Wise Men

Books and Literature, Culture, Media, Plus ça change motherfuckers, Poetry, Religion, Science, The Life of the Mind, War and Politics

In some sense, both sides are right, both sides are wrong,
and, in the bifurcated politics
of urban genderqueers and rural hicks,
of fetal stem cell bans and legal bongs,
of floury tiktok wives and boys in thongs,
in this American moment: nothing sticks;
the self-destruct device’s timer ticks
toward zero hour, and the nearing thundering song
of risen oceans lapping Appalachian
foothills murmur in our dreams, and wake, and speak:
human failing or God’s grim judgment day?
Reason, duty, kindness? Fickle fashion.
Fairness compels: in equal measure seek
to talk too much with nothing at all to say.

Now More than Ever

Books and Literature, Conspiracy and the Occult, Culture, Education, Poetry, Religion, The Life of the Mind

Men my age are horrifically boring. I don’t
care about cars or home renovations or
sports; prefer the old god behind the forest door,
who dreamt the world that was as real before
your young creator rent the sea from shore,
and lit the sun, made worm and dinosaur,
made fish and pelican, made tree and spore;
what pitiable prayers you late-born menfolk pour!
what once was song is now but retch and snore,
the dying gargle of a maze-mad minotaur
whose quarry fled the coop. Well, I set store
by ancient worlds, and sadder men, who tore
their hearts in two for every friend; therefore,
I can’t connect, by which I mean: I won’t.

And You Shall Love

Books and Literature, Culture, Economy, Poetry, Religion, The Life of the Mind

“If you do not drive your neighborhood or region, what form of adult mastery and knowledge are you seeking in its place? If you do not drive your country’s highways and byways, what path do you have to a nonvirtual experience of the America beyond your class and tribe and bubble?” – Ross Douthat

If you do not drive your neighborhood
or region, what form of adult mastery
and knowledge are you seeking in its place?
What dallying god of degenerated pace
shall plaster his defunct phylactery
on your pedestrian brow, and call it good
to bike to CVS? To what worthless
walk in the woods or chittering crowded train
would you avail yourself in prayer to seal
your social order? Yet behind the wheel
of some bland Hyundai running reds on Main
you become yourself a god, mirthless
and grand: infinite; callous; cruel
as a child roused too soon for middle school.

Guessed Essay

Books and Literature, Culture, Education, Poetry, The Life of the Mind

I came to college eager to debate.
I found self-censorship instead. My peers
expanded the taxonomy of queers
and smoked their drugs and gamed and went on dates
and left me all alone and lingering late
in the silent student union, hoping to hear
the tractatus logico of a Cavalier
who sought through argument to thus create
a crucible through which but truth would pass.
But all the libs preferred to go to class.
They did their homework and they read their books.
They couldn’t be bothered to shoot me dirty looks.
Now I sit as silenced as a Superbowl commercial
and pray my God to make me controversial.

This Man’s Art and that Man’s Cope

Art, Books and Literature, Conspiracy and the Occult, Culture, Economy, Education, Media, The Life of the Mind

I only have eyes for my beautiful wife, who has been
corrupted by the greed of centralized
fiat currency; she has unrealized
my gains and cut me off from kith and kin.
Such fungible affections are a sin!
No future fortune ought to be despised,
pre-disgraced in skeptical women’s eyes
when man plus NFT must equal win.
What godlike power in one single gif:
from central bank to senator, each fears
the power of the yeoman farmer finally able
to transubstantiate a hieroglyph
through random numbers and the faith of Twitter peers
into un-money whose value is unstable.

Twilight

Art, Books and Literature, Culture, Media, Poetry, Religion, The Life of the Mind, Uncategorized

Kristen Stewart is developing a gay
ghost-hunting reality show with a friend;
a paranormal romp through mortals’ ends,
the pure aesthetics of the soul’s last passageway
to poltergeist from final mortal day,
unclothed but for this season’s bedsheet trend—
now season after season; death transcends
even Paris’ runway protégées
and turns each twist of scarf and knot of belt
but into susurrus of spooky sound,
a cloth moved without breath, a leather snap
that’s searing like a whip on flesh; the felt-
like softness of an apparition’s hellbound
burrowing in your body like a spinal tap.

Bitter Angels

Books and Literature, Culture, Education, Poetry, Religion, Science, The Life of the Mind, Uncategorized, War and Politics

“Rationality is uncool,”
he laments; “it isn’t seen as dope, phat, chill,
sick or da bomb”; no attribute of will
is more unlikely to be deemed “to rule”;
it’s like an outcast in some middle school.
You cannot even argue that you cannot kill
in pure percentage terms sufficient mill-
ions of men to match the Earth’s once miniscule
murder rate; Cain’s Abel was one full quarter
of the world, for instance; wouldn’t you rather take
the odds in Auschwitz with those awful chances?
It’s fall. Across each campus days grow shorter;
undergrads still kiss and fuck and fake
enthusiasm for science’s romances.

Labor Rites

Books and Literature, Culture, Economy, Education, Plus ça change motherfuckers, Poetry, Science, Uncategorized, War and Politics

Every job will be automated until four remain:
lawyer, farmer, dentist, soda jerk;
whaleman, scrivener, and grocery clerk;
rabbi, car mechanic, David Blaine;
professional impersonator of Mark Twain.
The rest will be done by one Mechanical Turk
with an indefatigable appetite for work;
its million metal arms will never strain;
its million pinprick eyes will never droop;
of course, it’s operated by an actual man
from a windowless room in drowning Bangladesh;
he gets one thirty second break to poop
and eat his lunch before the beautiful tan
attack dogs are released to tear his flesh.

Chicxulub

Art, Books and Literature, Culture, Education, Justice, Plus ça change motherfuckers, Poetry, Religion, Science, The Life of the Mind, Things that Actually Happen, Uncategorized, War and Politics

When exactly I should retire, or will
retire has many complex parts to it:
a chronometric set of gears that fit
through genius acts of unimaginable skill
and ratios whose maddening math would fill
vast desert racks of servers cooled and lit
by carbon burned by who came after it.
What tyrant lizard left by being ill,
or turned from prey to watch a meteor
descending through the North-American sky?
The seas may boil; the air itself may burn;
the liquefying stone may crack and roar.
A life’s lived best not knowing it will die,
instinct alone, and never paused to learn.

Horse Feathers

Books and Literature, Culture, Education, Poetry, The Life of the Mind, Uncategorized

Don’t ever start an email to your professor
with “Hi [first name].” He will take offense.
Unlike the world at large, his cloistered sense
of feudal order ranks mankind from lesser
beings to lords. Herrdoktor? Priest-confessor.
His ego’s delicate as it’s immense;
informal greetings puncture his pretense
of superior boredom. Unwashed rabble’s the oppressor:
yawping Christian names and slapping backs;
noticing the due dates on assignments don’t
line up with this week’s readings; asking for
extra office hours and a little slack
because their Starbuck’s supervisor won’t
let them swap shifts, and they’re very poor.