The Forecast

My poem "The Forecast" has been accepted for publication by Thin Air Magazine, a publication of Northern Arizona University's MFA program.

On denial

A denial has more power in a defined system than in an environment of doubt and mystery.

On love

Love repeals apathy.

On life

Life gives of itself
but only with an eye to the future.

New poems

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On sincerity

Sincerity can appear at its most sincere in silliness.

As often as necessary

As a poet, as a man, I can accept no constraint upon my right to fall in love as often as necessary.

More on death

Death is the change that doesn't change us.

Defined

Humanity is defined by change, not by death.

No one

No one can love others without loving themselves.
No one can hate others without hating themselves.

Imagination

Imagination imagines itself imperfectly.

Advice

Extrapolate, don't exaggerate.

On dreams

We are embarrassed by dreams because they are too incoherent to be lies.

The joke

The joke is that we get the joke.

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They had theirs already

How fortunate that the constituency of the dead is denied a vote.

Sometimes

To live free of regrets is regrettable.

On words

Words seem into meaning.

Destination

Destination doesn't imply revival.

Yesterday

Yesterday is only a lesson.

On respect

What you would have me respect I am content to notice.

The claims

Another's claim or pose of superiority should every time be greeted with expressions of doubt, dispute, and disdain.

Better

Better a toad's turd than an evanescent certainty.

Wounds

Every death is a wound on the improvised body of life.

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No destination

How can you become disoriented when there is no destination in any direction?

Lurking

In the shallow you can only see your own reflection, but many things, some quite unexpected, can lurk in the deep.

The first step

The first step toward transcending the programming is acknowledging the programming.

The music that you need (Powers)

Hold on to what you know right now. Let no one persuade you of a single thing. Study your hunger and how to feed it. Trust in whatever sounds twist your viscera. Write in the cadences of first love, of second chances, of air raids, of outrage, of the hideous and the hilarious, of headlong acceptance or curt refusal. Make the bitter music of bumdom, the sad shanties of landlessness, cool at the equator and fluid at the pole. Set the sounds that angels make after an all-night orgy. Whatever lengthens the day, whatever gets you through the night. Make the music that you need, for need will be over, soon enough.

Richard Powers, Orfeo

Noncompliance

Noncompliance is the mother of detention.

In truth

There is room in truth for the unlikely, the unexpected, and the undesired.

Staying the same

Even staying and sameness don't stay the same.

Infection (Powers)

Life is nothing but mutual infection. And every infecting message changes the message it infects.

Richard Powers, Orfeo

A different approach to meaning

To not mean it is a different approach to meaning.

Choosy

I choose to choose when to choose.

On patriotism

The true patriot—the only one who is not contemptible—wants his or her country to become better than it is.

Never

Never trust anyone who doesn't love, or only loves.

For sure

It is hard to know and impossible to know for sure.

Be generous

When you see someone trying to fulfill what they see as their social role or responsibilities, be generous in acknowledging their efforts, even if you don't agree with their perspective.

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Very popular (Hoagland)

No matter how you feel, you have to act
like you are very popular with yourself;
very relaxed and purposeful,
very unconfused
and not
like you are walking through the sunshine
singing
in chains.

Tony Hoagland, from "Here In Berkeley"

Memories

Memories don't reside where they were made, but in the head.

The undesirable

We claim the undesirable is inevitable
to justify its ubiquity.

On regret

Purge your regret with improvement, not penitence.

Snickerdoodle bundt cake

Made from this recipe. Very satisfying result!

Contemptible

To waste and to settle for the necessary are equally contemptible.

Forever

Only what takes forever
takes as long as you think it will.

Upside down

To view the world upside down,
stand on your head, don't try to
invert the world.

Having it all

The secret to having it all
is to acknowledge what is.

Sensibly

The more sensibly I've tried to live,
the more estranged from society I've become.

On decent people

Decent people are not the repressed ones, because decent people's instincts and impulses are not ugly and in need of concealment.

Play it forward

No one can survive knowing without playing.

