We might ask ourselves
why we’re so eager to let
machines speak for us.
My fear is not losing my job
my fear is having to wade through
more spam job listings, spam
results when I need to replace
a water filter but don’t know how.
The Dream of Robert Kane Scholars
My kitchen is filled with men in black suits
I ask one of them to tell me the story of Batman,
as I know the outline, the bare facts found in comic books,
but not the deeper mythology.
Their spokesman listens patiently, says:
“We can only tell the true story of Bruce Wayne in plainsong.”
Where I Live
I am disoriented,
waking up on the literal wrong side
spending half my life in a city
I am in transition to.
Stocking two shelves
Between two stools
Two of everything,
Which has been a theme in my life,
owning spares, looking for certain promises,
a better city, but winding up trying to decide
which place gets the best of me,
which one gets the back numbers,
the ragged couch.
The Lights
The search for lights
takes me down suburban streets
both similar and literally the same
as my childhood; the strange thought
in the shadows surrounding the people
inside, the progression of lives
as they keep turning along the solstice.
Realism
I’m welling up at the worst times:
years of scales falling off my eyes.
Someone I love
said they didn’t believe any more.
Another two or three or ten
gone to glory, adding to the cloud
of witnesses, pressing on me.
“Go up and join this chariot,” over and over.
Sometimes I’m tired of running, sometimes
their lips aren’t moving when I get there,
sometimes it’s fireworks, but never
according to the way I ran.
Begun March 2019 and found in drafts in this strangely neglected blog
Photo by Paul Summers on Unsplash
Raymond Chandler
several times I read each novel
by Raymond Chandler
enough times that I noticed
something about
why Raymond Chandler
failed in business once.
something about
why Philip Marlowe
failed in business once,
letting clients and lovers push him around
then Philip Marlowe
grew weary and wise about
letting clients and lovers push him around
enough times that I noticed
he grew weary and wise in the
several times I read each novel
Photo by Craig Whitehead on Unsplash
There is something I used to get
There is something I used to get
out of writing poems for no one, or not many
that I seem to get better out of writing
social media comments, replies
to great influencers
The feeling of bending something in the airwaves
the morse code static
a slight influence in the real world
but it’s not the same
not aspirational
it’s not occurring in a different, better room than the rest of my life.
The Dream of my Father
One month to the day
is when I finally dream of him alive
not counting half-awake forgetfulness
I should tell Dad about
We are both in hospital sharing a room
perhaps it is another accident
my reasons are vague, the mild, hopeful complaints
of hospital dramas where the patient goes home
And I cannot remember our conversations
In the dream, I can’t remember how I got there
which sounds like something serious, actually
The Pleasure of Traveling
It’s hard to say
what pleasure I get from traveling
but I just noticed
I get the same buzz from learning a new OS
and how the same things
in a different way
rewire me like a delicious dream.
I’m Playing for Someone Famous Tomorrow
And tonight I had to escape from an extended-stay
motel proxy, which was the only thing I could get
after a five-hour rehearsal in a college town
and eat lamb at a Mediterranean chain restaurant
and watch Office Space again back
in my room.
It’s this transition from the sacred to the mundane
I heard a mixed choir sing a beautiful tune acapella
and it could have made me cry
if I hadn’t had to count 12 bars of four
before coming back in.
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