Indisputable

The fact that the evidence is indisputable never stopped anyone from disputing it.

They should get me

I have emptied of everything but words, but they should get me to the end.

I can't

I can't love forgiveness;
I can't not forgive love.

The invisible magic

We love the invisible magic,
but the invisible magic doesn't love us
and we will never be happy
until the invisible magic loves us.

New poems

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Important things

You bring up an important thing, but it is not the only important thing, or even the most important thing (the most important thing is to give as much acknowledgment and attention to all the important things).

If you know

If you know you know
you don't know.

Existential crisis

Existence is a crisis.

I have not

Although everything I have said has been true, I have not, after all this time, caught up to the truth.

It is better

Look, and judge. It is better to be wrong
than to stand with your hand over your eyes
refusing to speak.

So many ways

There are so many ways,
but we can only take the ones
we call "forward."

No one

No one hates like the one who has been ignored.

New poems

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Imagination

Imagination is a wonderful thing.
So long as you don't imagine it
is more than it is.

Disrupt

Disrupt the dominant.

I scorn hope

I scorn hope for its dependence upon possibility.

Most of all

The powerless, most of all,
worship serendipity.

The dramatic

The dramatic is never asymptomatic.

When we are done

We are done
when the poetry is gone.

The necessary math

You cannot decipher your life,
for you lack the necessary math.

How?

If our histories differ,
how can we share a now?

So much less

What I call you matters
so much less than what you are.

We rage

We rage as loudly, and as vainly,
as the thunder.

New poems

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Annotate

Our lives are an accompaniment
with which we annotate experience.

Shortcut

A smile is a shortcut.

Pattern

The cracked or shattered pattern
is a new pattern.

Nothing

Nothing makes poetry happen.

New poems

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The only authoritarian idea

The only authoritarian idea that I support is the idea that authoritarianism must be stamped out at the first sign, each and every time.

I think

I think what I am is what I think.

The better choice

How do you make the better choice
until you've established your criteria
for better and worse?

The most unattractive thing

The most unattractive thing in someone
is their exercise of bad judgment.

The most difficult freedom

The most difficult freedom to gain
is against constraints you haven't perceived.

Essential

What I find essential is the elective.

The villain

In society, the villain is the one
who disregards consensus.

What is wanted

What is wanted is the ability to discern,
differentiate, and manipulate.

Is as mad

The one who hates the exclamation point
is as mad as the one driven into a frenzy
by a comma.

Should not be

"Utilitarian" should not be an antonym of "human."

New poems

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No obligation

There is no obligation to be useful;
it is a pragmatic strategy.

Leisure first

Leisure first, and then, perhaps, labor.

A few rooms

No one could be at home in me,
but I have been able to furnish a few rooms
rather comfortably.

So much more

Death is so much more easily understood than life.

The doctrine of no dogma

Every true thinker must derive, arrive at
again the doctrine of no dogma.

Antidote

It is art's uncertainty that makes it an antidote
to life's inexorable poison.

Until you know

You can't know what you need to know
until you know more than you need to know.

New poems

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What I did not know (Berger)

What I did not know when I was very young was that nothing can take the past away: the past grows gradually around one, like a placenta for dying.

John Berger, And Our Faces, My Heart, Brief As Photos

More

I believe more in the beauty of science
than in the science of beauty.

Oxymoron

The notion of "concrete poetry" is an oxymoron.

In tune

I'm best in tune with the euphonic cacophony.

Dissect everything

The artist and the scientist must dissect everything, especially ideology.

300 Days of Sun

My poem "So Many Things" is now out in the Spring 2023 Issue (Volume 2 Issue 4) of 300 Days of Sun.

I will not be constrained

I will not be constrained by the limits of other people's vocabularies.

On birth

Birth is differentiation out of the hell of ubiquity.

New poems

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Fear of AI (Doctorow)

I think those concerns are just displaced anxiety about limited liability companies. Where is the artificial life form that humans created to serve them, but which instead requires the humans to serve the artificial life-form?... I think that when people worry about Skynet, what they mean is the imperatives of business are driving the world to the brink of human extinction.

Cory Doctorow

The endgame

The endgame is to understand everything
and do nothing.

Most me

I am most me when I am reacting
to (or against) you.

There is art

There is art that makes you forget the art and there is art that makes you see the art.

Great art

There is no debate:
an absolute shit
can make great art.

I might

I might be more amenable to the notion of authority if those given it ever did anything praiseworthy with it.

My Yes

My art is my Yes to the big No,
and my nos to all the misguided little yeses.

What I'm doing

Judge what I'm doing, not what you think I should be doing.

Authority

If you oppose authority, you are acknowledging authority; instead, challenge a particular claim to authority.

Words are

Words are the abstractions we use to hack the code of consciousness.

Life is

Life is speed embodied.

On progress

Progress isn't progress unless it preserves what's important.

The unintended consequences

We are the unintended consequences of unexpected convergences.

3 types of people

There are three broad types of people: those who believe things are better than they are; those who believe things are worse than they are; and those who believe they aren't sufficiently informed to judge how things are.

Nuance

Nuance isn't always subtle.

More and more

More and more is taken from us until something in us decides that what is left is no longer enough to defend.

Human relations

Human relations are difficult when you come to each one with a conviction that they are certain to go poorly.

My life

My life consists of brief poems of indeterminate worth.

New poems

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Fear (Pargin)

It is okay to be fearful. When we do not allow ourselves to show fear, the emotion simply comes back in a much uglier disguise.

Jason Pargin, If This Book Exists, You're In The Wrong Universe

Do we grieve more

Do we grieve more for the loss
or for what is lost?