Coming Down To Earth

—for Phaedra, all of 7 ½ 

I wonder if 

I should stop 
Imagining what 

My granddaughter will be like 
In twenty years’ time and start 

Asking myself how 
To tell her 

The chances of my being 
There to see her fully 

Blossomed into full- 
Blown womanhood 

Are as likely as her 
Catching the exact 

Moment a seed pod bursts 
So that it can 

Send its offspring out
To disperse, unfettered 

In the hesitating air.

Dionysian

Their red faces aflame 
And nodding 
Over a lush 

Green carpet riddled 
With splotches 
Of dizzying yellow 

And violet-blue, these young 
Upstart anemones must 
Surely be entreating 

The gods 
Of outrageous 
Drunken abandon 

To keep their noggins 
Stupefied, always 
According to 

The laws of whichever 
Way the maniacal winds happen 
To be blowing.

Poetry Is A Destructive Force, Dude

But bloody murder? Surely
Wallace, you knew more

Than most of us, that more
Or less, we all have something

To say, and by coming
Back to the scene

Of that unspeakable
Crime day after day,

And by saying only
What has to be

Said and nothing
More, it’s the poet,

That unsung serial killer
Of silence that more

Or less paradoxically
Always gets away

With-it to his dying day.

Rejoinder/Replication: If The Poem

Refuses

In so many 
Words to shut 

Up, perhaps 
It is because it is 

Trying hard 
To tell you not 

To test the limits 
Of its hitherto 

Seemingly never- 
Ending adamantine 

Patience, pushover— 
You got it down pat? 

Perish The Winners' Win-Win Thoughts

Not at all surprisingly, 
Today I found myself almost 
Losing it again, that nagging 
Sense I knew who 
I was—you see 
I once thought 
I was a winner 
And everyone else 
More or less a loser, 
My friends, what 
A relief to at last discover 
We all win and lose something 
While ending up leaving 
Not surprisingly always 
Nothing in the end.

Closing In On The Poet's Elusive Objective Correlative

Moving deep 
Cross the depths 
Of your medium 

Like a crustacean, never 
Go straight to where- 
Ever it is 

You are heading—be 
It forwards or 
Back—being oblique in 

Your every movement, 
Take in as much as you can 
While doing so—this 

Will get you there sooner 
Or later, your pincers at last in 
Position to strike side- 

Long straight at the heart 
Of the scuttling always
Suspect subject matter, 

Leaving you free 
To break through 
To the untroubled

Surface for air. 

Déjà Vu, My Son

Long ago, too far back for me 
To know when for sure, I think 
Your grandfather—who was old 
Enough to be my grandfather— 
Said something to me like 

You’ll know how far you’ve come 
Only if you keep your eye 
On where you came from— 

So what do you make of that? 
Ten years younger than my father was 
When he left this life, here I am now 
Looking to see how much 
We’ve left behind and how far 
Both of us have come.