the quantum box

the quantum box
holds superposed
a pussycat
with cute pink nose
who is both dead
and not right now
and no one knows
unless, until
we lift the lid
(or hear meow)

(except I know,
because I switched
the poison capsule
for a pill
of extra-strength
placebo grade
- if particle
decays, it will
do nothing much!
But still, let's
pray. Poor pussycat
does not enjoy
such play)

the bloom

the bloom of youth
is off us both.
there's nothing
left to hope for us,
except for what
I always hoped:
the growing old
together, growing
trust.

free wist

Free will, he argued. I know
not why. Why not, I guessed
my fancy free as anyone's
- so his must be. At least
there isn't any bind, or bond,
not even James, to kiss
or kill the freely wandering
of wish, and wist, and whim
- what will?

this point.

We irritate each other such
that even slight remarks touch off
- remind
without quite bringing up
the grievances
grown hard inside
- too small
to bring up at the time,
we find.

a proven technique

I walk outside
somewhere mostly sky and living things,
if large water, cool.
Big and lumpy cool,
but trees alone
and some high, scuppled clouds

will do in a pinch. And I do

the opening-to-sensory overload
thing. I try
to pay attention
just to what's streaming in
through every sense.
A distant song,
a smattering of overlapping bird calls,
the water, the rustle, the wind,
the hot pine smell,
my skin
my airways and lungs,
my throat,
my lips
and the impact of earth
traveling up my legs. The sight

panoramic and minuscule, all at once
- expanding attention to all at once
but doting on each detail the point
of my mind will touch as I go, and let
go. If I see

something cool

I may stop and just look. All over
it at first, then settle on one point
and let persistence of vision build up
like melting periphery and lightning-flash
through cracks of surface texture, holding
my gaze on, and through one point
but geeking out on the intrusion of tiny shift
and shake that ripples all through. Especially

valid for use on the right kind of clouds
- the kind that look like breaking waves
with streaming spray of cirrus.

This is a proven technique
to drive words and connected series
from thought. Some people can do it
indoors! I tend

to wake up
at a road someplace
unfamiliar, remembering
every step of the way

but none of the time passing.

footpads.

Instead, we pad around on beans
as nimble as some master's paws,
so sleek and still invisible.
He knows we'll never come to call.
But catspaws always at the beck
of universes, come correct.
We are not shall not masters be.
We're too consumed in mastery.

two of the creatures

I am one of the
creatures, moving around
I would fix my persistent
stare upon you
'til I figure you out.
It's true you could
pounce! I would skitter
like lightning-quick
striking away, and you'd
miss me and

flounce.

match from nowhere

You are the match
that tumbled out of the world,
to strike
such a spark from my flinty strip.
I sat
at the end of the dock,
casting lines,
in hopes of a catch

it came so quick.

hierarchy of we

It's nice to be wanted
it's nice to be missed,
it's nice to be needed.
It's better to kiss

the gift we had gotten to know

No good things end well.
Only bad things
end well, because you
are well out of them. So
if you are in a thing
that is good, has been good
- a thing that ever you once would
have wished could go on forever?

Please know it will end not well.

Don't want it to
Do not wish for that, but
perhaps never end?

That's swell.
You can bank on it.
But if balance has dwindled
to breaking point, and you wish
you were well out of what
you've become - but you can't
just end. It would hurt
someone.

who you love like yourself
a thing that you know in this world
at its best, can never repeat

Do not wish
after such good fortune
and so much bliss
for the end to be sweet.

Do not diminish the good
that it is, or even was - it is
in reach! It still
can be saved! Or can it
not? Of such bitter pills
we sit down to feast, but our cups
never empty so long we live
though he meat with which
we fill our mouths may rot, They spill
still with all the good
that flowed.

