I have heard what the talkers were talking, the talk of the beginning and the end
But I do not talk of the beginning or the end.

There was never any more inception than there is now,
Nor any more youth or age than there is now,
And will never be any more perfection than there is now,
Nor any more heaven or hell than there is now.

Urge and urge and urge,
Always the procreant urge of the world.

Out of the dimness opposite equals advance, always substance and increase, always sex,
Always a knit of identity, always distinction, always a breed of life.

To elaborate is no avail, learn'd and unlearn'd feel that it is so.

Sure as the most certain sure, plumb in the uprights, well entretied, braced in the beams,
Stout as a horse, affectionate, haughty, electrical,
I and this mystery here we stand.

Clear and sweet is my soul, and clear and sweet is all that is not my soul.

Lack one lacks both, and the unseen is proved by the seen,
Till that becomes unseen and receives proof in its turn.

Showing the best and dividing it from the worst age vexes age,
Knowing the perfect fitness and equanimity of things, while they discuss I am silent, and go bathe and admire myself.

Welcome is every organ and attribute of me, and of any man hearty and clean,
Not an inch nor a particle of an inch is vile, and none shall be less familiar than the rest.

I am satisfied—I see, dance, laugh, sing;
As the hugging and loving bed-fellow sleeps at my side through the night, and withdraws at the peep of the day with stealthy tread.
Leaving me baskets cover'd with white towels swelling the house with their plenty,
Shall I postpone my acceptation and realization and scream at my eyes,
That they turn from gazing after and down the road,
And forthwith cipher and show me to a cent,
Exactly the value of one and exactly the value of two, and which is ahead?

I hate being hated even though I 
provoke it, not by committing major wrongs 
like murder, more like a regular 
pattern of being selfish or forgetful, 
which is another word for selfish. 
If you hate me, trust me I know—
in fact, I have a ledger of people, like you, 
who hate me, and I rifle through it every 
morning obsessing over the names more 
than they think about mine—a passing 
thought, a microsecond of dislike or worse, 
indifference like the Godzilla rays of fire 
I feel buzz out of your eyes when 
you scroll past my pictures on Instagram. 
I should focus on the people who love me,
every therapist I ever had has told me so, 
but I don’t need them to love me more, 
so that’s pointless. If we hate each other, 
I assure you my hate has a trace of love 
with a dash of hope. It’s the throbbing 
contradiction of hate’s dark thrall. 

Our “I”s.
They are multiple.
We shuffle them
often as we like.
They can tag us.
We can untag ourselves.
We’ve got our
to-be-looked-at-ness
oh we have
got it.
We peer and cross.
Go lazy.
We’re all girly.
We’re pretty selfie.
We write our poems.
We write our manifestos.
While sitting in the photo booth.
While skipping down the street.
We think: if only my camera
could see me now.
There is a tranquil lyric
but we recollect emotion
with the speed of the feed.
We pose to show
the spontaneous overflow
of powerful feelings.
There are no more countrysides.
There are no more churchyards.
We smudge our vistas.
We flip the cam around.
What is burning in our little hearts?
Hashtags of interiority
licking like flames.
We had been reflective.
We have been reflected.

has only good news for my body
and for my mind, she warms them
and she becalms them unlike her
greek namesake who left her
listeners terrified and tense
ah the onomastic turnaround
took twenty centuries to turn
the older story on its head
which explains ex-lingua why
my modern body feels comfort
in the new diachronic goddess

i think a good one would be:
the sky is petty enough without us
pestering it for stars. or, relatedly:
a good star is hard to find. or somehow
under an orange rind you’ll rustle up a star. or: betelgeuse
is a hell of a way to spend a night. or
better a cluster of stars than another bad sleep.
you cannot dream with your mouth
open and catch the light of the right star.
if you stretch across a bed you will find the light
of it still across your arm like lotion.
if i exaggerate, and call attention to nothing,
it is because as of late, i’ve become 
a hard star out of focus. to catasterize, to place
among the stars, is to curse a foe with darkest ink.
imagine the galaxy as a fable of spilled milk. picture
wanting lemonade. i suppose some of these
are more idioms of space. a shame that any time of year,
whatever you are feeling, the sky at night 
remains the same. or what i mean to say is i’m never sure
the season, but yes, i dream of her.

mr. parker, here i
meant to speak
of dust, dust
and how
even
its perniciousness
echoes
godforce thru light,

perhaps what i
am trying to say:
i’ve grown tired
of singing
the blues,
mr. parker.
all these things i be,
bubbling up; heart-thawed
for a new round of reckonings,,

still, i
am not
who i
am when i
was where i
was,,,

i
am
only
these jangling
night lights
fixed
to a spirit
pleading
for the next
break of dawn
to lay me out
sunny-side,
to thread
my sternum
through to you;
bring
you a
love you
can
hold,,,, 

i’ll build
a glass house
of these
wonders, everything clear-
cut and brilliant and
still,
sometimes,
that late-june
sun unsexes
me
whole,,,,,

the unholy trinity of suburban late-night salvation
barring seemingly endless options of worship

bean burrito breadsticks and mashed potatoes
or a soft taco pan pizza and a buttered biscuit

an unimaginable combination of food flavors
for people not ready to go home to their parents

and yet none of the options feel quite right
so maybe I should call it Self-Portrait as idling

in a drive-thru with your friends crammed
across the sunken bench seats avoiding

the glow of the check engine light with black tape
pressed with a precision unseen anywhere else

in their lives as a fractured voice says don’t worry
take your time and order whenever you’re ready

from behind a menu backlit like the window
inside of a confessional booth as the hands

of the driver open up like a collection basket
for the wadded-up bills and loose change

that slowly stack up as the years go by
and I’m not sure what I’m supposed to be

in this analogy but I know about masking
warning signs and hearing out of tune

voices scream WE’RE THE KIDS WHO FEEL
LIKE DEAD ENDS so instead I’ll call it Self-

Portrait as From Under the Cork Tree
or maybe even Self-Portrait as whatever

album people listen to when they love
their friends and still want to feel connected

to the grass walls of a teenage wasteland
that they can’t help but run away from

                   THE POOL PLAYERS. 
                   SEVEN AT THE GOLDEN SHOVEL.

We real cool. We
Left school. We

Lurk late. We
Strike straight. We

Sing sin. We
Thin gin. We

Jazz June. We
Die soon.

I cannot wait for fall parties.
The invitations have begun to roll in.

I used to think I loved summer parties
until they got this year so sweaty and sad,

the whole world away at the shore,
sunk in sweet and salt.

Goodbye, summer: 
you were supposed to save us

from spring but everyone just slumped
into you, sad sacks 

pulling the shade down on an afternoon 
of a few too many rounds. 

Well, I won’t have another.
I’ll have fall. The fall of parties

for no reason, of shivering rooftops,
scuffed boots, scarves with cigarette holes.

I’ll warm your house.
I’ll snort your mulling spices.

I’ll stay too late, I’ll go on a beer run,
I’ll do anything 

to stay in your dimly lit rooms 
scrubbed clean of all their pity.