Foundation

When one's foundation stones
reveal the slightest disposition
toward unhitching, the faintest
pulsation can yield the subtlest
listing - a quavering cascade
riding unwaveringly down the
side of a compromised façade.

Counterpart, Counterpoint

Most want their counterpart,
which they also wish to be
a counterpoint - the heart
being the fixed intersection
between the two. To start
with the counterpoint seems
inimical to any connection
two may seek to create.
But when both movements
play their own imperfect,
uniquely unrefined tune,
that fused union is a melody
secure as the most coveted alloy.

Winter Spindrift

Spindrift gems of only
sand-grain size
will soon be sandblasting
whatever they can
across the sweep of the land;
and the open face
trying to brave the cold
without any cries,
has no option but to try
to keep the wind at bay,
wrapped up or even
shut in, having no say
in all the ways of the wind.

Hanker or Hunker?

Hanker or hunker - that's the fundamental
question mark. To hanker is to go after,
to embark, to thrust oneself like a hawk
towards an oblivious thrush. However,
to hunker is to lay low. Instead of blazing
flames you favor the slow smolder of embers.
It's not that you forgo the whole community
or its members; you just request immunity
from the upward lifting, the outward pulling
you think you're not ready for or not willing
to submit to. Maybe you are made to be sunk
deep in your well, another funk always just
around the corner. And so down you hunker
into your dark and dank, fortified bunker.
But others hanker after anything not anchored,
and endure both the grandeur and the rancor.

Dogs Don't Like Hugs

Dogs just don't like hugs. It's true; and you can't
simply shrug it off, as much as you might want to.
You can't force their hand for fear of breaching
the bond that took thousands of years to form.
When forlorn humans get lost in an emotional fog,
they crave nothing more than an embrace or a
soft caress to chase away the encrusting frost.
But all hope is not gone - while dogs may not like
blunt hugs, they still speak in their singular tongue
and we in ours; and we can wish for a requited trust,
a prodigious and lasting love, no matter what language
we speak or gestures we make. We do what we must.

The Dark Nightsea

The forces of life constantly unite and diverge
by the laws of love and strife and quirk,
forging tenuous coalitions or durable bonds.
But we can fashion a refuge from the surge,
a seaworthy ship both monumental and strong.
We can embrace the beauty of sweet fortuity,
rolling together fluently in the dark nightsea.

Stele

An obdurate monolith sits
at the center of our lives,
an obelisk round which
we orbit; a mute, faceless
slab of monochromatic
inscrutability. Each of us
faces it, there's no escaping it.
We may even run aground
when we bash against it,
gashed so deeply we could
founder unless we found
the source of our wound.
It's our center of gravity
whether we grasp that fact
or not. Its adamantine essence
and unprecedented density
draw us eternally into its
holding pattern of endeavors.
Our lives are bound to it,
our natures determined by it,
even though we may never
really perceive or understand it.

The Ruminant

The cow, the sheep, the bison -
each stands alone in its field:
no happenings, no excitement,
only the smell of stale excrement
scattered all over the here and now.

The only thing an old ruminant knows,
alone in its field, is chewing its cud
over and over, though the rain falls
and the wind blows; or a far-off thud
tells of a dead tree felled in the woods.

But the vitreous, expressionless eyes
veil the supple machinery that's inside:
apparatuses and reckonings so precise
that even the most indurated impressions
get ground down into the finest powder,
glittering like galaxies of minute stars.

But the only thing an old ruminant knows,
alone in its field, is chewing its cud
over and over, though the rain falls,
and the wind blows; or a far-off thud
tells of a dead tree felled in the woods.

The Pull

It's not easy to pull away - even from a distance.
And when one's so close to the very thing one
wants to pull away from, it reveals such a heavy
insistence - a star-like gravity, the unavoidable
centripetal force nixing one's power of resistance.

Are You Clear?

Is it now clear inside your head?
Have you put the lolling dead to bed,
to lie in loam with no more dread -
the sum and substance with which
your life was fed? Or how many groans
does your tender throat yet press out
into the lonely evening air, and suppress
the drive to shout, the need to flout
every sinew and strand that up to now
established who you were, defined
who you are? From sodded roots
to sun-kissed crown the distance
can be unconventionally far, but when
your soil's dew recycles again and again,
once more you're back where you were.

The Roll of a Die

God does not play dice with the universe - Einstein

Round this ancient spire
circling pigeons eternally fly,
like prayers sent up to heaven
into what is only palest sky.
Would you want to wait for God
for a day, a year—your entire life?
Or would you be satisfied to learn
life’s simply been the roll of a die?

From a Photograph

Lips minutely sinuous,
but giving the appearance
of levelness, revealing
neither delight nor disdain,
just a sardonic seriousness.

From the eyes of the storm
comes a long regard, stoical
and calm, measuring you
with confidence and control;
mastery of matter and form.

A Day Begins

A day begins
with simple things:
coffee rings
on napkins, predawn
listening.
But when the day's
certain incursion
perturbs one's pacific self,
disentangling the
tenuous coalitions
of inner nations prone
to incessant provocations -
then already the day begins
steeped in so many
Machiavellian machinations.

He Tames it Who Fetters it in Verse

He tames it who fetters it in verse,
though it remains fixedly fierce
and coarse, like a senescent horse
in its boxy stable, relentlessly
chomping and chafing - incapable
of reining in such obdurate power.

Flies

I.

Maybe the flies have it right.
Like stealth fighters at night
they appear out of nowhere just
when the dogshit hits the dust -
not before, not minutes after,
but at the moment of defecation,
as if they had mastered teleportation:
that instantaneous communication
indispensable for world domination.

II.

Or maybe they haven't really mastered time travel,
but instead have mustered such an army that can be
imperceptible to our only pair of eyes. They may
have a spy on every wall: a sleeper cell of secrecy
watching every possible trajectory of human whim,
while dogs and humans have become almost one form.
It's no wonder, then! tail one and you can then retrieve
what the other's left. And we humans need the decency
to live and let live (all the while being on the qui vive).

III.

Just in case.