for us at every moment in time & certainly this one

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

to see the moment in time in which we exist
and are present and to be able to context-
ualize it: the river now becomes the next
river by flow alone; a moment missed
recurs as déjà vu : the lips you’ve kissed,
a child’s first word, some fumbling first-time sex—
the lighthoused shoals we’ve shored against the wrecks
of time’s tumults and tides; the curses hissed
at all our disappointments; the absent gods
and flocking angels; the death, the flesh, the blood
baked in the boot-stomped sand—O Lord!
that formed the hand that held the dowsing rod
and made the time-perceiving mind of mud,
give me thus your cause, and gift: the word.

for Vice President Kamala Harris

That’s Fine

Books and Literature, Conspiracy and the Occult, Culture, Education, Plus ça change motherfuckers, Poetry, The Life of the Mind, War and Politics

“The Nazi stuff” is literally one one hun-
dred thousandth of the things my boss collects.
He owns many non-genocidal texts.
He’s not quite sure the good guys really won
a certain war when all is said and done,
but, that aside, he is in all respects
mere amateur of Volkish analects:
mere millions spent on Adolph’s art for fun.
Yes, he honeymooned at Babi Yar,
but only to feel the breath of history;
his iron gates are simply meant to warn
the liberal Jews they oughtn’t go too far:
otherwise, they’re fine, and should stay free.
For this, the Twitter mobs uncork their scorn!

We’d

Art, Culture, Education, Poetry, The Life of the Mind, War and Politics

The degree to which Manhattan air is now
unseriously suffused with Mary Jane
is not a crime, but it’s a crying shame.
Has anyone given any thought to how
a father—transatlantic, middlebrow—
with two young tots might tamp this devilish flame,
rhetorically—my dears, all drugs are lame—
when, citywide, vom Kind zur worrying Frau,
each pair of human lips is closed upon
a pipe a piece a joint a glowing vape,
greedily enjoying life too much,
the smell of day-old piss dispatched, and gone
the leaking garbage-scented cityscape,
and left behind this brain-befogging crutch.

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.

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.

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.

High Genes

Conspiracy and the Occult, Culture, Education, Media, Poetry, Religion, Science, Uncategorized

“More and more I find bathing to be less necessary.” -Jake Gyllenhaal

More and more I find bathing to be less
necessary; and I also think that there’s
a whole unbathèd world of finer hairs
and better skin, oil-anointed and blessed
like holy Israelites, or lettuce dressed
in vinaigrette as tart as winter air.
Don’t let the water catch you in his snare,
drowned Neptunian depths of scrubs and soaps,
skin pricked and puckered as a pickled bean,
good humors leeched and sunk like sand and grit.
God would not design us thus, one hopes:
his loving procreative beings are clean,
black nails or not, green knees, or greasy tits.