The bad fades, the good
is forgot, but - has entered
into us, metabolized. It is blood
and bone and muscle
and tears and snot. You will live

with it always,
now

the treasure you had,
that you have:

the one gift.

of getting to know.

and giving to it
as good as you got.

front-row critic

Sometimes, you just want to step
back from your life, make some popcorn -
sit down and watch, spellbound! But

all of the actors would get confused
and the show would grind, and grind
in fits and starts - like it always does

when you try to take a break, from being
you. Their eyes turn

in awkward and piteous appeal
- they can't put it in words,
it's not in the script - can't break
character, that would reflect
on them - they really do

give a shit, sometimes

and you say "OKAY! I was just

hungry for a big bag of butter
and salt, and puffed fluffy
kernel-y CORN. Hold your horses,"

you'll be right there. The relief
onstage is a cross to be borne.

unother

another exact
same thought process! - See?
That's exactly why I speak
my mind! It's fun
what a match comes tumbling
out,
especially with
some one so fine.

stochasticism

Done for no reason, or not at all.
Things should be, I mean.
That's my motto,
and every call
that I make along lines
tends to curve and arc
either towards or away
from shine,
or dark,
or stimulus, so-called
(perceived). Chances are
I'm indifferent to all such cues
- at least, so I
have been forced
to observe
I believe.

I was thinking of some
-thing else, just then. When
I did the thing. Something else besides
reason or principle, or any such
so-called second-order
reasoning. You see
In any given
moment - the decisive one,
stretching out for subjective
weeks, maybe

until just when you'd otherwise think
(or you'd think so) (you'd think
you would) - in that moment,

the utter white noise
of one's mind kicks in for good,
wipes blank in a massive,
flashing laser array of focus,
and drives away all concerns
both extraneous and otherwise
that you'd find. And it's off!

Chasing a white hot crazy dance
and scamper and slide! After
a disembodied dot
a disemprojected point of light
from a nonexistent laser pen,
being chased in turn by
an absolute cat
- which may or might
exist, but can't
at this moment
be reached. Which is good
because more to the points of its
imagined claws
- can't reach you. And within which,

(the cat?!)

there is only one point
in the world
to be missed: of awareness,

perhaps

it is always off-joint,
in-focus, mid-kilter
and gone for a ride

in accordance with prophecy
got up impromptu, a vulgar
and rude self-anointing
decided upon to mislead
the cat. No dice. We tried. It
skews ever so
slightly up,
in a twinkling, a trice
we arrive now radically home, as I try
to look on the lopside
of things. That's just as
things lie, so to be precise
I always try to look there,
when I see what's-what.

I succeed, pretty much
inevitably.

If you ever ask me
for the reasons involved?

"It is what it seems,"
I will hint,

"There are three,"
but don't push me for details
that I won't solve. Instead, join me
now - let's find it all out
as we live and breathe,
and our minds revolve
in our heart's desire, perchance
to dissolve.

I was kidding.
There aren't "three" that's just
kind of an in-joke, you know. Any time
you stump me with a poser I'll start off,
Well,
"There are three main reasons"
and I just make them up!
Good ones, usually. But

they were not even present,
were never referred to
at the decision-level. The end
only came to being
because of the sentence. "Explanations"
maybe

would be a better word.
And I assure you

there are three.
There are always three
it's a little absurd

moral code

You can’t tell the right from wrong
’Cause you don’t what truth you’re on
And I have found the mother-lode
But you can’t break the moral code

You could be an acolyte
Initiate your wrong from right
But there is only one way to -
You must reveal me all of you,
And wipe you clean of purity
Then give your empty mind to me
Just dump the junk you came in with -
The junk we’ve got is much more bliss

A recipe from ignorance
A dash or two of innocence
- for that refreshing citrus twist!

Yeah you can’t tell the right from wrong
’Cause you don’t know what truth you’re on
And I have found the mother-lode
But you can’t break the moral code

Connection strong.

I like
to be
connected with
the world, but
really more "connected
to" is what
it is. A type
of window
turned on things.
Kaleidoscopes of view. It keeps
informed, and lets me share

what's on out there. I keep up
with
the people who
I once impressed, who
once or twice
or many times impressed me
um so deeply and
so much and well, that this

is how we keep
in touch. We keep
connection fresh.
Connection strong.

We volunteer a slice
a glimpse

and that's what's going on.

interesting homes

May you live in interesting
homes, with shelves of books
around a hearth. A touch
unsafe, but homey though!
You're careful once the
fires start, and carefree
when you know they're out.

You're making up the bed
for sleep, and comfortable
looks between, and everything
such deep, familiar fond
and sharpish intimacies
can mean, or every place
they lead. You're making up
the bed like words, so soft
and even, tucked and neat
- then suddenly dove in
to splurge! Gave in
to urge. And out again

to linger in the wax
and wane of candlelight
and well-spent breath.

