The World’s Unintended

The world’s consequences
Are all unintended,
None inconsequential,

Whether braided in packs
Or packed in storms, including
Those that were intended

And happened to occur
And led to the biggest
Consequences of all—

Unintended belief
That some consequences
Descend from intention.

The Droplet

Surface tension scoots it
Up the track to be read
For its glucose load.

Another measurement,
Everything fine this time.
The test has done its job.

The blood has done its job.
The nurse has done his job.
Whatever’s dying here

Has got nothing to do
With sugar imbalance.
Where did the droplet go?

The Sleeping

You are global local.
What do you want to sleep
About? When you go, what

Arrives? You had a dream
Sequence about being
Trapped at a winter pass,

Very old fashioned stuff,
Sitting in a cabin
Keeping notes on wisdom

Of when it would be safe
To leave, when you should stay.
After a while you were

Turning into a tale
Of someone lured to death
Then with the twist ending

You thought might make it sell.
You woke up with the tale,
Standard horror fiction—

Wholly global local.
That’s not what you wanted
To get to sleep about.

A Golden-Plowed Sky

A polygonal frame,
Just a bit of window
With nothing much going

On between boundaries.
It had been a hard day,
But for now you were clean

And not in too much pain,
And you had an angle
On a golden-plowed sky.

The Carrot

It is a reduced state of living
This keep-you-alive state of living

The slightly carroty aftertaste
Of the hospital brand of toothpaste

The Damned Leaf

The great leaf lies on the floor
Like the wide train of a gown
In an allegorical

Illustration of flowers,
Where each blossom is portrayed
As a high-society

Person attending a ball—
Imagine the Met Gala
A year flowers were the theme.

But no. This is just a leaf,
A huge, green, leathery leaf,
And you’re human, so you want

To know, right away, two things—
How’d it get here, what’s it mean?
But the damned leaf says nothing.

The Local Patch

It’s a Velcro world, all in all,
All flexible hooks and tubes
Each one snagged by everyone

Curling and twisting around.
Sometimes you just surrender,
Observe your ambit of twist.

Watch out! You’ll hallucinate,
Stuck in the thicket like that.
Sometimes you struggle and twist,

And briefly feel more alive.
That hallucination’s vast—
It’s how the Velcro world grows.