All that's there

How is one to keep looking forward when all that's there is the end?

The most terrible society

The most terrible society is the one in which you have to be what others tell you you are. And the closer one is to that, the worse it is.

Editors

Editors talk a good game, but just look at the rot they publish.

Sufficient

Narrator is sufficient character.

Be suspicious

Be suspicious when they insist
we should all be interchangeable.

Illusion is all

Illusion is all because perception is partial.

Not all

Not all tarnish is taint.

It must be

If a truth contradicts another truth,
it must be the contradiction that's false.

The dragon

The dragon was never the villain.

New poems

+15

Never confuse

Never confuse compromise with capitulation.

Optimism may be

Optimism may be the ultimate cynicism.

Even when

Even when it isn't it always is.

Without change

There is no charge without change.

Your imagery

Remember, your imagery is imaginary.

To take the familiar

To take the familiar into the unfamiliar—
what could be better?

Forgiven

No one has ever forgiven
anything other than a fiction.

How long

How long we will insist that winter is just late autumn.

How could I

How could I show more that you don't matter than by obscuring the truth from you?

The ending

In both the happy ending and the unhappy ending, it is the "ending" that is the realistic part.

"Better"

"Better" is best defined as "preferred by me."

No ideology that neglects

No ideology that neglects ecology deserves much respect.

If you don't read books

If you don't read books,
what even are you?

Even the illusion

Even the illusion is an illusion.

The unusual is not

The unusual is not unnatural.

New poems

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How much there is

How much there is in the named of the one who named.

I would prefer to believe

I would prefer to believe the irrational irrelevant.

Everything is easier

Everything is easier to dismiss or destroy when you first label it a pest.

Need not

The subtext need not contradict the text.

The only thing

The only thing we ever worshiped was regret.

We leak

We leak most what we lack most. And vice versa.

Interrogative verse

Declarative verse, exclamatory verse—it's all interrogative verse.

Questioning authority

When you question authority, don't be surprised when it is authority that answers.

The bigger the hole

The better something is, the bigger the hole in it.

New poems

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The natural consequence

Love is the natural consequence of the life impulse.

What sets life apart

What sets life apart is desperation.

The pattern

Looking for the pattern we created the pattern.

The vision

The vision is the mission.

On optimism

Optimism is opportunism.

To know thyself

To know thyself is to know that thou dost not know thyself.

The anecdote

The anecdote is not the antidote, it's the anodyne.

I would rather

I would rather work than to reflect upon my work.

No cause

The miraculous, aka the random, can, by definition, have no cause.

An adversary

An adversary may be of more use than a supporter who watches our struggles without intervening.

Specifics

Specifics can be as fraudulent, as facile as generalities.

Auto-heretical

All holy fictions become auto-heretical when they are recast as factual.

New poems

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The opposition (Roberts)

For most of us, living now, the opposition is not between life and death but between life and boredom.

Adam Roberts

On memory

Memory is reconstructive surgery.

How much

How much we rely on the little we know.

Judge us

Judge us on what we do with what we find,
and what we leave behind.

It's not beautiful because

It's not beautiful because it's brief:
beauty is irrespective of duration.

Obsessed

I have been obsessed with finding something to obsess over.

The sentiment of science

The sentiment of science is wonder.

On poetry

Poetry is restricted articulation.

New poems

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Without committing

I will hear the truest thing that each I meet can tell me, but without committing to their conviction.

How much?

How much must you receive before it makes up for not getting what you want?

I rejected the expectation

I rejected the expectation that I would compromise my way to success.

Regret (Proust)

Regret, like desire, seeks satisfaction and not self-analysis: in the beginning of love, our time is spent not in finding out what love is made of, but in trying to make sure we can see each other tomorrow; and at the end of love, we do not try to ascertain the nature of our sorrow, but only to voice it in what we hope is its tenderest form to her who is the cause of it. We say things that we feel the need to say, and which she will not understand; we talk only for our own benefit.

Marcel Proust

Show me

Show me your entirety, or go away.

Any tradition

I would like to write outside of any tradition, even my own.

To the infinite

The finite set is invisible to the infinite.

To take refuge

I long to take refuge in the future of the past.

You may ask

You may ask for a song.
You may not dictate its melody.

Our investment

Our investment in what we think we know is one of the greatest blocks to further learning.

Never start a fire

Never start a fire you are not prepared to extinguish.

New poems

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Existence

Existence is iterated occurrence.

Coincidence

Coincidence is what happens when enough things happen.

The universe

The universe is the Ship of Theseus.

Truth

Truth is fact in translation.

The poem is

The poem is arbitration between poet and reader.

That which shows you

That which shows you more of humanity shows you your capacity for rejection.

"The Etceteras"

The Stillwater Review has accepted my poem, "The Etceteras," to be published in the upcoming Volume 14.

An immoral act

Designed obsolescence is an immoral act.

New poems

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We all live in stories (Rushdie)

We need all of us, whatever our background, to constantly examine the stories inside which and with which we live. We all live in stories, so called grand narratives. Nation is a story. Family is a story. Religion is a story. Community is a story. We all live within and with these narratives. And it seems to me that a definition of any living vibrant society is that you constantly question those stories. That you constantly argue about the stories. In fact the arguing never stops. The argument itself is freedom. It's not that you come to a conclusion about it. And through that argument you change your mind sometimes. And that's how societies grow. When you can't retell for yourself the stories of your life then you live in a prison. Somebody else controls the story.

Salman Rushdie

The illusion of chaos

The illusion of chaos is necessary to maintain the illusion of order.

How I got to be who I am

How I got to be who I am was by continually asking who I am.

If we are to love

We must love a facade if we are to love at all.

On sentimentality in poetry

Sentimentality is a legitimate part of the human experience—how can it have no place in poetry?