poetry

in the age of externality
no one gives a damn
all upstream remains hidden
we don’t look e’en if we can
things are much easier that way
in our age of externality
where we’re taught to just accept
that slaves build all our goods
and young consumers are bereft
of their young ages
due to externality
that’s just the way it has to be
if we want toys and phones and

Food For Thought

I lie famished in the midst of food (of which I am a part)
surrounded by a salty stench that renders me too sick to start
imbibing, on a ride gut-wrenching, worse than any ship or cart.

I am the most reluctant morsel.

I lie alone in utter darkness far beyond the reach of man
in grave to which I gave no thought while walking on the

Beowulf

by Richard Wilbur

.

The land was overmuch like scenery,

The flowers attentive, the grass too garrulous green;

In the lake like a dropped kerchief could be seen

The lark's reflection after the lark was gone;

The Roman road lay paved too shiningly

For a road so many men had traveled on.

.

Also the people were strange, were strangely warm.

The king

Cat curled, sleeping,
black and white ball,
tail turns, dreaming,
breathing quite small;
eyelid opens, pupil narrows –
then, back to dreams.

Fateful Voyage

The lot has been violently forced from our hands
and thrown to tenebrous, remote hinterlands –

but what, oh what, is it showing?

We’ve all climbed aboard midst an on-rushing current
that runs over any who try to return it –

but where, oh where, is it flowing?

We’re found belowdecks with each hand on an oar
as our master yells, “Pull!” with

Signs of Fall

I.

A brown plume of infield dirt
mounts on a stiff breeze
as undefined and ephemeral
as the days of a summer gone
by the time the runner’s made it home
the dissipating dust cloud soars over
a neighboring field where town soccer
has begun – and then it is no more.

O Vapor of vapors,
just how long do you think
you have before you
find your faint edges fading
into the ether averaged
from so many others
in the Brownian motion
of verbal exchange?

How long can a borderless,
tasteless, odorless, waste of
cloud last when met with
the constant gale of Time
so practiced and masterful
at exhaustive dispersion?

You begin
to exhale

Signs of Fall
VII.

My eye slowly follows
another flamed herald
descending to cry
its unwelcome tidings
against all life run wild.

Woe to you who desire to dwell long outside!

For sudden and swift
will calamity come
in meteorologic form
with a cold, solemn rift
in the unbroken string
of smooth weeks like pearls
glistening deep as the sea
where they grew in their