You're making up the bed
again.

You're making up the breakfast
nook, with doilies you could love
to death. You're making up
the chandelier - there isn't
one! Just made
it up! Imagination shines
so much more clear
in interesting homes. And may
you live in one. And may it be

your own. And perhaps mine?
At least, when I'm
around you make it so.
It's how it feels.
You make it up.

And even when I go, it feels
there are so many things
in there, to do - with oh!
Most anyone invited to,
I'd have to guess. But I
shall not.

Let's have a game. Let's have
a party - smallish, though. Not some
huge bash! Unless, let's have.
Let's have what's wanted
every day we want it back.

You're making up the favors,
now. In little bags of colored
cut, with handle strings and
tufts tucked in, diaphanous,
they cushion stuff.

You're making up the stage
for shows of sock puppets
and marionettes, in stage
magician capes and hats,
and ballet dress, and
slipperglass. The play goes
on with dialogue and tricks
all improvised: the moral

(at the end) is wise.

For we
have interested our selves
in living lives, and making up

a place for them. Right here.

it's funny how
we can.

Typical approach

Observantly, you stormed back
into the apartment you'd never seen
to confront the betrayer of your trust
in a mirror, and make it regret
it had ever been clean. Once inside,

you apologized to your hosts
who were out at the time
in the street, crying help
and police, and you left

them a thoughtful gift: on their
dining room table! A centerpiece
made of natural, healthy organic
things such as you love to eat
and to spread around. Out the back,

through the locked french doors,
you could see quite a sizable yard
- like the one you once had, and
it made you frown. How do I keep

losing so much good in my life?

Well, the answer to that

is - you know! Catching sight
of the vinyl collection and amped
surround-sound, you cranked it to max,
and slipped on Bryan Adams's

"Cuts Like A Knife"

as the moment wore into the floor,
the foundation, the ground.

Welp,

How do I catch on
to the next thing everyone's going
to know, to dissect endlessly with
humor and pathos like Game of Thrones, except
not chasing after to catch up,
and jump on? I don't

need to be the first responder,
the earliest adopter, I just want

to be in

from the word go
or just after, then settle in
for the ride of one's life (or
a damn good distraction from,
anyhow), settle in

For years of cultural relevance

with my peers. Not as some big chore!
To investigate and eventually

figure out why
it's a big deal.

(HINT: it's because
everyone else thinks so! And
they spend a good portion of
their lives, talking about
their lives, using handy
touchstones like these
as shared reference.)

No I hate
that. Having to figure that
out from scratch. Why am I always
the one on the outside, sneering
piteously at "How could we possibly

be so into this? Is it THAT good? Do
YOU think so?" Oh yes

Oh man you have no idea YES
it is.

Welp,

I missed it

this time.

And from what I hear,
it turned out again about as rushed,
jumbled and wrong as usual. Lost

the plot in search of its significance,
confused the characters for a narrative
device and made mashed hash of pretensions
to meaning or endless, timeless heft.

But next time I bet it's better, and
how do I catch on? I've never been

involved in one of these. Seems

fun!

Not my significant other

You are not
my significant other. You are
my meaningful one. You are not
one thing, and mean other things
by symbol and sign to be understood,
You are yourself. Which you mean
direct, and everything in you
I've seen is good.

The finest book

The finest book I ever read
Which one?
Oh no, you wouldn't have
Come on.
It isn't written yet.
Then how'd you read it?
In my head.
What's it about then?
Everything. All this shit
happens. Characters get
all at odds on what
to do. But mostly it's
about how they get
through.

Our famous conversations

We need one
of our famous conversations.
The kind that go on tour for years,
keep weaving back in criss-cross mode
dotting all the countryside with one
and two and three night shows,
cracking out their greatest hits
with brand new variations
we'll be bringing up forever
in our shared and secret,
private observations.

Like a living language,
thick with signs and wonder
grown between us, growing
under, growing over. Growing
older. Like the world
sometimes seems to become
a private joke we guilty
share? We who know. Except
it isn't funny, though. Just
something unexplainable
to others. We need one
of those. I mean, I know,
we've had a few - and this
is what it's grown into. Let's

just talk, then. It's not
the kind of thing that ever goes
to plan.

