Impractical Wisdom

I’m renaming my friends after incumbent friends.

Defending a realm otherwise forgotten.

It takes fortitude to show up with a hammer,

to watch trains collide and what juts out.

It’s real, this peninsula-building strategy.

Destroying everything in the Great Lakes

except my family. What dictates the barometer

I swear by is like the blank spot on a map,

a totally mundane account. I know what’s false

because I made all of it, slept on all of it,

crafted miniature replicas to salute all of it.

Nothing can explain this battle with

uncomfortable proximity. It takes real orchestration

to fake a black hole. When I pin the lifejackets

to the bottom of the lake it’s not really a stance.

I want to interfere with something big. A complicated lie

to trap everyone into. These furious handsignals

they’re not even mine.

Pleased to Announce

If you fill your arms with the right junk

think of all the joy you could bring.

Remember, sympathy is okay but false

sympathy is a burden. You know

the difference between east and due east

which makes your brain tick like a cartoon bomb

no one will ever uncover. In your chest

is a switch you have yet to touch.

You could call it your tender heart

but that’s the same as calling a radiator

a nest because it twinges. You’re big

into the half truth. You’re nothing

without a landscape to trample. This may

sound harsh but then again you know

where your allegiances lie. Put your hand

to the machine you call origin.

At this point anything is possible.