Cyclone in a Cup [Free Verse]

coffee flecks swirl
in a steaming cup

cyclonic do-si-dos,
swinging and folding,
merging into clusters

between the cyclones
there are highspeed byways
cutting across the surface

a jitter of the table
seems to stop the dance,
but then it resumes

entropy falls to 
eventually follow its imperative --

entropy rising:
using order
to turn all that energy
into a lukewarm 
cup of joe

this same fluid clockwork
played out in 
primordial soup
to begin the dance of life

The Crossing [Free Verse]

A ship
crosses the ocean,

in the darkness:
darkness, black & endless

no moon,
no stars,
just clouds -- thick & low
clouds that can't be seen

The ship has lights,
but those lights know
an event horizon

Lights sometime 
glint against the waves,
those roiling & undulating
waves,

and the lights bounce off
the ship's hull

But no one can see them,
because if anyone could see them,
the seers would be seen--
unless theirs is a ghost ship,
piloted by literal ghosts,
or some other agent of observation

Maybe there is fog --
not enveloping the ship,
(such mist would be felt
on the skin of those on deck)
but, rather, a fog between 
where the ship is,
and where is should be

For it is surely off course,
listlessly drifting,
all hope arrayed against edges:

edges of ice
&
edges of the world

Not that the world is flat,
but, perhaps, it's not fully sculpted:
maybe nothing lies outside
the range of the seen:
outside the bounds of experience

It sounds crazy, 
but all kinds of crazy
form in a mind
submerged in darkness

Impending Cataclysm [Free Verse]

Everything is dull
before the world changes.

People live their rituals,
complying with habits.

But the world will change,

change from one day to the next,

and not the subtle, unceasing change --
perpetual and ubiquitous --
that has always been.

No. This will be an eight megaton
shift into the new,

and nothing will ever be 
as it's always been.

Never again.

It will happen without warning
or precursor --

without a hint that the world
is about to be revealed, 

to be discovered 
to be something
wholly different
than anyone ever imagined.

Welcome to the new now
[prematurely speaking.]

Flameless Flame [Free Verse]

walking through a darkened temple,
a jagged hole perfectly aligns;
 the kinked white-light washing inward
becomes a shimmering flame,
topping a stone pillar, 
becoming a faux candle
in my shimmering mind

Discovery Distance [Free Verse]

Mountains are best viewed at a distance,
despite humanity's "closer is better" bias.

Up close, one is invariably in a cloud,
looking at an undifferentiated mass
of gray-white:
ice -- granite -- snow -- fog.

One may climb a mountain 
to see other mountains in the distance,
but standing eye-to-rock with a mountain
offers little spectacle & grandeur.

Massive things can be too close to see.

I wonder whether I'm also
 better viewed from a distance.

Not everything is.

Consider the opposite mistake:
People say things such as, 
"My Great White Whale is out there."

But Great White Whales are  
always found looking inward --
not out in the distance.

Pause Bloat [Free Verse]

A pause hangs in the air
like poison gas.

It threatens to devour
more moments:
good moments,
sacred moments,
moments that could've been something.

It envelops all,
encasing minds in psychic concrete,
entombing thoughts so hushly
that not even the thinker can hear them.

Through the ear-ringing hours,
nothing is said
&
nothing is heard --
not a word or a scream
or unsolicited fashion advice --
nothing but the high tone
that slits through silence.

Tributary [Free Verse]

Your river is a tributary.
My river is a tributary,
merging
&
flowing to a sea.

I feel your molecules,
floating past my own,
intermingling
& 
in some way tingling:
a jangled excitation.

And, 
[at the sea]
we will be, together
&
[at the sea]
we will be together.

I no longer worry
that I'm a river with no name --
an anonymous tributary -- 
because every sea 
has many names.

The Naked Dream [Free Verse]

There is a dream
in which one is naked.

But no one is looking at you,...
yet

And that is so much worse;
the anticipation of being gawked at 
is more disconcerting 
than being gawked at.

And, yet, one can't bring oneself 
to shout,
attracting onlookers, 
so as to end the misery of anticipation.

One can only sit with one's naked
expectations --
wading in anxiety.

Bardo Mind [Free Verse]

lost in a disembodied
Bardo state

fantastical happenings
mainlined into consciousness

with a side of swirling 
phantasm

and all the angry demons

and all the faceless gods

churn around the periphery

Ma-Ai: The Ideal Interval [Free Verse]

there is a ma-ai

-- an ideal interval --

the perfect gap
in space & time
& space-time

there's a ma-ai:

between setup and punchline
&
between punchline and laugh

between inhalation 
&
exhalation

between listening
&
speaking

between receiving
&
countering

between swinging
&
hitting

too rushed and momentum
is smothered

to slow and momentum
dissipates

there is a ma-ai
for all things that move.