On the Statistical Improbability of Your Apathy

The likelihood of anything is nil. 

Call it something stupid, say, the Big 
Bang, but either way it’s an uphill 
Battle and not far from flying pigs. 
Stephen Hawking didn’t give a fig 
For how: “What can’t be measured may as well 
Mean nothing,” he declared, and that’s just swell, 
I guess, if you ignore the shocking lack 
Of curiosity and all of that. 
According to Hoyle miracle or not, 
The stars igniting, light, a pale blue dot, 
And you are so far-fetched you’d roll your eyes 
If someone told you that you were alive. 

Atlantis

A continent of cloud begins to break 
Apart above me. Sky comes rushing in 
To form an ocean. Ragged islands swim 
Away alone, or separate and make 
Up archipelagos. A tremor shakes
The wind chimes, or perhaps it’s just the wind
Bearing the cataclysm on its wings.
The gloom disintegrates, and in its wake 
Warm sunlight floods the garden. Children’s shouts 
Drift faintly from the grammar school nearby. 
A drop of autumn foliage trickles down. 
The youngest will forget it by the time 
The bell rings. Even I will have my doubts
Tomorrow, that so many people drowned. 
                                          

— November 2020

South by Southwest

It isn’t hard to understand 
How this place passed for Mars, 
Or a hundred other alien planets 
In Star Trek and Star Wars. 

The slow green-tongued agave fires; 
The spiked six-armed saguaro; 
An endless sea of sand dunes the 
Arrakis of tomorrow. 

It isn’t far from Tombstone to 
Spahn Ranch, and then from there 
To Westworld’s killer androids and 
Yul Brynner’s icy stare.

Queue

You’re standing in a gloomy cave beside 
A river bank. You’re last in a long line 
Of downcast people stretching out of sight. 

The line moves very slowly. By the time 
You reach the front, you’ve left all memory 
Of who you were before you died behind.

Invocation

A single word, a single line — 
Is that so great a task? 
A single stanza set in rhyme 
And meter’s all I ask. 

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