Incandescence

The paradox of caring is the anger

The all-consuming fury that returns

Like aircraft taxiing back to the hangar

When what you care about is disrespected. Turns

Out that caring for what others don't is rough:

Especially when they pretend to care.

Pretensions uttered merely off-the-cuff

Prove, when the planes are flying, fully bare.

It is misfortune to believe sincerely;

A tragedy to mean the things you say.

For truer calm, you ought to mouth words merely

And let the thoughts behind them float away.

Yet I cannot renounce my care for leisure

As caring is a calling beyond measure.

Flying Saucer

If someone should descend out of the sky

And lecture us on what we ought to do

With careful reasons postulating why

Our current situation will not do;

If someone were to ride a trail of fire

Into the heavens, and come down to say

That our incessant pressure to acquire 

Has made the bed in which we now must lay;

If someone were to land, and to inform us

Of all the ways that we have wrecked our shit--

Attempt to redirect us, and to warn us

Of how our world is digging its own pit

I do not think we'd listen. Why would we?

There's proof already, if our eyes could see.

You do their work, and they shall have good luck

 If I were luckier than I have been

(Which is already lucky, I should say)

I have a premonition I would win

The lottery, and play it every day.

If I were fortunate (and so I am)

In ways exceeding what's already true

The government would think my luck a sham

Investigating everything I'd do.

So it is lucky, in an inverse sense,

That I do not possess eternal luck;

For in this world the only recompense

Of high good fortune is that fortunes suck:

We do not trust a good thing coming often

It's only for the outliers we soften.

Daedalus

For centuries we could but dream of flying

With waxen wings that melted in the sun;

A hopeful youth, enraptured and then dying:

Pursuing freedom, and by it undone.

Then through hard work we made our wings of steel

And strapped them to huge motors to ascend;

No more a myth: a fantasy made real,

The full achievement of the longed-for end.

Then, being human, we could never rest

On the achievement of a miracle:

We took the triumph of this ancient quest

That turned what was fantastic to empirical 

And made it awful (as we use the word):

Uncomfortable, unpleasant, and absurd.

Classroom Experiment

The sky is screaming over each sunset,

Complaining that the purple is too much;

Sinking into the sea, the sun is wet,

Contaminated by its liquid touch.

The empty stars illuminate the scene

As night descends and darkens as it does;

The orange has faded out of Halloween

And all is watered-down from what it was.

Tomorrow, not today, the sun will fill

And burn again into its watery grave;

The orange and purple of its pained plunge will

Once more wash over every winking wave.

For now, the night commands the silent sea

But we remember how the day will be.

Ekphrasis in a Nursery

The Jesus on the wall can read a book

(A tech but little known when he was living);

I doubt that most would give a second look

To see the lesson that this Christ is giving,

But I am cursed to wonder if he reads

More slowly from a codex than a scroll

And if, when his stigmata slowly bleeds,

It stains the pages. This then takes a toll

On my imagination of the scene:

The children being read to would then see

The spreading red, and ask what it could mean

And contemplate his remortality

And Jesus, seemingly returned and preaching 

Would wonder if they'd heard what he was teaching.

Song of Myself

I contradict, but not like Whitman did.

I am not large, except in belly size.

Within my soul no multitudes are hid.

I contradict myself--am sometimes wise,

Sometimes a fool, always a human being--

Because I cannot keep my own thoughts straight.

If God exists, all knowing and all seeing,

Immense and awesome, immeasurably great,

To them my thoughts would be no awful tangle:

In their dimension all would be quite clear.

But I, mere mortal, have no holy angle

To disambiguate my hope and fear.

I contradict myself, and therefore suffer

Like any other simple, honest duffer.

Haze

The sun hangs lower in the sky today

Than I recall it hung a year ago.

The clouds obscure it with their tired gray;

Perhaps that's why it now appears so low.

Or maybe I have moved without my knowing

To some exotic and more northern clime

Where even summer sun is not caught showing

Its face above the hills, and cannot climb.

Perhaps today, just once (or now, forever),

I'm just a little taller than I was

Lifted above the sun by my own lever.

Or maybe it seems lower now because 

I am a little sadder, and the sky 

Responds to how I feel, and won't ask why.

Sun

The dog has found a sunbeam, where

She doesn't worry about life.

She seems to lack a single care,

Forgetting hunger, pain, or strife.

She sits and lounges her limbs out

Her belly flat against the floor

Her tail still flipping roundabout

And slapping carpet more and more.

She's ceased to pant; her tongue is still;

Her eyes are closed in ecstacy;

She loves the sun and drinks her fill

As comfortable as she can be

Until her awful owner shuts

The curtain. Oh, she hates my guts.

Canals

My love is like a mighty river's flow

That runs on unimpeded to the sea;

My love is like the current, great but slow,

Imposing in its own immensity.

My love is like the flood that, when it rains,

Expands the river out of its known course

And though it may cause unexpected pains

Will irrigate the land with its great force.

My love is like meanders that swing wide

And circle back to its first course again;

My love is like the high banks that abide 

To house the settlements of hopeful men.

And like those men, I dig my own way out

To channelize my love past fear or doubt.