Prelapsarian (supra) or postlapsarian (infra/sub) —
polysyllabic words for members of the club.
When did their tribal god decide in consultation
with other tribal deities, (was the total three?)
who got voted in and who would burn for eternity?
Was it before the fall
or after the fall
or, perhaps, such speculation
isn’t worth much at all.
He knew he never had the credential
but for awhile
it seemed providential
to be discussing such things esoteric —
which in hindsight really have scant merit.
But it was heady and fun
speculating on who would go to hell
and who would make that infinite, heavenly run.
Ah, the audacious musings of a young seminarian.

California is about to break off from
the rest of the
contiguous forty-eight states
or it will dry up from lack of potable water
just like Arizona will
unless someone finds an economical way to
desalinate sea water
which is why we live very, very close to a
huge, freshwater body called
an inland sea,
and beyond that, back down a dune
away from the water
so if the water rises we won’t be flooded
and so, we live in the middle of the
country far away from the coasts which
will eventually be flooded
and we are really secure here and
very happy
except that the seasons are really crazy
what with global warming
because our winter, which was not particularly
strong or snowy,
just goes on and on and on
and it is 34 degrees on the 76th of January,
as put by a friend,
otherwise known as
April 17 and everyone is looking forward
to the weekend
when it is supposed to
be 60 degrees, seriously 60 degrees,
at which time we will
celebrate the fact
that we have discovered Aristotle’s
Golden Mean
along with a couple of
decent places to go for Happy Hour,
one right along an inland lake with
beautiful, wrap around views
not counting all the fertilizer running
into the lake from
farms and the residue of chemicals
in the soil at the bottom of the lake
from all the factories
which used to dump
into the water hoping God wouldn’t
see and it would be washed out
into the inland sea and get diluted
sufficiently that no one would
ever notice or care
except when swimming in
a triathlon and coming down
with some kind of horrible illness
involving phosphorescent stuff
stuck to the
body and pus-filled eyes
and mucous membranes swollen
with yucky, crusty, green stuff.

Other than that, it is really good

and we are really, really fortunate

to live in Aristotle’s Golden Mean

or maybe it’s some growing, slithering,

mean, green thing — Leviathan.

He laughed only once;
It was an open-mouthed, belly laugh;
It was at someone else’s expense;
It was mean;
He smirks;
He winks;
He frowns mostly;
He purses his lips;
He squints causing big crow’s feet;
He gets all beady-eyed;
There is no self-deprecation.
How can you trust a guy
Who doesn’t see the joke?

insouciance,
the poet said is in the essence
of the thing
to make a poem sing.
a succulent word for
a calm observation? a
bit of distance
for instance?
some objectivity?
is it impassivity?
not indifference,
a “calm, an equanimity.”
he wrote of war
and somehow found love.
a gift from above?
the gift of insouciance,
said to be the essence
of the thing
to make a poem sing and ring —
to see what is beneath
around and above
everything —
the calm in the
midst of the storm —
a poet’s dream.

What an interesting position to
be in, seriously audacious when
you stop to think about it, but
here we are, not in hell watch-

ing someone who is. It sounds
arrogant, elitist and at the very
least egregiously judgmental, but,
actually, not so much to any of

that self-critiquing. Having said
that, it isn’t as if we don’t have
a foot in the fiery furnace which
burns the rubber sole of our shoe

(and it kind of takes one to know
one), but when you think about it,
it is kind of obvious in a disguis-
ed way. On the surface, this guy

has all the power in the world,
tells us how smart he is, how
he has everything under control,
is wealthy and is married to

a beautiful woman while he
apparently bedded down other
women. Sounds like the guy
has it made, right? Wrong.

He is utterly, totally delusional
about himself and reality and he
is completely bankrupt (to use an
apt capitalistic description) when

it comes to core values like
compassion, altruism, empathy.
He’s even lacking in one of the
lesser philosophical values —

enlightened self-interest. Yes,
he could do a lot of harm being
in the powerful, political position
he holds, but we can hope for the

checks and balances necessary to
cushion the world from disaster,
but simply on the subject of this
guy’s eternal (meaning now) resi-

dence, yeah, it’s hell. And if
that’s true, perhaps he needs a
prayer — for what is impossible
with humanity is possible with God.

Storms streak, crying out against
spring. A white haze settles across

the sky descending like icy
accusations judging the earth.

Something is going wrong;
something is amiss.

Leaves shrink, buds feel creation’s anger.
Misdirected aggression?

Nature turns on itself in a gasp of
self-preservation.

We watch helplessly

like children watching mom and
dad argue and feeling

the foundation shake and break.

The electricity goes out.

So vulnerable, so powerless,
so scared

like children cowering under a chair.

The new Lab is here.
She comes and nudges my arm.
Plaintive eyes, “Please pet.”

The wind blew in gusts
strong; they made springtime gasp for
air; her teeth chattered.

He spoke cumbrously
when telling a story
to the point where
people dozed languorously.
Every word was
uttered painstakingly
in greatest detail
to the point where
people lost the train of thought,
thinking their thoughts
thoughtlessly.
When he finished,
everyone rose up,
cleared their throats
stentoriously
and offered deep
appreciation
unctuously —
another evening’s reading
concluding
most successfully.

Emily, oh, Emily, they
took your poem,
interpreted it,
poked it
and prodded it,
then dissected it,
consumed it,
terminally tortured it,
and finally regurgitated
every word of it
till your sweet,
ungrammatical poem was
rendered lifeless except
for the musicians and
actors and poets
inspired to
pontificate upon
each and every
piece of it
and felt so very erudite
about it
and quite satiated
with all of it,
you might conclude
that they, not you,
actually wrote it.
Well, I guess it’s
kind of nice
just having
some attention
paid to it.