Grace Murray Hopper:
She used to live in the same
complex I used to.

For Jacques Hadamard

Intuition built
from rigor—that is the soul
of mathematics.

Nature delights in
endless forms most beautiful—
each with its own death.

The leaves change colors—
dying to be loved, they fall
for time's oldest trick.

Often, things that should
go without saying are things
that bear repeating.

Within each atom
there is a love, and within
each love, a struggle.

It defies logic
that so many humans are
terrible people.

"This magic moment—
so diff'rent and so new—was
like any other."

The "Om Namah Shivaya"
scene in Temple of Doom: that's
why "no time for love."

Because is a bad
explanation, but it is
the case in this case.

I have some advice
about how to give advice:
Do not give advice.

The moral man is
a glutton for punishment—
mostly of others.

All that is the case
is more than we know how to
express in language.

The ad hominem's
a shame since mansplaining's a
great word and real thing.

I don't like Metal,
but Up the Mountain, Down the
Mountain I do like.

The innocence of
children: following orders
and being cruel.

Math problems come in
two forms: the obvious and
the as yet unsolved.

Signifiers are
arbitrary, got it. But
roses don't smell sweet.

Please note: without words,
there would still be moving and
beautiful music.

Treating depressives
as diseased discounts the fact
that they're mostly right.

In my dreams for this
prison, all of the inmates
escape gracefully.

Knock knock. Who's there? Owls.
Owls who? That's right! And little
piggies go oink oink!

Love, be careful with
that knife. The armor I wear
is only cardboard.

"… and the boys say they're
concerned that they are concerned
with these accidents."

Who's a good boy? Who's
a good boy? Who's a good boy?
Puppy Cerberus.

Is that "sorry" in
the apologetic or
commiserative?

Physical features
are only judged to be flaws:
Why not just be nice?

Bassist: "You beat those
drums like they owe you money."
Drummer: "Well, they do."

Hey, you, asshole, it's
Minnesota: be nice or
go fuck the fuck off.

You can catch more flies.
You can choose your enemies.
You can't judge a book.

loose nudist hemmed in
and collared on the outskirts
of the garment district

From our vacation
in Living Hell: photos with
Death in the background.

Blocked, I am watching
my reflection watching my
reflection and blocked.

In the reunion
nightmare, we receive masks of
all our past faces.

So then there is small
talk. We have to start somewhere,
and so we start small.

The absence of a
unique solution doesn't
mean you aren't wrong.

Faint praise for gender
norms: masculine women can
pass more plausibly.

"I hear some talk of
Guns and Butter. That's something
We can do without."

The radical prof:
Could there even be a more
conservative trope?

I do not snore but
am an old man: I'm always
sleepy when it rains.

It took me years to
love The Wrens' The Meadowlands,
but it is lovely.

These are strange times for
moral authority. But
then what times are not?

The Prophet, to be
a successful prophet, must
be a false prophet.

We offer so much,
yet Irony's appetite
is never sated.

What's it all about?
Why do we do what we do?
To what purpose, this?

The Ner Tamid and
Altar Lamp always remind
me of the Ghost Light.

On this, the Day of
Atonement, we study a
joke about mercy.

There's no I in "team."
There's no U in "team" either—
just rearranged "meat."

A little song: Go,
Speed Writer, go, Speed Writer,
go, Victor Hugo.

I had forgotten
I so enjoy The Misfits.
Hail Jenny, Satan.

A chipmunk? No, leaves.
Delight, then disappointment,
then a new delight.

Regarding Randolph's
Ricochet Robots: really
rock-'em-sock-'em rules.

It gets knocked down, but
it gets up again, this song
is stuck in my head.

"This ain't no Mud Club
or CBGB's. I ain't
got time for that now."

Like mittens worn bare
against the cold, hearts worn bare
scratch at their mendings.

I have a neighbor
has a dog, and Elu is
her name: E, L, U.

Dark mornings reveal
a secret wish: that this year
the days remain long.

The bees go dancing
and the apple blossoms when
the apple blossoms.

Evidence suggests
we will get fooled again. Please,
New Boss, be gentle.

First Marquee Moon, then
Los Angeles, now Loveless—
I love Caffetto.

Bingo, raffles, and
bowling: Memory Lanes makes
church basements envy.

Checking technical
conditions: polishing grains
of sand, one by one.

If you've never done
it, go look up "quisling": great
etymology.

A small wooden box
of handwritten notes remains
from time having passed.

With desperate eyes
the panda is adamant:
my ball, my ball, mine.

With sweet insistence,
we read a boekie, and then
we read a boekie.

Then and after then
and after and after and
from each thing some thing.

What greater hope than
laughter for our foolish yarns,
spun, measured, and sheared?

