at Rouen
May not be the way you want

To come to terms with the world—
Oil paint, canvas, and the same
Facade, again and again.

Then again, for poor Monet,
Was there any other way?
Almost, but not quite. Again.

Don’t Look Forward

What could it possibly mean

For Tacitus if the rest

Of the Annals were found now,

Or for Aristotle if—

Or for Sappho if—or for

Any sages or poets

Known for a few works or none

From anywhere in the world

Where writing formed a habit—

What could it mean to writers

Dead for a few thousand years

If texts get rediscovered?

The value’s to the finders.

Any text lost long enough

Is some degree of precious,

But the text’s compositor—

Genius, hack, or bookkeeper—

Had better felt some value

In the act of writing it,

In mere, fine satisfaction

Of artifice or nothing.

Cliff Notes

Write what you can’t remember.
Write down what you used to know,
Everything that you forgot.

Call it imagination,
If you like. Call it darkness.
Watch it shrink-wrap what you write

Until a statistician
Could infer your loss of mind
From dwindling diversity

In your vocabulary.
Available memories
Will try to push to the front,

But you can get around them
And quit writing about them,
If you randomize enough.

Pick a date you were alive.
Use some form of throwing darts.
Repeat until you hit days

You can’t recollect at all,
Not even the surrounding
Events of note—ideally,

Not even a general
Sense of your life at the time.
The blanker, the better. Now,

Write. What is that like? Early
Attempts will be abstractions
Complaining about the blank,

But we’re not here to complain,
Are we? No. Early childhood
Doesn’t count. Only use it

If your memory’s too good,
And then be careful to skip
Across the glowing islands

Within mists of juvenile
Amnesia—go for those mists
Themselves. See what a fine spray

The more entropic waters
Of the fog make from the falls?
You can’t even see the edge!

Write about a basic term
You can’t picture anymore.
Tiptoe to the precipice

Where you can get vertigo
Asking yourself, what is this?
A fugue state? Temporary

Epileptic amnesia?
Estrangement? No? Estrangement?
No, I already thought that!

Damn it, what’s the word for this?
What are those things on the ground?
Why is there wind on my face?

The Fundamental Shape of Any Change Is Curved

What’s the largest
And the smallest
Of waves, measured
With confidence?

Gravity wave
At the deep end
And quantum wave
At the blink end?

If everything
Altogether’s
Also wave-shaped,
And no sub-quark

So small a point
It’s not a wave,
What have we learned?
God’s change’s curve?