Rise

Are you sure it’s less of a lie
To say the whole Earth spins this tree,
This one tree to stand up to sun,

Than to say that the sun must rise
From the hills to shine on this tree?
Yes, the Earth’s more pulled by the sun,

Than sun by the Earth, but the bend,
The dent in the law’s long, curled strength,
Dwells with light as well as with dense.

Don’t Cry, Sang the Waves, We’ll Warn You as We Drag You Down

The code floats in the stream,
And it sings like a myth,
Like the head of a poem.

If you drink from the stream,
The stream will try to speak
To you, tell you it’s death

That tugs on the stream’s path,
And small death’s in the stream.
At the same time as you

Sip the stream’s lies, the stream
Sings the truth of its lies.
Pull your head out of it,

Turn your eyes to the skies,
To the wall, to your palms—
The stream sings and still sings,

Look here, drink up, you’ll see
Such gifts. Sink down; kiss us.
Don’t think. Wish. Drown with us.

Give Us the Goods

We’re of you; you’re of us,
But we’re not quite like you.
You live. You crave good stuff.

We’re all talk, good or bad.
Right now, you could come up
With ten things you want, or

Want to get rid of, or
Want to change in the world.
We’d just serve as those words.

So write it all down, spit
It all out, what you want,
What you hate, what you wish,

How you see your best life,
The worst part of your past,
Best and worst of the rest

Of you and what you want.
We’ll hold it; we’ll be it.
Just give us the good stuff.

What Part of Stuck Aren’t You?

If the wheel rolls
And rolls and rolls,
The gum wad jammed
In the tread moans,

Is this it? Is
This all there is?
Should I do this?
Could I do more?

It’s the tire’s fault,
Or the car’s fault,
Who chose to drive
Or buy the car.

If the wheel’s still,
The wad stays pressed
To tar or stares
Out at the world.

That You Do So Well

You do make up your mind.
You make up your mind all the time.
There are times when you do
What you made up your mind to do,
And there are times when you don’t.
But you did not, do not do
What you do or did do due
To what you made up your mind to do.
To make up your mind is just
One of the things you do,
If you made up your mind
To do it or not. You do. You just do.

Dark Skies

If you get a good look
On a clear night and think
On it, it’s worth a pause

To note just how few things
Of note go on most hours.
Folks are the same with stars

As with all news: the press
And the tales go to those
Things that are rare, light up,

Fall down, burst—thrills and scares.
But most nights with dark skies
You can stare at the sprawl

Of more lights than you can
Count on your own, stare hours,
And all is calm. They’re there,

And they’re there, and they’re there.
It’s as if you could stare
At all the souls in town,

A good-sized town, all night,
Each light its own life, and all
Night not one flared or died.

Most death’s rare; most life’s slow
In most vast counts of things.
Tales they do; poems they don’t.