Science fiction is
popular. Science poems have
somehow not caught on.

I go to shows, and
being around people feels
so isolating.

Just as today joins
tomorrow and yesterday
it sets them apart.

Against the plastic
bottle's lip, a flower's stem
rests and gently bows.

Attractive people
seem less intimidating
when met as couples.

Math for Poets needs
a fellow: Poetics for
Mathematicians.

Puddles of colors
waving light on rainwater
rising from tires.

Jenny introduced
me to Frozen Teens, and I
am thankful for that.

The bicycle spans
specific and general
relativity.

It's plainly complex,
but some of Paul's best friends were
imaginary.

Lettuce and parsley
wilt so quickly in my fridge.
How should I store them?

If at first you don't
succeed, try something else: you're
being clocked—and judged.

I've not read much by
James Baldwin. Perhaps today
I'll start to change that.

Met a dog and got
her name, but not how it's spelled—
next time, I'll ask her.

Search not for lost time
up Lyndale at 4AM
in your underwear.

Milky waiter takes
milky weights and measures of
milky curds and whey.

I was thinking of
a new bicycle. Theft means
I must think quickly.

Look at it this way:
Today is the first day of
the rest of the week.

Along the greenway,
from the market, pedaling
the carbon cycle

Some nonsense for you
based on "dooby dooby do":
kuhai kuhai ku.

Not writing haiku
is not good motivation
for writing haiku.

Unicorns all have
spikes sticking out of their heads—
maybe they're punkers.

I really should stop
crushing on girl bass players.
From now on: drummers.

Today, take time to
find Spiritual Unity—
great Albert Ayler.

Uncharted waters
bounding the Map of Metal
say "Here there be Twee."

"It's good knowing he's
out there... takin' 'er easy
for all us sinners."

So: It turns out that
Statistics gets in the way
of writing haiku.

And I am the hand
And I am the hand that takes
And I take and take

That apple pie is
in fact not American:
best part of the phrase.

R is open source.
You can read a function call
an internal.

Okay, the ends don't
justify the means—but then
what exactly does?

A function is a
farmhand placing each apple
in just one basket.

Punctured bicycle
On a hillside desolate—
Good lyric, bad luck.

Wheel within a wheel
Epibicycle rider
Ptolemaic path

There are rivers, rains,
oceans, pools, dew—water too
has ways of being.

Lift your face and drink
In the sun of flowing wine
Remember no sin.

The ambiguous
is ambiguous. It means
all the things it says.

Girl with umbrella
held close to her face—a clutch
of fresh-cut flowers.

Crumpled wax paper
scutters and leaps—mistaken
for a mouse, then bird.

Water of laughter
falls and falls and falls against
its all flowing self.

Former lovers touch
like returning home or to
the scene of the crime.

meticulous hand
composed articulate form
a scratch, an embrace

Waves of rays of light
Rice paper sinuous glows
Shadows of windows

Some omissions are
also an attention to
detail—mind the gap.

An evening sun
In the spring of huge roses
Golden plump and ripe

The bugs gather to
protest that they were here first—
angry gnatavists.

I almost never
remember dreams, but I'm told
I laugh in my sleep.

Ruinless city,
your marbles are glass, heavy
with splintering light.

Attend to absence,
Silence, meaning, a bowl, wind—
Coming to rest, rest.

She is writing a
meticulous history
of chance encounters.

Yahweh: Yahweh is
the Jews' god of comedy.
Jews: Jews have one god.

There is no new thing
under the sun. This is why
one should write at night.

Furiously slept
Colorless green ideas now
Refer from waking

Now that I've written
that down, I see that that is
clearly mistaken.

girl in a garden
cutting the throats of flowers
so much lovely death

In language like nets
Certain omissions define
Capture passing things

tales of violence,
sudden, plentiful, flowing,
as the teller's tears

Readings interpret.
Make what you will of that, but
sometimes you'll be wrong.

To begin, describe.
At root, all explanations
end in descriptions.

Poetic justice,
whatever its charms, is not
actual justice.

It's unnatural
the way flowers disrespect
private property.

See the world, and raise
some Cain wherever able—
a rascal's wager.

I am making tea
You do whatever you do
I am making tea

Overcome anger,
Turn the other cheek. Revenge
is just for us folks.

"We don't want freedom.
We don't want justice. We just
want someone to love."

Bowing patiently
with their arms at their sides, shirts
on a clothesline wait.

Through a singular
expression flow many tides
of common feeling.

rain rain rainy rain
rainy rainy rainy rain
rain rain rain rain rain

Reinvent the wheel,
but know that you must also
reinvent the road.

After a long nap,
the cat yawns, stirs, and searches
for a place to nap.

