Everything is language (Lee)

Everything is language. Trees are language; birds are language. A bird is a little cipher. A bird is a word. Beyond the word for bird, bird is a word. That's my experience. A tree is a word that refers to something else. The ocean is a word; each wave is a word. The whole world is language to me.

Li-Young Lee

Without death

That we don't know how to live without death doesn't mean we never could.

Other poems (Mullen)

So when you say to me, "What constitutes a poem?" I want to say, "Hey, we don't know yet." I mean, we know everything that's been written so far that we've called a poem, that's what we've said is a poem. But there might be other things that are other poems that we don't know, yet, how to recognize.

Laura Mullen

New poems

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Poems

I have spent my whole life pursuing something, somethings, more accurately, and whatever they are, whatever else they may be good for, it seems they need to become, to be recognized as, poems.

Roasted pumpkin seeds

Used this technique.

That's the quest (Lee)

Every time someone asks, "Who am I?" that's the quest.

Li-Young Lee

On error

Error also lies where all are certain.

Pure Beauty (Miłosz)

Pure Beauty, benediction: you are all I gathered
From a life that was bitter and confused,
In which I learned about evil, my own and not my own.
Wonder kept seizing me, and I recall only wonder,
Risings of the sun over endless green, a universe
Of grasses, and flowers opening to the first light,
Blue outlines of the mountains and a hosanna shout.
I asked, how many times, is this the truth of the earth?
How can laments and curses be turned into hymns?
What makes you need to pretend, when you know better?
But the lips praised on their own, on their own the feet ran;
The heart beat strongly; and the tongue proclaimed its adoration.

Czesław Miłosz, from "I recall only wonder"

In my dreams

I reject the familiar in my dreams
and again and again follow the not-yet-known.

Like an omen (Pasternak)

                       And like an omen
Of storms and changes, suddenly
Above the grievous chasms, a gull
Drops like a stone, and scoops the sea.

Boris Pasternak, from "Sailing Away"

On respect

You owe no one automatic respect, only civility.

New poems

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That which describes

That which describes does not determine.

We say we want

We say we want certainty
while we pine for surprise.

New again (Pasternak)

I search my memory and say:
Let life be always new again!

Boris Pasternak, from "So Be It"

Inconveniences

Today's inconveniences were yesterday's miracles.

So secret (Derby)

Our objective here, once clear and urgent, had faded into obscurity. The mission had become so secret that it had disappeared altogether.

Matthew Derby, from "The Sound Gun"

On tradition

I respect no tradition for being tradition. Tradition is something that is done because it's been done. To judge a tradition, one must look at it's origins, purpose, and effectiveness. Most traditions can be improved upon.

Damnation

We are constantly cursed
but the only damnation is death.

On age

In people, age is not a measure of time
but of limitation.

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Whatever

If I don't much care how strongly someone self-identifies as human, how much less must it matter whether they think of themselves as a man, a woman, or something somewhere in between. Categories are conveniences.

Fall color

Went leaf peeping yesterday:

Aim higher

Acquisition is the easiest achievement.

On loss

A thing is truly lost
when its name is lost.

Our bit

Our finite bit of the infinite
only whets our appetite.

New poems

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Judgment

There can be no acknowledgment
of the worthy without judgment.

Walter Jon Williams - Fustilarian Bellygod

I'm on a roll! SF writer Walter Jon Williams selected my short verse entry in this contest on his blog, which challenged people to creatively use the phrase "fustilarian bellygod." This win comes with an award, The Philip K. Dick Award Bundle from StoryBundle. I would have liked to have seen more entries, but I'm honored to have been recognized.

Fun!

David Lehman at The American Scholar's feature Next Line, Please picked my line to start a new crowd-sourced sonnet.

Through the way (Eliot)

In order to arrive at what you are not
You must go through the way in which you are not.

T. S. Eliot, from "Four Quartets"

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On love

If love is ever truly satisfied
it is no longer love.

The sea, the sea

When things as large as the sea are dying how seriously can we take minor matters? Or do minor matters become the only things we can take seriously?

Some room

There must be some room for passion of wanting alongside desperation of need.

Slim chapters (McGrath)

Yes, the darkness is vast and it surrounds us. Our lives compose slim chapters of clarity bookended by the void.

Campbell McGrath, from "Essay on Knowledge"

A war

Everyone is a war for which death buries the casualties.

Stands to reason

If murder is wrong then death is wrong.

The luxury

How blessed, those with the luxury of choice beyond "intellectual or brutal."

On lies

How much more effort is spent in justifying lies than in eliminating them.

Bright pictures (Dobyns)

The ones who remain, the ones who are gone, those in between—I miss them all. Once my feelings fix on a person, they stay bright pictures in my mind, they always stay fresh even if I never see them again. Often that feels like a weight.

Stephen Dobyns, from "Looking for the Dog"

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The economy has no need for consciousness (Harari)

[Historically] intelligence always went hand in hand with consciousness. The only intelligent entities were conscious entities. The only ones who could play chess, drive vehicles, fight wars and diagnose diseases were conscious human beings. But intelligence is now decoupling from consciousness. We are developing non-conscious algorithms that can play chess, drive vehicles, fight wars and diagnose diseases better than us. When the economy has to choose between intelligence and consciousness, the economy will choose intelligence. It has no real need for consciousness.

Yuval Noah Harari

On poetry

The beauty of poetry is that every poet gets to make his own game and every reader to reject it on his own terms.

The black door (Dobyns)

At times I consider the black door in my future and hear the wind whistling under the crack.

Stephen Dobyns, from "Looking for the Dog"