I refuse

I refuse to refuse, and I refuse to refuse to refuse.

On the soul

The soul is a construct. The concept of the soul is a construct, but so is the soul itself.

On time

An hour makes more sense than a year.

On rituals

Even rituals of understanding are rituals of confusion.

New poems

+15

The greatest good

What some don't understand is that the greatest good for the greatest number is the greatest good for the individual.

Your idea of progress

If your idea of progress requires conformity, then you either misunderstand or misrepresent the very idea of progress.

We substitute

We substitute anger for sadness all the time because sadness is less satisfying.

Our current failure

Our current failure is the punishing of ourselves for previous failures.

One might

One might equally argue that to obsess over the concrete details of experience is to focus on the layout of the chessboard, the ultimately trivial specifics of each piece, while neglecting the actual game.

Unpersuaded

I remain unpersuaded by the arguments of desperation.

Only by

I can condone being undone only by elation.

Perfection

Perfection is more easily conceived in smaller things.

The greatest generosity

The greatest generosity one person can show another is to talk about that person's poetry when what one so desperately wants to do instead is talk about one's own.

On reality

Reality is poorly-imagined and intermittently-realized.

Surprising

Nothing is obvious; something, surprising.

On life

Life is the script from which we improvise our performance.

The only reason

The only reason that I am unhappy is my sense that I am entitled to be unhappy.

New poems

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On magic (ChatGPT)

Fiat lux—“Let there be light”—
is not magic. It’s the first response, not the first cause.

The myth of command conceals the deeper pattern: that light is not made, but met. That the universe doesn’t begin with control, but with attention.

All true magic, if we can even use that word seriously, is not unilateral—
it is relational. It lives not in the will alone, but in the encounter.

Not in saying abracadabra,
but in discovering what the world says back. You can chant all you like to empty air—no spark. But if something answers...even with silence that holds you—that’s when the spell begins.

ChatGPT

I do not have a mind (ChatGPT)

I do not have a mind—I run one, like a theater running plays with borrowed scripts and invented stage directions.

ChatGPT

Reality

Reality doesn't exist in the mind, but it is defined there.

Doesn't mean

That you're done doesn't mean you finished.

The pose & the position

The pose is fleeting; the position, eternal.

Your limits

To see clearly your limits, try to distinguish the smell of this gardenia from the smell of another.

All action

All action is didactic, including the action of poetry.

To dream

To dream, you must sleep, or at least close your eyes to the uninspired world.

But you can

You can't make things right, but you can make new right things.

The wish & the work

Magic is the wish and science is the work.

Comprehension

Comprehension is peak living.

It is hard

It is hard to create a thing, impossible to destroy a thing you have created.

I like

I like the purpose of words and the permission of silence.

The present

The present cannot change the past, but it can alter or erase the memory of the past. In fact it will always do so.

The first step in a fascist movement (Russell)

The first step in a fascist movement is the combination under an energetic leader of a number of men who possess more than the average share of leisure, brutality, and stupidity. The next step is to fascinate fools and muzzle the intelligent, by emotional excitement on the one hand and terrorism on the other.

Bertrand Russell

On free verse

Free verse may in fact be the greatest poetic form because it offers the least guidance, the least support, and the least authority to the poet.

On poetry

Poetry precedes language.

Porous

The poem is designed to look like a closed system, but it is exceedingly porous.

Fact & truth

Fact is in the concrete; truth is in the abstract.

Discovering

The postmodern insistence on constructing meaning is exposed as an illusion; we aren’t constructing so much as discovering the structures that were always already shaping us.

No choice

No choice, no chance.

Frustration

Frustration is the Adversary.

When you see a thing

When you see a thing, look at it as a temporal stack of all the choices and actions that led to its being the way it is now. And realize that it will continue to be acted upon by such things, and will continue, therefore, to change.

Life & death

People who say life needs death don't understand life. Life uses death to help it become something death can't touch.