size

March 30, 2023

LONE STAR

I feel like I ought to be
living in Texas again
for everything, they say,
is bigger in Texas and you
don’t argue with a Texan.

So much in my life is bigger now
a computer monitor that would
pass for a moderate sized TV,
with font so large a single page
fills the screen, and the tablet
the size of, but thank God
not the weight of, a phone book,
(for you under 30, look it up),
to read books and news since
libraries don’t carry large print books
(look that up to, probably)
at least not books of poetry.

But thanks to modern materials science
the lenses in my glasses don’t
yet look like Mr. Magoo’s (yup,
one more thing to look up) at least not yet.

December 24, 2021

THE TIE’S LAMENT

I still have the tie
I wore to m grandmother’s
funeral, one I conducted,
but the suit from that day
is long gone, and just as well,
for it would be several sizes
too large for the present me.

I’ve only worn the tie once
since that rainy day in Maryland
and then to a wedding
to balance out the sadness
with a bit of joy, the tie
deserved at least that
for standing with me
in the downpour, urging me
to recite the ancient prayers
as quickly as possible.

June 24, 2021

POSTDICTIONS

In the beginning there was
a void, stasis, dimensionless.
I am a point, without size
taking form only in motion,
so too the seat on which
I sit on United flight 951
not going from point A
to point B for neither
can exist in motion
transcending time.

Each decision sets
one me on a path, into
a dimension, dimensions
while I tread a different path
and I a third, yet I have seen
the step ahead before
having been on its path
as all random walks
must cross endlessly.
The universe grows crowded
with exponential me’s
creating paths, and so
must expand, until we cross
and in some minuscule
amount contract the cosmos.

Often I seek pain to slow
the pace, or pleasure
to quicken it, always immutable.
I have learned all of this
in my endless search
for my paradoxical twin
who prefers the accelerated
pace, moving as quickly
as possible, who looks
younger at each intersection.
Good night Albert.

First Appeared in Afterthoughts (Canada), Vol. 2, No. 4, Autumn 1995.

December 19, 2020

TIMELESS

The wonder of clocks in old towns and cities
is that few actually care if the time
they portend is accurate or an approximation.

The importance often seems inversely
proportional to the size of the place in which
it is called upon to render a temporal verdict.

Best of all are the clocks whose hands
have ground to a halt, or gone missing,
for they are the philosophical seers,

sent to remind us that time is our construct
and in the grand scheme of things
exists only because we demand it to do so,

and long before the clock we got along
sufficiently well by being always
and forever in the present moment.

September 21, 2019

OPTICAL DELUSION

As you slowly approach it
it grows perceptibly larger.
This does not surprise you,
for you are familiar with
the principles of physics.

What does surprise you is
that the details grow
ever less clear as you approach,
as though they retreat
under your slow advance.

You think this strange,
wonder what has gone wrong,
question your eyes, and
finally realize that the details
you saw were not there

that it all was, quite simply, what
your mind wished your eyes to see.