off the road and backed up
to check. In my low beams, her head high,
those giant black eyes blinked slowly, confused.
Difficult this morning to concentrate
on the psalmic text—Happy is the man
whose delight is in the law of the Lord—
which feels irrelevant to everything
that has been flailing at my heart these days.
But how else to learn an answer for how
the tyranny of bleak appearances
drains the soul of all will to persevere?
He is a tree whose leaf does not wither.
I am like chaff that the wind blows away.
Be warned, you rulers of the earth.
Psalm 2:10
Hard Times
We wait out this blizzard at the far edge
of whatever suffering it may pile on
the less well kept. Easy for us to love
the bride-white beauty through our air-tight
windows or even brave the elements
one well-plowed mile for two-dollar coffees
at our favorite Zagat-rated café.
Never without a log for the fireplace,
we are thankful for our comforts, though we
sign contracts for these benefits insured
by policies that conspire against all
for whom there remains no room in the inn.
Easy to feel the innkeeper’s bind
with the wind chill pushing twenty below.
May your blessing be on your people.
Psalm 3:8
Among the Living
We lie down and sleep; and we wake again.
Like dying, or the way I wish it were.
The Lord gives to his beloved sleep, but
few care. Those who do I tend to welcome
as I do your eyes morning to morning.
Evening to evening, the pace picking up,
we lie down and sleep; we wake again,
our field of vision—blink—stroboscopic.
Blink again—we are surrounded by foes
who loathe our sloth, regard my love
to laze beside you of no benefit
to the commonweal. Which is true. So I
may quit my day job. What will they say then?
We lie down and sleep—and wake again.
How long, O men, will you love delusions and seek false Gods?
Psalm 4:2
Against Solipsism
Is it unacceptably romantic
to say aloud that urban poetry
reads as if it needs to get out more, needs
more than a holiday in the country
to curb its solipsistic tendencies?
Most of the universe is—pause—nature.
Imagine hip-hop referring to plums
or an Ashbery knockoff ascending
into the euphony of coherence.
What makes sense of anything that happens
behind locked doors is that which has no need
of a door, real or metaphorical,
to upset one’s cognitive apple cart.
Say, the slightest breeze beneath a doorjamb.
Their throat is an open grave.
Psalm 5:9
Moto at Broadway and Hewes
Brooklyn, NYC
Whatsoever is vulgar—sub-
standard housing, most packaged goods,
souls lacking virtuous aspiration,
anything ignoble or half-assed—will,
when the splendor appears, be swept up,
collected like so much rubbish, burned.
Imagine earth’s spirit clarified,
the good body set free from corruption.
Until then, there is music
for voice and double bass in cafés
where—think temples of refuge—
fugitive hope may find sanctuary.
When the splendor appears, who
will not see it? Whose knee will not bow?
My bones are in agony.
Psalm 6:2
Desire
I want to live
where no one lies
to the suffering child who asks
How long?
Deceive a child
and she dies a little—
a little death, a little death
then gone.
He who is pregnant with evil gives birth to disillusionment.
Psalm 7:14
