Big Blue Sheets of Wings

By the clear, clear stream I asked
For sky-sized sheets to write on,

A blue page or two as large
As the cloud-free arch that dawn.

It’s not that I was in love.
My heart was not in the least

Full up—I’d had a few thoughts
That danced like cranes in my head.

Like cranes, they all looked the same,
And like cranes they had huge wings

That they swung wide like white gates,
And I knew that thoughts like them

Gained force and charm as their count
Grew large, so what was the same

At a glance could start to dance
Like a kick-line in a show—

Could dance to make more and more,
Which is what life made dance for.

I’d have filled the sky with them,
If I’d had sky to write on.

A Quant

Why do some waves end in points?

That’s what we should want to know.

Why does what we count come chunked—

Is it them or is it us?

If us, how could it be us?

Are we that weird in the world

We can see ghosts that aren’t there

That weren’t but for how we count?

Are we that rare and that strong

To be what’s not but for us?

And if the bits, bobs, and bumps

Are out there, real in some sense,

Not just tricks thoughts play on us,

Tricks of waves, tricks of the light,

Then what is a quant, a thing,

Where is its edge of it is?

As We Are

The ghosts will last past each one of us,
But will they last past us all? Will they

Get up off the page and dance, get out
Of their shells and signs and go, like lives,

Like bats from black caves, birds from barn lofts,
Hatched crabs that race down the shore? Sky! Sea!

We don’t know. We won’t know. How could we
Know, save so far as we are your ghosts?

Time Turns and Goes Back in Its Shell

We run no risk
We’ll take the poem
For what’s real—if
It’s a poem, it’s

Here and it’s not
What’s real. What’s real
Is we won’t be.
That brings us all

Like blooms to rain,
Like kids to play,
Shouts, and ice cream—
What we need, sure,

What we want, what
We won’t need, needs
Us more, what’s real
And draws on poems.

Lab Notes in the Key of D

A rat that gets shocked is stressed,
But a rat that gets shocked and

Who then gets to bite the hell
Out of the next rat’s less stressed,

Reads a droll note from Bob S.
The best way to ease your stress

Is to pass on some worse stress.
Class war’s when the poor prey on

The poor, when the lab rats eat
Pup’s from the next lab rat’s nest.

Best to be rich and well-armed,
I guess. But note, the lab’s owned

By death—lab techs all die, too,
As do rats that bite the rest.