It's bound to, though.

limelight lich or revenant?

Before you bowed out of the media's glare
you were going somewhere, going somewhere
and when you returned in impostor mode
you had found something, you truly glowed
in the light
in the smoke
in the bullet's hail
everything you said was invulnerable
you drew shadows strategically placed just-so
you turned without fail.
All the light that fell on you
knew it was part of the show.
On the inside, do you wail
anymore? Or just sit at controls
and work your ways? Without a trace
- are you dying inside, or just undead?
Have you found your way back to the human race?
Have you come back to life for good?
Or revenge? What lengths shall you go?
I'm just glad
to have you back
at all,

you know.
My friend

cradling arms

helpless and invincible
you make us young enough to hold
potentials of the whole wide world
again. That you're too young to hold
That you're too young to figure out
and we grew up to understand
that so were we, but it's okay

We're sold.

I'll tell you when you're older, I
will tell you when you're old enough
to know
that you don't have to know
what you don't have
to know.

The bad day.

There was a point of sensation
on her arm.
It wasn't pain
but it hurt the same.
Acute, intense and describable,
without being anything one can name,
but it faded away, which was even worse.
Now she couldn't even describe the feel,
except that it was. She was sure of it.
She'd never felt anything quite so real.

Please

We choose the risks, please
you had better take. I am
just a disinterested agent
of your destiny, for

all our sake.

apology proposition

It's not that I love
the sound of my voice, or
wanted to use
a lot of words.

It's just
that I tried to describe
what I mean. It seems

I have failed.
So much, it hurts

You may have heard

the sound, or the tone
of hurt. It is not
your blame, but

obviously mine. I'm responsible
for your take
on what I give you

because I gave
what didn't work. Well,
I'll try again. If you're

game, I am. If you are,

it's fine. I did not even
mean so much. I just tried

to get it right. Thank you
hanging in, as you always do
after this. You are hooked

for a bumpy flight

Leaving me again

People who don't understand history's doom
are repeating themselves constantly! "Why
do I need to know this?" "Why do I need
to know this?" "Why do I need to know
this?" JUST LEARN IT. THEN you will understand

why you didn't need to know. Pliability
is the skill we teach - flexible in a set
way, the better to lay the plates for
life's blanket. A rich, sumptuous
banquet of homey down comfort
to draw over you in the night,
wondering "What shall I dream?
Whom shall I wake? Supposing
I scream?" Look. If the cops
come again it's your turn
at the door. You should

have learned better in college,
and that
is why you didn't. Objection
to "should" on principle, after

that terrible philosophy course
you took on, elective as all hell
- which tripped you off on your

current, lifelong intractability
binge. Why

did you need to know THAT?

that last one.

I need to write
more poems like
that last one.
A progress you can
trace looking back,
wondering how you
hadn't noticed the way,
particularly, at the time
it took. Neat! Ordered
internally, with a hint
of rhyme, scheming
from the wings, buzzing
and strafing the stage,
but well-behaved otherwise.
On-kilter lilt, tilt
and lean forward with
even-numbered turns
left, left, left
right - guess
where and it goes
there! Leaving a smile
on logic's face because
dream can make all the sense
reality doesn't, all because
it's not supposed to. Unfortunately,
such effects, done deliberately
could ruin it, leaving us

with poems like
this next one.

Talk of reassuring sense

If anybody ever found out
what was really going on,
their mind would take a shit
in their heart. Don't ask me
I don't know that shit, I just
know people.

What the effect would be.
If people found out

there is no they. They, I mean
- with a capital 'T' - there's a
Them - Van Morrison's old band! They
used to be behind everything, hollering
gloria but then he got paranoid,
had to split or something. Go solo
- big star on the scene, dancing
on the moon with a brown-eyed girl, can
you place the blame?

Who put him there? It wasn't Them.
It was an accidental conspiracy
of his inscrutable soul and the curious
taste of others looking into it. A bad taste,
in case of some of that "Irish music" but
let's not grouse, some good tunes too. Point

is: since Them split, went offstage in all
directions leaving Morrissey to shine, moan
and mope about meat and assorted crimes
of the heart and stomach, there never

was a They. To blame things on. We just think
all strangers are lookalikes on the inside, proceed
from the same cynical, secretive motives all humans
share, and therefore - are probably in on it.

