By the Numbers Read online

  Who knows if you or anyone I remember is the same, if I am the same

  (sorry a question we do not have time for), and what we thought of as our moment

  may have already passed into a cosmic morning-after, like that party my parents gave—

  what, fifty years ago?—nebulae of wrapping, off-color joke gifts redshifted far beyond me,

  full ashtrays, drinks weak with icemelt, the shrill flat smell of faded excitement,

  since everything has happened somewhere and everyone has happened once

  (oh, let’s not be sentimental, it has all happened over and over,

  and if we find them they’ll be gone, and when they find us we’ll be gone),

  and yes, at the moment, the world in which I began this sentence

  is impossibly distant, and the world in which I have finished

  and am condemned to what I have said, which is why it is called a sentence,

  is impossibly distant but approaching, if that is not a metaphor, faster than light,

  and here it is right now. Think of the mind as a device where universes—this one,

  the one to the left, or a little later, or not quite—converge, which saves a lot of space,

  zillions in superposition, fading in halos of regret, or collapsing un-imagined,

  in a kind of reverse Big Bang, to just what Is, which saves really a lot of space.

  Yes, even now I feel the expansion of space counteracted by dark unmattering,

  and now, yes, the snow-blue is the blueshift of things moving closer and closer together,

  and since anyway the most common compulsion, really the only one, is to begin again,

  I need to ask, though it has been asked in a zillion ages and places, I will need to ask

  in the universe rushing towards us (metaphorically) faster than the speed of light, the one

  where we are together again: Well, is that coffee you’ve got there, steaming, or the hell of fusion

  in the star-tight grip, in the tokamak of your cupped hands?

  Prokaryotes

  Say we found it on Europa,

  dna, an alien line,

  could we wait a billion years to ask

  How was it for you—

  blue, that whiff of ammonia, Time?

  The Stars in Order Of

  The stars in order of

  magnitude, of age,

  of Pisces/Taurus/Gemini,

  of stature, tilt, and price—

  I mean

  hot Sirius and gaudy Mars,

  historic stars, and not

  those pinpoint whites

  we hurry under, no, not those

  pixels. I mean stars

  like dimes some kid threw

  in the mall fountain,

  or large

  and soft as dandelions

  or right here that

  scatter of heat

  on your face—yes, feeling,

  what harm, spreading out?

  *

  Such stars it was

  that soldiers and poor

  of old and on stone pillows

  lay beneath, naming

  Scorpions and Hot Bods,

  and I also once in

  not quite love,

  lying in a field and losing

  and losing (and with what

  pleasure-pain)

  something into the sky—

  I mean,

  so young, I felt

  in how many photons

  per hour on the retina

  amounts to Visible

  an almost touch,

  an almost face, their grass scent,

  the sweep of a hem, or even,

  I could think, the tiny strokes

  of Fate they so long managed:

  changing our hearts

  with a little charge of light,

  an arrow blinked awry

  by a ray, a crucial messenger,

  oh, like me,

  lying down to dream

  a little too long in the meadow

  or, as here, please,

  just long enough…

  *

  To stars on high

  cloud-breathing

  birds are crawling things,

  their faces almost in the grass.

  Almost we earthlings should,

  stars think, smell the warm

  leading-edge

  of wings, smell

  Moon, too,

  where it has brushed

  almost the grass, bending

  to see itself in one

  blade’s tip’s

  dew.

  Once even stars

  were (again might be?)

  once, yes, within the range

  of vespers, church-bells

  beyond the stars heard,

  but they are shy

  now of skyglow, clatter,

  also our distraction

  dims and deafens

  them, us,

  though maybe that

  in-small-hours-faint roar

  I think is turnpike, heartwash,

  imagination

  is them,

  maybe in the lilac-ozone-rust

  of complex air, their scent’s

  a faint strange animal,

  its freeze with fear, or some

  ellipsis of its trail…

  *

  That little clique

  of six, or was it seven

  Pleiades before

  my haste, gray air and

  softening eyes

  took one? That some lands call

  Chums of Artemis, some

  Tortoise or Hen-and-Chicks,

  some Summer-

  Moves-to-Winter, and that now

  sidelong I look for since

  (stargazers know)

  peripheral vision picks up

  fainter things, though not

  (for that: head-on)

  not color.

