Allusional Thinking

1. Wild Grass Writing

Writhing dragons enjamble
Themselves on the grass.
Enjambment does not exist

In Chinese poetry. Grass
Does not resemble dragons
To most North Americans.

Grasses are sometimes called poems
By well-known Americans.
Branches are sometimes called worlds.

The fragile, agile networks
Underground produce those worlds,
Which we see, describe, and read.

Even when they can’t be seen,
Writhing dragons do all three.


2. There Is No God, and Mary Is His Mother

Rovelli is right,
But not as he means:
“Nothing is valid

Always and everywhere.” Yes,
Indeed. When he adds,
“Sooner or later

We will come across
Something that is new,”
He invokes a sense of time

He does not believe is real
With absolute confidence.
He reminds me of a joke

About George Santayana,
The Catholic atheist.


3. A Dubious and Dreadful Wood

The trunks of these trees are jade.
In practice, when people say
That something is inspiring,

It means they feel encouraged
To believe that a cherished
Delusion is not, in fact,

So delusional and, thus
Encouraged, feel more cheerful
While clinging to it.

Rarely does inspiration
Lead to the abandonment
Of a cherished delusion.

I am inspired to believe
I can recreate this wood.


4. The Disestablished Harmony

I most enjoy contentment,
Not least because life allows,
In its defining hunger,

Equilibrium rarely
And at such great risk.
Contentment, for a body,

Is like weightlessness, free fall,
The sensation of freedom,
Not the suspension of need.

I’ll take it. I know
Nothing’s echo, gravity,
Still rings around me,

But it’s not heaven that’s deaf
To me, but me, happily.