New Brunswick, New Jersey
On the way back
from Cape May Court House
the fog hangs north
over The City
like no tree
or flower...
Raritan River.
Requirements According to
Gary Snyder
To be a poet
you must know the names
of silence and flowers
respectively,
and the scent of jasmine.
Sehnsucht
It is desire
that makes
the universe
expand;
you and I
have known it
sometimes
in its dark form
as lust
yet multiverses
are built
on yearning
for good.
Up In The Clouds
He spoke
of cosmic mind
rather than the girl
with pigtails,
and never fathomed
the juxtaposition.
Disregard
the suave impostor.
The Purloined Lilac
Once again I turn to the subject
of your skin and lilac.
This petal is your skin.
Lilacs! Is it proper to clip them
if they overhand the fence
in a near neighbor's yard?
Will the scented water in the indented
glass vase smell of the theft?
Or will they, as rumor has it,
smell sweeter, cloy less?
The scissor clips.
No one sees.
The lilac is purloined
with the greatest of eases.
The sheer purple of them!
But we will have to buy a house,
and plant many lilac bushes,
and let the neighbors near and far
come and clip away
to atone for the guilt of our
raping neighbor's lilac
on this lovely Spring day.
Axioms Are Forever
The laws of gravity
do not allow
a ball of lead
to fall upward.
That is a shame
if not a grave
scandal of sorts,
Of course, you could
fire it from a canon
I suppose,
or arrange
electromagnetism
to thwart gravity
in some way,
but basically
heavy objects drop.
Nevertheless, I
sometimes think
this law can be
suspended at times
when axioms fall
with a peal of laughter,
and I rise
in the stratosphere.
Evolving Poem
A poem
about evolution
must evolve
as a poem,
and lumber down
the trees
of your mind.
An ape climbs down;
a man saunters away.
Touchstone
How many times
does my finite mind,
written upon the scrolls
of my brain,
go into the universe?
If the universe
is infinite, then
an infinite number
of times,
which remains so small
a part of the tree
of knowledge
as to be nothing,
almost.
I know so little
about the universe
no conclusion about it
is feasible as yet.
Nevertheless, I know
I love you
in all the spaces
and the void.