  But now, so tenuous

  and unfelt of men are star-roots,

  scythed by every

  wings-flat glide

  and umpire’s arms-wide Safe,

  they flee from us, and even

  stars that linger,

  with obvious color and what seemed

  an interest in our fate,

  yellow Saturn, angry Mars,

  we know are cold, unbreathable,

  even Venus, which

  we’d still like to be Love—

  well, it’s 900 degrees

  there and you can’t get a drink

  and that watery green the comics

  thought was jungle,

  if you keep looking,

  is desert desert white.

  *

  Late as we are, most things

  we know are burnt

  like that, part spent. Most

  of our elements—carbon,

  oxygen—were fused from hydrogen

  and helium in screwed-tight

  wingnut starhearts,

  and heavier traces

  in our cells of copper, iodine,

  selenium (not

  what the word says, “moonmetal”)

  are atoms slammed tight

  together in a star’s collapse

  and self-rebounding supernova,

  yet nothing we remember

  of their height, sublimity,

  no aftertremor of their

  sans peur raining down.

  *

  Harder and more far

  they seem

  now we more need them…

  Maybe in compensation,

  astronomers lately

  and sillily have named

  southern constellations for

  friendly mechanisms: Telescope,

  Microscope and Cell Phone,

  and on Valentine’s

  for 40 bucks you can call one

  Seth or Jennifer, and apparently

  no one will tell you not to—

  what the heck,
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  100 billion in the galaxy,

  about as many, so they say,

  as neurons in the brain, also

  as I predict (stars

  on the brain) as many humans

  as will ever

  ever live and die: so each

  name one, and let it go…

  *

  But Star (if it

  were ours)

  would share a root with

  Steer. Doesn’t.

  Stare. Nope.

  Stir. Not.

  Sterile. Nunh unh.

  Or else

  only in the long

  before-words when nothing

  was but stars in order of

  no order… otherwise,

  Star comes

  from an older word

  meaning Star

  which comes from an older word

  meaning Star,

  which comes from an older word

  meaning Star.

  *

  Stars after all

  (not flat the sky)

  scatter at depths, and only

  accidents of perspective

  make strangers (as

  also here on Earth)

  seem to constellate.

  They do not know

  what story they are part of (same

  with us), maiden

  or monster (same)

  floating in the

  absolute cold

  (we know),

  in joy too cold

  (their joy seems cold)

  pure joy too cold for us.

  *

  Oddly no Constellations

  are called Vast or Black

  or Nearly Empty, none

  Scattershot or Bunch of Dots,

  nor were our ancestors

  into abstraction, none called

  Efficiency or Good Tidings

  or Up Late Can’t Stop,

  not Slow Curve or

  Eat Here, no writing

  of any kind

  (though we look for it), not

  What Is Left, or

  Day Too Quick to Open,

  not Glance Unmet,

  not What I Missed,

  also there oddly

  or not oddly is

  no constellation Star…

  Origin of Language

  The Lord hummed quietly and hated Adam

  singing out stupid names for the animals.

  Songs for Senility

  Names go first

  (and you are?)

  Sadly I confuse

  bordering words:

  awful, awesome,

  property, happenstance,

  lowered, lord.

  What’s the deference?

  Silly is soul,

  all Nancys blur,

  all the King Henrys.

  Who was it, Wordsworth

  or Groucho, that said it:

  All Men become Whosit.

  All Things become Thingies.

  All jets are black,

  all crime violet.

  Lemons are yellow

  running over cliffs.

  There’s ice in service,

  from is form,

  and trite is tried is tired.

  Once I could declare

  that have and heave,

  that lift and left

  and gift… I had a point

  here that I forget.

  (I had a pint

  and I forgot.)

  Once I was sure

  what was decay

  and what was metaphor.

  And you are?

