For the living

Life is for the living. Let the dead be remembered—and in no other way accommodated.

Be

Be too much for them to sum up easily.

Coping

The world becomes more complex just as you become less capable of coping with complexity.

New poems

+15

Alien

There is nothing more alien in this world than the mind of another.

On culture

Is culture, as delicious as it is, just narcissism writ large?

On writing (Tolentino)

Writing is either a way to shed my self-delusions or a way to develop them.

Jia Tolentino

The less you know

The less you know, the more you believe.

Clarity

Clarity is delicious.

The other

The other's the outlier.

New poems

+15

On being correct (Saunders)

Every human position has a problem with it.  Believed in too much, it slides into error.  It's not that no position is correct; it's that no position is correct for long.  We're perpetually slipping out of absolute virtue and failing to notice, blinded by our desire to settle in—to finally stop fretting about things and relax forever and just be correct; to find an agenda and stick with it.

George Saunders, A Swim in a Pond in the Rain

Time

There is plenty of time.
There just isn't enough me.

On poetry

Poetry is always about the poet,
though some work hard to hide it.

About life

Perhaps the most extraordinary thing about life
is how ordinary it can seem.

Who even remembers (Ge)

Who has time to care about anyone else? Who even remembers who other people are?

Yan Ge, Strange Beasts of China

In poetry

Novelty and originality are important in poetry.
But not as important as truth.

To think

To think is to see without seeing.

On evolution

Evolution is a measure of change,
not of progress.

On culture

Culture is a residue of custom.

And I said no (Barthelme)

And they said, is death that which gives meaning to life?  And I said no, life is that which gives meaning to life.

Donald Barthelme, from "The School"

True or false?

No one is lonely who is well-loved.

On reason

Reason is my favorite path to error.

Delusion

Delusion is our birthright.

New poems

+15

The accident of the ordinary

One should not worship
the accident of the ordinary.

Like a sentence (Ripatrazone)

...the past dissolves in silence—like a sentence that makes an acute mark on us, but afterward, when we close the book, disappears into the mess of words that collect during a life.

Nick Ripatrazone

On death

The problem with death
is that I will not be there for it.

Poverty

Poverty is a human invention.

On equality

There is no equality
without equality of opportunity.

The true unit of measurement

The true unit of measurement for human experience is the poem.

Mom's 2021 birthday cake

Caramel cake with caramel icing, from The Joy of Cooking.

Better

Better to whisper to one person
than to shout at the world.

Silence

Voice is a momentary thing;
silence reigns forever.

Rarely

The irresistible is rarely tender.

Everything

Everything is differently the same.