New poems

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To diverge (Caldwell & Thomason)

Like all things in the universe, we are destined from birth to diverge. Time is simply the yardstick of our separation. If we are particles in a sea of distance, exploded from an original whole, then there is a science to our solitude. We are lonely in proportion to our years.

Ian Caldwell & Dustin Thomason, The Rule of Four

On frustration

Frustration is born not of the distance between what is and what is wanted, but from the impediments that bar one's progress from the one toward the other.

As best (Creeley)

I didn't know what I could do.
I have never known it
but in doing found it
as best I could.

Robert Creeley, from "Here"

The eras of misery (Rosenberg & Birdzell, Jr.)

We are led to forget the dominating misery of other times in part by the grace of literature, poetry, romance, and legend, which celebrate those who lived well and forget those who lived in the silence of poverty. The eras of misery have been mythologized and may even be remembered as golden ages of pastoral simplicity.  They were not.

Nathan Rosenberg & L. E. Birdzell, Jr.,
How the West Grew Rich: The Economic Transformation of the Industrial World

Reason

Reason attempts to confine infinity within the limits of chance and sense.

New poems

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Revenge (Lethem)

It's incredible to consider how much of American culture is revenge stories now. "Death Wish" has won.

Jonathan Lethem

Today

Today is yesterday,
reconstituted imperfectly.

Of stories (Rukeyser)

The universe is made of stories,
not of atoms.

Muriel Rukeyser, from "The Speed of Darkness"

New poems

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Your mind (James)

You close your mind the way a furious child closes his fists.

Marlon James, Black Leopard, Red Wolf

Either the truth

Either the truth is discernible in the random
or there is no truth.

On principle

Principle is a precipice.

New poems

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Real freedom (Savage)

Real freedom, after all, means the ability to spend your time as you see fit—to write, to think, to paint, to sculpt, or to do nothing in particular—and, under capitalism, the rich have a lot more freedom than the rest of us. But it doesn’t have to be that way.

Luke Savage

As remarkable (Oppen)

It is impossible the world should be either good or bad
If its colors are beautiful or if they are not beautiful
If parts of it taste good or if no parts of it taste good
It is as remarkable in one case as the other

George Oppen, from "Some San Francisco Poems"

Identity

Identity is absolutely approximate.

Bound (Rexroth)

This ego, bound by personal
Tragedy and the vast
Impersonal vindictiveness
Of the ruined and ruining world,
Pauses in this immortality,
As passionate, as apathetic,
As the lava flow that burned here once;
And stopped here; and said, "This far
And no further."  And spoke thereafter
In the simple diction of stone.

Kenneth Rexroth, from "Lyell's Hypothesis Again"

The monster

The monster is the one that you cannot tolerate based simply on who and what it is.