  *

  I have lost

  (oh what’s the word?)

  my keys?

  To the Kingdom?

  All Mythologies? The car?—

  its color, greeny-gray

  or purple-brown?

  its parking space?

  the city of whatsit it was in?

  Which is just like love,

  like a draining tub

  or loosening belt

  or brie en croûte

  (this list was?—I forget).

  *

  Now that I’m not so smart…

  others are smarter!

  Now that I’m not so… whatever,

  others are… yeah…

  Now that I’m not so… uh…

  I see everywhere—

  in airports or stuffed chairs—

  my exact double,

  shortish, brown-gray, quiet,

  my exact double,

  though younger (everyone’s younger),

  my exact double.

  My exact double except

  his cap is a Mets cap,

  except it’s reversed,

  except

  he’s Guatemalan,

  he’s a woman,

  a cell-phone addict,

  no, a psychotic

  talking to himself,

  my exact double

  saying to air

  his beautiful fears.

  I wonder does he see

  (my exact double)

  that he’s undoubtedly

  my exact double.

  I look into his eyes

  that are looking different ways,

  that are asking, as I ask,

  And you are?

  *

  Now that I’m not so good

  at things I was great at,

  great to do not so badly

  things I’m not bad at.

  That finely cut sandwich,

  exceptional hiya,

  much improved

  taking letters out of the box

  or shading my eyes, pretty good

  getting into the car

  with knees, perfectly timed

  cutoff of a sales call

  or catching of your drift

  that ends up on all

  the highlight shows,

  he goes back he goes back

  and against the wall…

  …leaps.

  I’m too old to leap

  Fosbury-style,

  do a respectable backbend,

  pitch for the Yankees,

  run a four-minute mile

  (always have been),

  but maybe, who knows,

  I can eat as fast as ever,

  or play cards—

  or maybe just try

  unprecedented things

  to hide my decline.

  Hell, set some records:

  most consecutive letters typed incorrectly,

  most graceful stair-stumble recovery,

  best gaze at this

  not particularly interesting rock

  while singing,

  most efficient clearing

  of cobwebs in this particular corner

  on a Tuesday evening using one hand only

  and singing, best imagining

  I am singing beautifully

  while not so beautifully singing.

  *

  Now that my memory’s weak,

  I spread things out on the desk.

  Anything under

  anything else: forget it.

  Now that my memory’s empty

  I disbelieve in depth.

  I close my eyes

  to look deep in myself:

  and you are?

  Now that my memory leaks

  and my real memory

  is my hard disk:

  what a relief!

  Bad poems, delete.

  Bad friends, bad letters,

  bad days, blunders,

  dumb things said drunk,

  delete delete.

  My most embarrassing

  delete my half-assed

  delete my pompous

  delete delete

  arrogance delete.

  Yeats said he’d live it all again

  but I delete

  the ignominy of

  delete the distress delete

  the finished man among

  delete delete.

 
Sorry, first wife I forget:

  thanks for whatever.

  Kind supporters,

  great poets

  I leaned on, awful poets:

  I forget, sorry.

  Neighbor who thoughtfully called

  delete,

  employer helpless

  to fire me,

  students I galled

  delete delete.

  Sorry parents, sorry early lovers,

  I declare, sorry,

  I am pastless and uncaused!

  Nothing was my fault, sorry!

  *

  Delete delete

  till I’m just my own

  Greatest Hits.

  But as for that,

  why save the Heavens

  I declined from?

  Nine times the space that measures day and night

  delete I land with a thud

  wherever:

  but O how fall’n! how chang’d

  from… Huh?

  *

  It’s best to travel light

  (I don’t remember why),

  and less is more

  (again, not sure).

  Why hundreds of restrooms,

  a billion spams, a thousand

  heartbreaking faces

  or cereal labels

  when one delete delete

  will do, or just a couple?

  Since time is short

  delete delete

  and backpacks small,

  let’s simplify a little:

  when such as I cast out

  delete delete

  it’s all fine,

  all fucking the same!

  I’ve missed delete!

  And lost delete!