View through a Small Garage Window

The problem with wisdom is truth
Is not a lot of help with life.
That’s why the better poets duck

Generalized windy abstractions
Like this one to favor details,
The way a child’s face feels when slapped,

The way the soldiers oil their trucks,
The way bowels void, the way sweat drips,
Exact lust, anger, all of it.

Even the finest nature poems
Depict a rich sensorium
And leave their aches buried in leaves.

Ancient wisdom literature,
Honestly, is mostly useless
Advice for a world long since gone.

The best parts of it are the weird
Details dropped like mouse turds, black seeds,
Clues to how they wasted those days.

Wisdom is blurry, myopic,
A still-life seen through cataracts.
Truth helps no one’s life. Luck eats facts.