Let me rephrase that

Personally, I prefer "Give me liberty or die."

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The legacy (O'Daly)

The legacy of the knight errant or of a poet's oeuvre lives not in any single deed or inspired turn of phrase, but in the fact that it is a chosen life:  it is founded upon a commitment to values and action inspired by the desire for truth and justice, an idea invented by the troubadours in the 13th Century.

William O'Daly

The historical record

There is much of value in historical records, but ultimately they are so biased, so partial, so manipulated, so factitious, so incomplete that one must scoff at anyone who promotes them as essential.

Propaganda

The moment anyone resorts to propaganda, disregard them.

On life

Life is where you look for it.

The Tulane Review

I received my copy of the Fall 2015 issue of The Tulane Review, which contains my poems "Dancing Song" and "The Wisdom of the Crowd." It seems I was the only person to get two poems into this issue!

The believers

What harm do they do, the religious believers?  They threaten the dream of truth, the promise of honesty, the hope of understanding.  They would see society dependent upon a faulty foundation, would have us lie to our children, to ourselves, while demanding concession of their superiority in their retreat from the plausible, their fear of the reasonable. While we all survive on stories, theirs are thin and ugly and desperate.  They proselytize a fable of the defeated, and rejecting it is not enough, it must be condemned.

Ignorance Revealed (Bronk)

Our world is not as we would have it or how
we could even have thought to make it but delights
us often in startling ways that make us think
we don't know anything about ourselves.

William Bronk, "Ignorance Revealed"

On politics

Of course some people still think they can win through the political system: there are always those who believe they can beat the house.

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The forfeiture

The last act of adolescence is the forfeiture of faith.

Better

Better to settle for significance
than to moan for meaning.

What you must

If you do only what you must,
there is no you.

On heaven

Heaven is an unworthy dream, a stagnant pond in the landscape of infinity.

The right to a thought

The right to a thought
adheres to the one who thinks it.

So little

You can't begin to really learn until you discover how little you know.

The better path

Explain, don't justify. Reason, don't rationalize. Demonstrate, don't intimidate.

Do the math

Someone, do the math on the impact to society of the knowledge and expertise lost to death.

The little failures

Encourage the little failures from which success is built.

The things

The things that happen are surprising.
The things that don't happen are unfathomable.

On help

Help should be made available
but never compulsory.

A story

A story one refuses to admit is a story becomes a lie.

Rule of thumb

Easier to conquer
a realm of fewer possibilities.

The simple

It is pleasing when the simple proves true.
It doesn't always.

On the law

The law should redress harm,
not pretend to believe in sin.

On culture

Culture is created when tendency and creativity encounter environment.

Surprised

I am surprised by everything that doesn't happen to me.

On love

Love is just an excuse for the things we do to one another,
or an expression of the guilt we feel for doing them.

On rationalization

Being able to rationalize too quickly cancels out most (all?) of the advantages of intelligence.

New poems

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On luck

There is no luck, only chance, and chance
is entirely dependent upon circumstance.

Intent

If surgery and torture can be distinguished by intent,
what of love and hate?

The truth

I will go anywhere for the truth.

FWIW

Animism is the most democratic religion.

On beauty

Is our sense of beauty merely the dying ember of animism?

On culture

Where culture conflicts with fact, culture must give way.

The thing

The thing you look back on and regret is not the same as the thing you enjoyed or suffered, or enjoyed and suffered.

On human connection

If I don't teach you something
or you don't teach me something,
what will become of us?

On friendship

How can I maintain friends
who are satisfied with what I am?

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Our games

When our games become sophisticated enough that we can believe them without reservation, then human desire shall at last be requited.

The key

Moderation is the key that opens the lock of immoderation.

Skin in the game

If you're not part of the problem
you can't be part of the solution.

Other people

We don't want to know other people but rather to characterize them.

On diversity

To what extent must diversity include the noncompliant?

On life

I value life tremendously. But I don't value every life above everything else. That's an irrational and destructive bias.

The boast

The boast maintains the beast.

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