The world you notice

The world you notice is but a fraction of the world.

In abundance

We swim fine in abundance but drown in irrelevance.

Only

Dread only the unrecoverable error, the irreparable disaster.

Regardless

What is true is true, regardless of whether we hoped it would be true or untrue.

Ditto for what is untrue.

A greater debt

I acknowledge a greater debt to culture than to society.

To dance and depart

We wish to dance with hazard
and depart before disaster.

Ecosystem of poetry

It takes a lot of unsuccessful poetry to make a healthy ecosystem of Poetry.

New poems

+15

The Prisoner (Das)

As the convict studies
his prison's geography
I study the trappings
of your body, dear love,
for I must some day find
an escape from its snare.

Kamala Das, "The Prisoner"

Falling in love

We don't fall in love with a person. We fall in love with what we like about a person, including what we like to dislike about them.

The cure

The cure for love is the lover.

More

More is no substitute for better.

Think!

When in doubt, think!

Cliche

The idea is to not write using cliched language, not to not write about the cliches and stereotypes that speak so richly of human habit.

Mysteries

There are no mysteries; there is only ignorance.

The best things

The best things about our society tend to be the realized worst fears of our ancestors—or things unimaginable to them.

History

You are misreading history
if you are not appalled.

New poems

+15

Never once (Oliver)

The god of dirt
came up to me many times and said
so many wise and delectable things, I      lay
on the grass listening
to his dog voice,
crow voice,
frog voice; now,
he said, and now,
and never once mentioned forever...

Mary Oliver, from "One or Two Things"

Much

Much of what is the same in the 21st century as it was in the 6th will no longer be in the 23rd, or perhaps even the 22nd.