I love words and the convolutions of language; how we arrange and rearrange it; how we invent new ways communicate old things; how we nurture its nuances —which is where poetry comes in. Idioms have always intrigued me. They’re short poems. One-liners created to make startling something banal and obvious. Idioms lighten things up. They…

… the “Law of Frequency of Error” … reigns amidst the wildest confusion. The huger the mob, the greater the anarchy, the more perfect is its sway. It is the supreme law of Unreason.………………………………………………………………. —Victorian statistician ­Francis Galton The Frequency of ErrorThe frequency of erroris not a count of radio wavesor of an articulation of…

Sunup to Noon Tonight A constellation ofblack-eyed susansframed in the screenof our kitchen door— each dark peering eyedead center in its radiantgold-fringe petal-collar looksas if it had burstfrom its corean instant before Though each susan keeps stillat the end of her stemas if snapshot-clicked except for a nudging breezethat streams betweenmobs of livid phloxthe color…

…in a curved space, a body can seemingly defy basic physicsand “swim” through a vacuum without needing to push on anythingor be pushed by anything. ………………….–Eduardo Guéron; Scientific American, August 2009 Swimming in Space TimeA short walk from our house2 minutes topsthe river came throughin a bend at the end ofa short street whereon a…

“These are tears of joy. I can die a happy woman. Though I don't feel much like dying today… Think harder. Write faster. Please take your time and hurry if you possibly can.” –from reader F.M. on a previously posted poem: A Politically Incorrect Ode to Whitman Steep Sigh Walt Whitman’s ready nearby tucked humbly…

Hawks East or west down the trail in fogthe bark of a distant dog a meadow rolls off in that cloaka cleft in its breast of a brook deciduous trees to the northa hawk in the fifth or the forth scans for the twitch of a mealnot a stitch of remorse will it feel as…

—Miraculous power and marvelous activity,drawing water and hewing wood. –P’ang Yun Talking With My Guru….#1– Nothing to Lose G: What exactly do you mean by emptiness?Me: Nothing.G: Then why are we wasting timesitting round talking about it? Take your tiny Tao shearsand snip emptiness out of Webster’sand heave it into the void. It’s anotherself-serving euphemism…

As the Minute ClicksJim Culleny A new night(as they always are)and cool —unlike Junein Jersey when I was greenbut June anyway anyway it comesit’s Juneit’s Juneregardless of you June then June now in mid-late evening8:30 by the clock—the night darkalmost in the window the skyglows grey behindsilhouettes of trees slate-skin cloudswhich if seen from a…

Odder StillJim Culleny…………………….. As odd as it is that a moon comes upbehind the inelegant tree behind our houseover the dark mountain, grey-whiteand silver-dollar like –a night eyecrying silver– it’s odder still to thinkof a moon that never was…………………… As odd as spring seems, fresh and greenas the crisp salad before the salmon fillet,as odd…

FigureheadJim Culleny Sometimes a poet will sail the line of a poemlike Leonardo DiCaprio: a figurehead on Titanic, arms spread, embracing the wind, the air, the fabulous future, poised before the next word, only to find it isn’t there: the right word, the one that says it all, the one that pulls the rabbit out…

New ThingJim Culleny I opened a Twitter acccount out of curiosity. I admit it, I was born into a far simpler techno world —pre-TV, prime-time radio, number-please phones on party lines, straight-6 engines with carburetors, 78 records with needles the size of ten-penny spikes —an antiquated world. And although it’s a little murky to me…

All things were together. Then the mind came and arranged them. —Anaxagoras Deep Ecology —from boy to man to boy Jim Culleny At first I thought that trunk and limbsand leaves were one which they called tree.But then I learned that tree was cleaved in thirds with blades of brain and set apart in boxes…

The reality of time has long been questioned by an odd alliance of philosophers and physicists.–Robert Lanza and Bob BermanThe Problem of TimeJim Culleny Then was now once while now always is the train leaving the station and Is (itself) is pretty much a matter of interpretationas murky as the dilemma: to be or not…

“Hitler remained a serious reader all his life, spending much of his disposable income on books during the 1920s and regularly passing quiet evenings in his library during the 1930s and '40s, no matter how dreadful the orders he'd been giving during the day.” –Michael Dirda’s review of “Hitler’s Private Library” by Timothy W. Ryback…

Time EnoughJim Culleny A clock and you me alone in a room with timeto settle accounts, still time enough to bare and binge,to rewrite ends, swapping thoughts that make us cringe, some so hot & fierce they make our memories singe. The clock and I are willing but the flesh is weak.I worry what the…

New MorningJim Culleny First I check to see if the sun's up –yes.There it is in the sash of the second window from the righta third of the way across because it's the 25th of March.It blazes in blue beyond imaginationradiating like a lover's heart. Then I look left for you –you're there.You under the…

HydrantJim Culleny Steel sentinel on our street.Its domed yellow cap topped with a wrench-ready fitting,its three short blue arms wrench-ready too, its stumpy red torso squat in the snow ringed round its base with brown March mushin late winter when our longing for sunis most poignant; when it hallucinatesbuds and birds; when it wants to…

“It's all just one big lie … basically a giant Ponzi scheme.” —Bernie Madoff Life in the Fast LaneJim Culleny A crow atop a phone polelike a cocked hat –a selfsure birdeyeing a white line lunchwho understands the nuances of trafficwaits, patient as a tick,until the last ten-wheeler grinds bythen swoops down quick.Caaa! he says,…

Hormones in LoveJim Culleny Only one can have this thought.Did you think your thoughts were mine? We lie apart as close as this:thinking still alone combined. Two skulls each with a budding brain.Two “I”s distant as two moonscatching light from somewhere elsetoo bright to be too far and soon we come together touch and kisswe…

///Past PrimeJim Culleny Knowing I once could whiptwo 2 by 12 by 12s to shoulder heightfrom a ground-level stackwithout ripping a ligament; or haul two sheets of drywallat a time across a room alonewithout reaching for the liniment, I’m pissed at being humbledby a mere rock-salt sackI strain to lift and lug and spread so…