Make more

Nature says it's easier to make
more of a thing than to protect it.

The eternal

If the eternal is infernal
then condemn me now forever.

Any error

Is there any error more common than the assumption of necessity?

On categories

Use categories where they are useful,
but never, ever trust them.

New poems

+10

A thing

A thing defined by the lack of a thing
is also a thing.

Error

Error never goes extinct.

Restoration

How are we to be restored
with freshness banished?

Hatred (Szymborska)

Hatred.  Hatred.
Its face twisted in a grimace
of erotic ecstasy.

Wisława Szymborska, from "Hatred"

Worth a try

We who have made killing ever easier,
perhaps it's time to try making it harder.

Veers so

That the world veers so from expectation
is its saving grace.

The absurdity (Szymborska)

I prefer the absurdity of writing poems
to the absurdity of not writing poems.

Wisława Szymborska, from "Possibilities"

On paradise

Paradise imagined
is paradise lost.

On judgment

Judgment is not synonymous with condemnation.

New poems

+12

A choice

Host energy, not toxins.

Completely different (Szymborska)

Everything the dead predicted has turned out completely different.
Or a little bit different—which is to say, completely different.
The most fervent of them gaze confidingly into our eyes:
their calculations tell them that they'll find perfection there.

Wisława Szymborska, from "The Letters of the Dead"

On desire

Desire is not empty, it is driven by a vision of purpose:  "If I have X, I will be able to use it to accomplish Y."  Our predictions may be improbable or implausible, but we are utilizing a goal-oriented mechanism.

On grasping

Grasping attempts to force resolution.
It is hard to accept indeterminacy,
harder yet to imagine why one should.

You will end

Begin to constrict
and you will end obstructed.

Got to have (Szymborksa)

So he's got to have happiness,
he's got to have truth, too,
he's got to have eternity—
did you ever!

Wisława Szymborska, from "No End of Fun"

Distinction

Awareness is analog, decision is digital.

In difficulty

The joys discovered in difficulty are unexpected, and unrepeatable.  Inexhaustible.

Paradox

The more you concentrate on what is,
the more you are confronted with what isn't.

On greed

Greed is heard because it insists louder than generosity.

Fiddling

It's not wrong to fiddle while everything burns,
only to wait for the flames to start.

Distortion

There is no copying of form without distortion.
Meaning overcomes this.

New poems

+12

Sleep

Sleep without waking would not be sleep.

Necessary mantra

What comes with me comes with me,
the rest I will part from.

On creativity

If consciousness is not what we thought it was,
can we continue to think that creativity is?

Remember

When the world is pushing you to be
it's important to remember what you are.

The gap

One would expect the gap between natural and "artificial" to dwindle until it disappears entirely.  A more useful distinction would be "evolved vs. engineered," and even that probably won't last all that long.

Revelation

Every habit, every taboo revealed is a step toward enlightenment.

The fundamental question

The fundamental question is whether to observe or to try to transcend boundaries.

Safeguards

Society needs more safeguards against predators (the kind we actually get, not the imagined varieties we fear).

Phenomena

What if there exists an entire class of phenomena that we are equipped to perceive but cannot record in memory?

On words

That words are limited doesn't make them inadequate.

Excuses

If you have to make so many excuses
you may be defending a lost cause.

New poems

+8

Progress

Progress is a slightly, but significantly, less preposterous repository for faith than religion.

Philosophy

Judge someone's philosophy
by its degree of generosity.

On subjectivity

Subjectivity is localized modeling.

What we look for

What we look for, looking back,
are fragments of today.

On sadism

Sadism is the preemptive move of the coward.

Collecting

I am a collector who collects himself.

More other

There is more other in me than self.

Words

Words are like the two ends of a teleportation circuit:  anyone can travel them, but first someone must carry the far end to its destination.

On love

Learn to love what you've lost
and you'll love forever.

What (Bukowski)

what is one
to do
in a world
where almost everything
worth having
or doing
is
impossible?

Charles Bukowski, from "Once In A While"

On memory

Memory is an intermediate state
between notice and myth.

To think of us

Our need for others to think of us
exceeds our desire for them to be with us.

New poems

+13

Quick 2014 Summation

Books Read:  68
Poems Written:  308

In my first full-time year in New York, my reading was down slightly (due to an inexplicably bad February). It was a very good year for poetry, though.