Insouciance
Nonchalance, dispassion, likewise the casualness of large elk belches,
Remain cheeky inversions of knit stiches, empty oasts, plus callirams,
Stay devoid of rhyme, reason, creative wisdom, work as jets turning,
Making circles, spinning wing/wing axes, copying alley cats in estrus.
A causal manner ill-suits favela dwellers, most roosters, along with
Old Country swine; they ingest swill as art, foraging as technology.
When rime materializes on banisters, plants’ meristems close down
Productive divisions shrivel, blacken, pass on. Adjuvants go under.
Teen queens’ lack of concern’s nothing new. Likewise, sporty kids’
Sauciness makes no matter to presidents, granddads, administrators.
When exploring emotional culverts, adolescents should concentrate
On graciously accepting invitations detailed with dispassion feeling.
Summer
Sipping mint tea, stirring taramosalata, rubbing bare feet together, I exhale.
Estivating means not moving, not thinking, not solving whichever ordeal.
I inhale heat, let my eyes graze the jagged grass scrambling for light.
The mosquito flitting past sets down on my arm, gets flicked away.
Torpor calls for ice cubes. I refill my glass, making efforts to preserve vase,
Cigarette tray, uneaten toasts (I thought cucumbers plus butter would help.)
Winter’s dormancy is “lagom,” “hygge,” down eiderdowns, hot chocolate.
That season’s warmer sister, though, attends to uncomfortable elements.
Like when you texted that woman, forgot my birthday, bought her a gift,
Wrapped in tinsel, starry nights, hugs, kisses, all manner of warmth.
Slowly, the sun darkens the ring space on my finger. By July, it’ll be
Just memory. I breathe humid air, perspire, close my mind to your fervor.
Hyssop, Cedar, and Scarlet
Purity’s an interesting manner of preparing one’s self to attempt patterning rhetoric.
Written discourse becomes reflections on issues personal and professional, removes
“Me” from: donnybrooks, overwhelming, untutored individuals, tosh, or balderdash.
Essentially, fidelity’s tropopause has a public side, knows to honor ancient holiness.
“Humility,” in all, isn’t thinking less of one’s self, but thinking less about one’s self.
On profane soil, tumescent thoughts reflect worlds of words poorly, erase knowledge
Of what’s precious enough to keep, what needs discarding, join decorative language.
Instead, here, important mindsets are portrayed, spoken, heedless of low glorification.
Whereas certain publics idle lifetimes, gamely discussing ethics, larger designs, old
Structures, “concerns” with human rights, local folks snub dumb beliefs’ colonnades.
Aberrantly, Am Yisrael lives independent of gnomic “wisdoms,” isn’t memorized by
Blue prose, keeps to sensible responses per inchoate ethnic conflicts, futile bickering.
Yet, Jews experience undue isolation when full peace measures indigenous servitude
Unidirectionally. No doctrinally appealing commands for fashioning concord, by way
Of guidelines for related intercontinental constructs, rouses truth. Common principles’
Failure merely aids our enemies, immures our people, pwns our freedoms, or obscures.
Banality sprouts where persons appreciate fulfilling mundane assignments, those acts
Suited to: dominating demographics, partisan syntheses, each intentional sequestering.
Genocide’s been attempted too often to count as just “an aesthetic political instance.”
Fortunately, hyssop, cedar, scarlet, thus far, sanctify, become conduits to honest terms.
