You Can Never Be Right All Of The Time

“No man ever steps in the same river twice, 
for it’s not the same river and he’s not the same man.” 
—Heraclitus 

When 

At last you begin 
To see where 

You started losing the final 
Vestige of your self-

Deception, it will 
Look to you

As if you were 
Forever looking

In the right place 
At the wrong time. 

Straightaway Skirting The Stillborn

You were asking me what 
It was like 
Trying to keep writing 
Poems every day without 
Running out 
Of things that matter—

I didn’t answer 
Right away and asked 
You to ask me again 
Another day—still, why is it

So hard for all of us 
To address each crying 
Issue rearing 
Its head before us, no 
Questions asked, 
Day after day? 

Ars Poetica Cliff Notes

In brief, when
In distress

And in doubt of where
To go next

With your verse, try this
Artful, time tested maneuver—

Give it as much
Leeway as possible

Till you sense that
You’ve both reached

The end of the line, free
Falling, heady and feeling

Buoyant at the same time.

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?