Hive Mind

We perform our selfless services
To the selfish creative artists,
Falsifiers of hypotheses,
Elaborators of arguments.

We read their stories, we read the news,
We seek out poems for sustenance,
Discoveries for reassurance,
Ideas for hopes we can't outcompete.

We remain poor, humble consumers
In the marketplace of fantasies,
Cheering spectators in the cheap seats
Perched above the blood sport of ideas.

And what are the thanks we get for this,
We, sterile, worker castes of culture?
We get to elaborate our dreams
With the terrors felt by drones and queens.

Deep White Matter

The news was full of the full moon,
The super moon, meaning only
The largest, brightest moon this year--
Goofy, spooky nomenclature.

The day dawned unusually cold
In the streets of Salt Lake City,
Relative to a mild spring here
Passed partly among relatives.

The grandfather rowed in the lake
Among the whitecaps, no sailboats
To interfere with his workout,
The raw weather a boon to oars.

The mother dragged herself downstairs
To where the invalid father dozed
And handed him their chirping child
Ravenous for yogurt and juice.

The grandmother rose late, worried
About the weather for a trip
Planned for grandchildren at the zoo,
But delighted at a day out.

The aunt and uncle and cousin
Arrived on time, ready to go,
Despite the chill, wanting to see
The blind sea lion at the zoo.

Small details, good compost for dreams,
The body's retort to the mind,
Reminding memory the moon
Will drag deep tides from sleep tonight.

No Time in the World

How did we get here
With this exact past
Unspooling smoothly
As action, but never,

Never, never connected
Continuously as awareness
Or as memory, herky
Jerky here we

Are and there we
Are, or were, where
That was that, was
Not this now not this.

I'm confused, and knowing
A few dozen explanations,
Metaphysical, neurological,
Psychological, mystical,

And risible for why this
Is so hasn't helped.
The phenomenon
Of awareness resists

Itself like a poem
Resisting the mind,
Albeit more successfully,
Like a boot resisting

The tug from above on the straps.
There. Ugh. There's our mystery.
Where's the equivalent gravity
Holds us down against

The ignorant, innocent
Ground sometimes called time
Or the like, as if it liked
To hold all knowing captive

When the knowing knows
There is no such known thing
As knowing, nor as solid ground,
Nor as pure time in this world?

How did I get here
From there where I remember
Here was nonexistent?
I'll never.

Hang the Parrot

In one quiet corner
Of the cosmos,
A sun pearls a cloud
And a moon disks blue

To indicate to green
Suburban lawns
And leafy streets
Voiced by children

That a cyclic existence
Can be captured from the chaos
And spun on the fingertips
Of families woven

From recurring conversations
About when to water
The potted cactus,
When to eat outside

Under the arbor
By the neighbors' cherry tree,
About how gifted
Is a granddaughter,

How dry is the spring
This year, and how soon
To start the barbecue and hang
The ceramic parrot.

The Second Law of Moral Dynamics

For whatever reason, we imagine
That although right must win out in the end,
Wrong is the more natural attractor.
We never think not knowing right from wrong
Means accidentally doing the right.

We never think the world's half right, half wrong.
It's either a right world sliding to wrong
Or a wrong world needing to be rescued.
How can it always be going to hell
And yet ripe for another redemption?

To be honest, I don't know right from wrong.
Occasionally I feel like I'm right.
More rarely I feel I've done the right thing.
Most often I feel like I've done the wrong thing,
For the wrong reason, to look like I'm right.

Scars

My daughter tumbles in the dirt,
Begins to cry and then decides
She's ok and laughter's better.
I freeze every time she does this.

She's got no obvious scars yet,
But I know she'll have to get some,
Even if she's not frail like me.
Everyone has scars with stories--

A truth learned in intimacy,
As when I memorized the skin
Of her oh so lovely mother.
Beauty always carries small wounds,

Little pale patches with stories
From childhood for each one of them.
Monstrously stitched and blotched myself,
I know what a book bodies are.

I wish my daughter a rich life
In which she will tell some lover
The childhood stories of her scars.
I beg the stars those scars are small.

Like Yesterday

Your odds of winning
Tomorrow's lottery
Are the same as your odds
Of randomly picking the same

Number as the one that won
The lottery yesterday.
Do you dream of matching
Yesterday's numbers, ever?

Are you afraid of playing
Yesterday's winners today
Because they surely can't
Crop up again tomorrow?

Assuming all's as fair
In your lottery as in love
And war, the chance of the same
Numbers being picked twice

In a row is exactly the same
As the chance of any particular
Other numbers (for instance,
Yours) coming up tomorrow.

Does that sound right to you?
No? Does it just feel wrong?
Congratulations. You've just won
One more ticket in the game of life.