Fat Chance! Ask Van, he'll tell you.
Don't eat shit with your heart just
'cause your mind has nowhere else
to crap itself over lack of control.

That's paranoia, friend. Kinky as hell,
and no place for your state of mind
to come dancing.

burst

Bursting open at the seems
things are happening too fast
for me to quite react to them
- I reach a hand to catch,
to grasp, and only tip
to misdirect
a fall ordained by plausibly,
deniably: a suspect. Who
made me do this? I'd fall

myself, but I

know what would
catch me then. And

it's not hell,
and I don't want to go. I don't
concern with it, or coincide,
I do not fit. My best

reaction

is too slow. So
just say no,

I guess. And then?
Say yes
to something else again.

"The skeptic's oath"

They say knowledge is power.
Well hell, it might be,
but the might that makes right
is more easy to see.

We take our 'might be' -
the best that we had
- and if we make do,
well, that isn't too bad.

What might be - well, some
of it's mighty as pens
and swords put together,
in quest for amends.

What's known, only might
be right. For right now,
let's inhabit meanwhile.
That could be a vow.

"butt hurt": a haiku

When your head's up your
ass - which one hurts worse? Might as
well flip a coin. Tails

Real things, yet unprovable

The things we can't possibly prove
are real: we know they are real. For
we speak of them as the class of things
that are real we can't prove. By definition,
it has got to be truth. So what can we do
to prove these things? Or at least narrow down
the field to those we know are real, even if
we can't prove. We'd concentrate hard on that
many (or few) and improved concentration and
focus would find

some way

to remove
the blind from our eyes

we would work like draft horses then,
startled by all! In our new field of vision
we'd stall, and we'd

stall

study

I think she's someone
who wants to put passion
first in everything, but too much
of the world is not that simple. And she won't

forgive herself

for acting thoughtlessly in areas
she hasn't figured out. Her passion
in areas of principle is made possible
by how well
she knows
those things. In
politics and her personal
integrity, she may be ruled

by passion, but I bet
she's put a lifetime of thought
into them, in-between the tests. Perhaps

she looked at this proposal as a crisis,
as important as any of her principles, and
whose solution required a lifetime's worth
of thought, in too short a time
to accomplish it right
or well.
She cinched off

her emotions, in an attempt to clarify
the decision that needed so urgently
to be made, correctly.

She overcompensated. And she
has paid indirectly.

mysterious origins: confirmation bias

How did bias
ever get confirmed in the first
place? When there was none?

Did somebody come along, "Here.
BIAS." And you were "SWEET!
I need one of these - otherwise

nothing can be confirmed" or
what? Because without that seed,

would not all subsequent clouds
of doubt coming over be barren? It takes rain

to make the lightning strike, or so
I've always heard, counting one
one thousand two one
thousand three one

wait. I lost count. Where's
the boom? Oh yeah

there is no storm. No seed
to make this warm low-pressure
zone take form, swirl towering up

rain judgment down
to fill my cup

it's just
impossible

without some bias
to begin with. Where

shall we dance?

"inspirational downpour"

Don't be so focused on wrongdoing you
completely forget about wrongbeing. Make
positivity your problem. Everyone has
a burden to uplift. If

you can't beat 'em lose 'em. If you
can't beat yourself, be somebody
you can. Some

of the best days come right
in the middle of some

of the worst lifetimes. When
you're always at your darkest,
remember: you help

all the light
in the world

stand out.

it means death

What if this means death
to us? What would it mean,
death? To us? Would it mean
cessating life? Is cessating
even right? Is it a real word?
If not - what would it mean
it it was? Maybe we could get
the world to embrace words
they'd never heard, and take
them up, and take them on,
and use them when we both
are gone? That would be

a legacy. But what's it
mean to you and me?

definitions of persistence

Knowledge is what persists
between observations. Reality
is what persists through direct
scrutiny and test, repelling by
its obstinacy all attempts
to falsify.

