Admit you’re spinning
at 30km per second.
Sit still, watch weather.

One will not live to see the end
of the geopolitical drama,
the existential dilemma—

the small choices people make that change their lives.
They ought to be terrified but they’re blithe
because you can’t know what you’re doing until it’s done.

Acting silly, solving problems.
Scientific method, situation comedy.
Dinosaurs. Sore losers.

Kayak on the Hackensack.
Malebolge. Hoboken.
It was dark in there! It was dark!

You can’t say to people I think I’m dying
because we all have that feeling,
it’s so ubiquitous it’s not worth mentioning.

For your given name
take Destiny.
But survive.

Saturday’s the sweetest
day. You’re off the clock.
Participation’s optional

weedsmoking, videogameplaying,
tvwatching, anonymouslawnmowing,
whatif whatnot oldtimer.

Pass the ******* ball!
I say to Ray who never passes.
The past isn’t dead, it never even passes.

                  *                   *                   *

The past runs past in gray sweats on its tiptoes.
The past drives past fast food joints on Merrick Avenue to a seafood             restaurant in Freeport.
The past thinks back on past Springs when it seems to have been                             something else.

The past is currently developing the human mind beyond its past             capacities.
The past is putting effort into remembering some of the ancient, past             taboos and practices.
The past begins to pray, for this prayer gives no hope, no belief, no past.

The past does not seem to mind. Sing, and deer occasionally visit, from             where? Out of the prehistoric past.
Children and the blue-green earth are what the past and I may share. The             past and I or another man.
The past can make us cry out for the genius occurring now and in our             past.

By now, past half a century, the past should have chosen a discipline and             been satisfied.
The past is pushing up through the leaf litter before the canopy is out,             past the stone fence.
The past paints watercolor ornaments, how far from its past is it now?

The past is spinning fast, past Thanksgivings, past jailings.
The past certified my cancer as a cyst, a drupe, a stone, a past mistake.
Your past, your romantic past, is a shadow.

The past will tax humanity’s technology, philosophy, even religion’s             ability to see past daily survival.
The past can count past one or nine by inserting zero to keep the rows.
The past goes back all the way past high school to Thompson Junior High.

Still a half dozen or so episodes of Thrones before the past sinks into the             past.
The past turned west toward the subway, past the museum, through the             park.
Unless a society expects its fate to be better than its past, the past will             strive to make the present immutable as possible.