MEASURE

MEASURE

measure this poem
give it substance
give it
a location

somewhere in that
relativized field
of space slash time

slash everything you
have ever read your
brain is filtering through
to bring
you ready to go
find , see yourself
in this quintessential moment

as for me
I will just look back
on the process
that brought
me here
put me on
this page

a ghostly presence
a whispered voice
a teasing
play of
sound and sense

only clue
to you
    I may have
found my way
to drop a
hint
of life,
suggestion of
touch

put
this as
hypothesis
of length and breadth
and depth
and time

somewhat
transparently
before you

NO BRAINER

NO BRAINER

maybe nothing
maybe everything

no brainer
given what you stand to win

and if you lose,
well at least some schaden
consolation
everybody loses

not a single winner
no one
coming
out on top

Yes, Blaise,
I wonder what Jean Paul
would have
made of this, argument
observing the world
through those thick
existential lenses

sipping his, ninth coffee
smoking his tenth cigarette

wondering if this
fine, very modest but
highly intellectual Parisian
establishment

could be the blueprint, the
archangel archetype

for all the
great coffee houses in
the afterlife,

worth wagering something on
if when
the great debate is
entertained between existence
and essence

it would be bad faith not
to consider the being in
and for itself of coffee itself