Marika Wasn’t Pleased

“Eureka!” cried the alchemist Nikita

who believed at last he’d found the secret

in the blast he’d just invoked – but Marika,

his assistant and his sister, wasn’t pleased:

she knew that her ecstatic brother

had been wrong in his surmise. He had

provoked the devil into opening its eyes.

Angrily awake, the devil sneezed.








.

If Destiny Had Left It Up To Us

If destiny had

left it up to us,

there’d be

no fuss.

We’d intervene

whenever we saw pain –

we’d call the sun

out in the rain –

we’d work the business

till it gleamed –

we’d make all dreams be

what they seemed.








.

Our Guess

Our guess is this: the point is to look up,

accept whatever’s falling down,

and wait until it hits.

What other explanation of existence fits?

.

Faces of his Friends

He wore the faces of his friends around

his neck. He liked the captured warm

effect of it: the aspects and the affects

of Elaine, Alain and Ephraim met

with those of Engelbert and Joan.

He never felt alone.

.

When We Look Into Each Other’s Eyes

When we look into each

other’s eyes, why not surmise

that something else is looking

simultaneously into ours? Fluid

swift concatenations seed

the Cosmos – breed our drifts,

and showers, floods and curves.

Existence buds and flowers

and observes.








.

Bearing Some Relation to the Human

Infinitely mutable, though always

bearing some relation to the human,

grand expatiations of your being

and your body loom into fresh view.

You’re here because the rest of it

is here; it’s here because of you.

.

We’re Not Sure Which

Transgressions

come and go –

succeeding in

impeding flow –

ejecting

the expected –

selecting only what

you have rejected

as “appropriate”

or “nice.”

Infesting unprotected

psychic skin like lice,

they love to watch you anguish –

and take pleasure in – the itch.

They hop up life or stop it.

We’re not sure which.







.

Our Untoward Ennui

We looked out right in front of us

and saw what we could see.

Life seemed to bear the brunt of us

and our untoward ennui.

At least that’s how it seemed to you

and how it seemed to me.











.

To Drink Her Thought

He liked to drink her thought.

He liked the light it brought

when he was in a funk.

It never got him drunk.












.

Askew

Apparently we’re done with

what we thought we had to do.

But oh! – why has it left us

so askew?

.

Subtlety

It travels up you like a shimmering of fog.

It covers

what it can of you,

it hides you from some

aspects of the man of you –

it softens how the world

feels on your skin –

it keeps varieties of questions

you had almost asked within –

and yet, despite its ministrations, you’re agog:

entirely

beyond

all doubt,

looking,

wide-eyed,

out.








.

Murmurings

You think you hear a sound

but there is nobody around

besides the murmurings

that murmur in your head

which follow you from dawn

through noon to bed.










.

Atavistic Logarithms

Here we are again, variously doing

all our underhanded things,

wishing we had wings,

despite our knowing quite

exactly how to fly without them.

Atavistic logarithms! Essence of ahem.










.

A Ghost is Lonely

A ghost is lonely.

It dreams of hosting lively parties, only

nobody alive will come.

So don’t be numb

to any ghost’s petition or appeal.

Think of how when you’re a ghost you’ll feel.

.

Love’s Book

The trick to learn in love

may be to learn to look

away from it until you find it

everywhere you look.

We think that’s written

somewhere in its book.











.

Adam and Eve and the Upanishads

When the spirits of Adam and Eve heard

the texts of the haunting Upanishads quoted,

they wondered: “Can you recall which of us wrote it?











.

We Haven’t Said It Yet

We haven’t said it yet. It’s strange we haven’t.

That something so peremptorily obvious

should lack a name for its inordinately

patent game! There ought to be a lexicon

with labels for its archetypes – like one finds out

who superheroes are at Comic Con.

But so far we have not been able to do

anything but live it. If you have a word for it –

well, this would be the time to give it.

.

On Your Modest Magic Carpet

When you’re sitting, doting, floating

on your modest magic carpet

on a warm October noon –

warm as any summer yet

with longer shadows coming earlier

than they had come in June,

sometimes a longing enters, oddly,

like a memory of moon,

and won’t leave soon.







.

New York, Today

New York, today, was bestiary, estuary, salt and fresh,

profusely animal, unblessed, all unexonerated flesh

and untoward flush of river water, blaming and untamed

and bound for slaughter in the Fall. The Fall is resolutely

named – it heralds New York’s imminent innumerable ends

of enemies and friends, its immanent indifference to either:

New York, today, with these or those or them or they,

has had its underhanded way and will, to many but not

everybody’s sorrow, have its overwhelming way tomorrow.








.

Pepper Jack and Diet Orange Crush

Pepper Jack and Diet Orange

Crush, Black Forest Ham

and Pepperidge Farm Rye

Seeded Bread upon which

that which claims it can’t

believe it isn’t butter’s spread

its bland inert emolument have

put a dent in your demeanor –

your soul has gotten leaner

and the stroll you tried to take

to wake it has devolved into

a vapid mush of dissolution –

a rabid brush with what it must

be like to be entirely unseeing –

a touch of learning something

harrowing about Nonbeing.

.

Passion With No Object

Passion with no object?

Unalloyed experience.

You find that you’ve enjoyed

the Void! A vast luxuriance.

.

A Translucent Partner

Choose a translucent partner –

conjoining gain and lack –

take him everywhere you go –

and always bring him back.











.

How People Die

People don’t die prettily and yet they do.

We misconstrue the flesh which

coughs up gunk and goo at death

as an unsightly mess. The thing it is

and was has brought the jest abruptly

to its rest – passed its test, done its duty.

The mess is beauty.

.

Toward Which the Absent Tulip Flies

Awkward and dressed up

like some great stalk toward

which The Absent Tulip flies –

or tried to fly, but glided by –

she stands there gladly

in the glad rags of her mint-

green gown – looking up

and down like an entreating

bride. I am always by her side.








.