Love

is what persists between both,
and lifts each up, and runs a charge
through every state of observation
in succession, growing large. It pulls,
connects and couples up all passing snapshots
shining through with faith in continuity,
a proving not a guessing: that between
and in-between each look, knows what
to do. The feeling stills
and swells, and never sleeps
but wait. Is it still there? Just
kidding. Yes. Not even checking. No,
not fate. Just something known,
I reckon. Something not observed
each moment, but it shows
unfailing, up for every show,
for every scrutiny, turns out
to do its duty, and persists

in being blessing, being
lesson, and existing
without lessening. Being

is what is, despite our lapse
of paid attention to. Being
laps us on the track as many times
as we weren't counting, changes

while remaining true,

and always catches up with us
in time to rest and breathe, collapse

on grass, surrendering
to gravity and trust,

and to belief
that some things last,
because we must.

"history's fair warning"

Oh come now.

Those were different
times.

Let us not enrich ourselves
trampling their funny ways
at atrocity whilst fatting
our butcher spoons for the feast
still stewing from the bones
of slaughter they made in a dim,
benighted past
none of us now
living can imagine,
except to say well, we have it quite as bad
in some respects, and why
haven't I profited?
You know what?
Screw that, LET'S.

WHY? BECAUSE
WE BLAME SCUMBAGS
FOR THEIR DEAD GONE ACTS
OF BULLSHIT? LIKE THAT'LL HELP? No.

Because we seek everywhere now
for example to make of evil. Because
we have oh so many to make right here, but
you know if we do some digging
let's find all we can! And do
a number on them to hype and psyche
ourselves up for the blood of ALL tyrants
and despoilers, past, present and future!

If we wash
and work that lather
around stiff and hard enough, surely
many who'd otherwise settle for burnt
corpse for breakfast, lunch, supper and soup
of every damn day might spit it out! And get up
to give a more personal compliment to today's chefs.

One they won't soon forget, but
not for lack of opportunity
ever to do so again. Right?

I mean, every point we make
is for now. Now, clearly, now
- for we, the living. And there are
now living among us, some scum
up to the same anciently perfected
and modernly progressed
tricks.

There are fine and subtle points
to be made of the past, to good
effect, for now.

When did the b.s. come in
that we should spare the past
criticism, lest the future criticize

us?

WHO CARES
WE'LL BE DEAD. No sense
pulling punches while we got
a chance to lay about
us at and through all human history?
It accumulates now, even still. It's still

building up. Let us take history
as a lesson plan of what happens
or soon will, to tyrants. If YOU
don't learn your history, WE WILL
RAPIDLY AND DECISIVELY ADD YOU TO

IT.

All in due process, of course. We've learned
also
what happens to zealots, when their blood
is cooled and thirst for others' slaked, and
they look up to see

what's left to revolve.
Every good way to protect
themselves, torn down
so it couldn't protect
the beast. That pushed them
past all grief and endurance, and so
well-deserved its fate, probably.

But did they deserve what came afterwards,
and do we? Let's deserve

better, more, more good. More liberty, security
and hard, balanced check.

Let's deserve checkmate.

Let's play like the game is a winnable one, and think
all moves ahead to some final, correct outcome
that begins with v, t, w. And let it be
victory we deserve, triumph we've earned
and a win in the books. But let's not forget

we shall have to serve. Another opponent
appears to sit down. Hit the fool
with every last trick and first cause
in the book: make them play, hard and honestly

as a hard brutal human stands by, watching on
wrapped entirely 'round in soft, brutal laws
- bound to not interfere, no not even
to kill us both! Except where all come
agreeing that it
had cause.

It is we. Our position: both players,
the board and the referee. Let us make good use
of the worst and the best and the ways they're alike
and different, every page of the book
we can point to and say: here's a parallel.

Let's make sure they never do us
this way.

Good cause. Good eye. Good aim; let's try.
Let's show them what we won't stand
and what they shall get,

before we give it away.

Objectify

A person is an object
always, when we are
subject to them. They work
their wills and ways without
a trace of our intention, and
provoke response - so good!
So bad, it is in us
they make such things. But
we do not object to this,
because of all the joy
it brings when we discover
they themselves
are subject to ourselves
as well, in some
voluted circumstance
of columns sunk in fundament
we somehow share, because
we've made. To raise us up
and terrify
the demons and the shades
we've also made, to populate
such hells as still exist:
In eyes of babes, they're
flickering, peripheral. We'd give
our lives to save this one.
Believing it reciprocal,
we stage and set all kinds
of tricks to make sure they
don't sacrifice. It is our work
- a mighty gift. You are of worth.
And I will pay the price.