Waterbug

Dream Traps

The physical universe knows the universes we create
the way our cats and dogs know the details
of our mortgages. This solid stuff
(ink, paper, whatever glop melts down
to make computer screens, keyboards,
my fingers) has no idea it's all contained
in a book I read. The book is ink and paper
and all the other stuff I contribute to it.

What makes a dream
a "mere" dream?
No agreement, no one to agree
that it's there. Mere dreams
are lonely things. The need to wake up
is the need to find agreements,
other players in the game.

(We could dream them up,
but we'd know. Or our dreams,
so well dreamed, would attract others
eager to become them.)

This physical stuff is too well agreed-upon.
It has lost the look of agreement,
hidden its seams, removed the marks
of our honed dream tools.
No wonder it is often disagreeable,
pretending, as it does,
to have nothing to do
with our agreements --

nothing to do with us,
except this morning
I created it in a book,
and it was all there. Characters
from an author's mind
were living in it.

Even here, if I say, "You --
hey, you!" a space appears
around you. I can see you
in it, being you
one December morning.

Picking your pockets

You're not leaking universes,
you're serving them up like
poundcakes, like barbeque. I'm beseiged with
universes just leaking from your
pockets -- truffles, cookies,
small delicate marbles.

Some time ago you laid a Don Winslow
"Neal Carey" mystery on my bedside table.

Eventually I got sucked into it and,
having devoured it, went to the library today
for another. But you've just finished a
biography of Dorothy Sayers and Oh
so casually laid that on my bedside table.

I will hold off as long as I can.

You gave me Kaminsky's Porfiry Petrovich,
the washtub, the icebox, the detective from Moscow.
If I could get more of him, I would.

Would I ever have found these without you?

Several days ago, you read one of your poems
I swear I have never heard before. It was
GOOD! How did I miss it? It's probably in that pile
I'm still waiting to get to.

Talk about abundance.
The physical universe may have its limits,
conservation of matter and energy, but it
doesn't begin to understand all these universes,
the inventions of players.

Pam

See The joy of creating by L Ron Hubbard

Fat Chance

Everyone wants a fair share,
words we use as if we knew
what they mean.

A fair share is more. Or less.
A fair share is as much as I give.
A fair share is more than someone's
who gave less.
A fair share is what I need.
A fair share is what I get.
A fair share is so exact that if I received it,
I would vanish, cancelled out.
A fair share is enough to make up for
all the times I was cheated, not taking into account
all the times I cheated others.
A fair share is what I deserve
for all that I would do if I could.

But these are paltry lies. Look at the big one:
That life is a constant to be divvied up,
as if we cannot each create abundance,
as if there is only so much to go around,
and we must beg for the few crumbs we merit
by virtue of our crouching so politely
beneath the table, as if the holes in our spiritual pockets
that we point to when arguing our neediness
were not leaking universes
we've picked up here and there.

Dean

Have you finished yet?

Sometimes I feel like
I am holding back the hungry
waters of the North Sea.

Sometimes it's the wind
seeking a way in.

I too have an appetite.

I wonder if I'm getting fat
because of "trying to get my
fair share."

Pam

It is now uniquely now

It is now uniquely now,
what could be more the very type
of uniqueness,
what are the odds that all particles
(sub-atomic to galactic)
assume this...this...this (etc.)
exact arrangement ever again
or of their already having done so
ever before,

or if this could occur, wouldn't it
instantly be inseparably now,
a folding of time to join itself?

And yet, what could have less of the unique
than now, the edge of the instant,
really an absence of particles
and arrangements, a potential
for creation of the next now,
one infinite potential indistinguishable from another?

The edge of the instant
is too thin a thing to support the existence
of the tiniest trace of particle,

so we spread out, like a drop of oil
on the surface of a puddle,
extending now to tera-seconds, pico-seconds,
micro-, milli-, even fat, juicy, unprefixed seconds,
large enough to flicker noticeably,

and achieve the every-day uniqueness
of the same old oil-on-water-rainbow differences
(coffee with or without cream, sugar, cinnemon...)
that lull us into feeling snug and safe
with the infinite potential we can no longer imagine
in the leading edge of each (or the) now,

consoling ourselves some nights
with knowing each other a little,
amused or appalled by our differences,
we, who, right now -- NOW! -- are the indistinguishable
(except by knowing, simply knowing
with no way to know) creators of time.

Dean

Quotidienly

Each day I rise, dress
have coffee, write,
leave for work, write,
leave for home,
spending much of each day
passing to and fro.
What is unique about
each day, then?
What isn't?

Pam

EYELESS UP THE GAZOO

And with MY eyes closed,
you are any age.

A young girl's youngness
makes me old,
but your youngness
makes me young.

I'm still spry.
Long walks, even uphill,
don't wind me.
But when I get home,
it's distressing to notice
my paunch already there,
waiting for me.

Scouts should have good eyes.
Poor fool, my belly, is
willing to travel ahead
blind.

But in bed with you,
eyes closed,
every part of us finds
what it needs to find.
(Parts meet, part, meet, part --
and how odd that a party is a meet.)

From morning to evening of the sixth day

Still wanting to dance and run I struggle
up autumn's path, bending from the waist,
breath coming in little puffs.

But with my eyes closed
I am any age.

Pam

The Light, Fantastic

WHEE! goes the light,
bouncing off my nose
to turn a somersault
in your eyes.

Dean

The Artist's Viewpoint

I do try to listen, really I do.
When you see me looking intently at you
I'm listening but also aware of your pose
and the way that the light bounces off of your nose.

Pam