The price of a thing
confronts us with a value—
ours if not its own.

Someone ought to tell
American schoolteachers
English haiku suck.

We watch over you
because we care—mostly that
you look suspicious.

Poor Darwin—so much
about sex lost on a world
obsessed with violence.

A grove of pages—
Dark insects crawl with intent
among turning leaves.

Too soon to get up
Too late to go back to sleep
Guess I'll just lie here

distant wanderer
turn back and back as from war
red dust from red stone

The dead baby bird
saddens me, yet I hope that
something will eat it.

Mythic crackerjacks
contain your lost toys and all
that you lost with them.

Blossom on blossom
towers delicate purple
and sweet strong perfume.

First, five syllables;
Second, seven syllables;
Last, five syllables.

About the mountain
of answerless questions, we
tend to our small plots.

If Average Man
gets a comic, Mean Man will
be its Bizarro.

Release your anger
and its heavy burden, observe
how that looks onscreen.

Children, behave, and
wash up before bedtime, don't
make me call the planes.

Hearing the unmanned
plane circle above, my heart
suddenly goes out.

Human hearts are large
and four-chambered. Much passes
through, and they beat on.

The world is against
us, but if it weren't, we'd
never stop falling.

An ism isn't
an argument and provides
nothing of content.

Vulgar aesthetics:
Is it good? You don't fucking
ask if you're laughing.

Feeling together
warm sunlight and window cold
by my open hand.

Sharp pencils pursue
a life in quotation marks
traced within the lines.

The thinking reed has
many instruments and a
figure for figures.

A window in which
one's face is reflected—an
image of the mind

Music and laughter
are our household gods, pray now
let them ring through you.

Candy apple red
dapples laughing blossoms—clowns
bobbing for noses.

You can lead a horse
to water, but you can put
lipstick on a pig.

Being what is is
what what is is is being
being being what.

The gods are angry:
coffee so altered and burnt
stinks to high heaven.

Sex is recreation
That has many meanings
That's very human

Stir, wake, sigh, listen:
Street sounds, bird songs, neighbor steps.
Listen, breathe, stir, rise.

Night minds make mischief,
move reason's furniture, and
hide absurd candies.

Job, you have it bad,
but what were you expecting?
You're only human.

There's no accounting
for money doesn't grow on
a bird in the hand.

Life is like a box
You can't fit a square peg in
One good turn deserves.

The early bird gets
There's no use crying over
Beer before liquor.

You can't have your cake.
Don't put all your eggs in one
If you can't beat 'em.

Surprise grabs life as
wet snow grabs thin boughs in an
early spring blizzard.

I get a lot done
avoiding things I should do.
Is that productive?

It makes sense to act
like nothing has happened when
nothing has happened.

See them walk so tall—
They walk with ease and purpose,
Walking through the world.

Infinite breadth is
known and encompassed by a
firm rule and fine point.

The devil is in,
The road to hell is paved, but
a stitch in time saves.

Long up top, clipped sides,
I had that haircut. It was
silly on me too.

Words on wooden tongues
promise to reveal fresh dirt
and buried secrets.

Long rows wind around.
Oh, how long lines go so slow—
so so so so slow.

Don't mix apples and
If you can't do the time, don't
When the cat's away.

Nothing to be done.
It is what it is is all.
Nothing to be done.

Why buy the cow, when
Money is the root of all
A penny saved is?

I have seen the rain
come down on a sunny day.
It is beautiful.

Are there so many
songs about rainbows and what's
on the other side?

Don't count your chickens.
You can't make an omelet
Until the cows come.

The note "personal
communication" transforms
it to something else.

There's more than one way
Variety is the spice
Good fences make good.

Love is the answer
to a question difficult
to formulate well.

We laugh at fools and
The world laughs at fools like us
All laughing like fools.

The ice relaxes,
lets its hair flow down melting
with warm wet kisses.

There is some sadness
in every sentence that a
joke does not contain.

Gas Affordabil-
-ity Service Program is
GAP, not GASP. Ha ha.

A truth meets a truth.
They pass time, converse, and part
convinced they are right.

A girl plays music
on chalk piano keys her
small shoes dance music.

You'll go out again.
The world is full of men of
military age.

The one-eyed snowman
Wants a stocking full of coal.
It's Bad Frosty time.

"We dress like students,
We dress like housewives, or in
A suit and a tie."

The chilaquiles
at The Lowry are tasty.
I suggest poached eggs.

"Obvious" has no
place in a well-written proof.
You're doing it wrong.

Our door we opened
For Elijah at Pesach—
Now we have no cat.

The mohel carries
a wallet that becomes a
suitcase—just rub it.

The ways in n lines
to fit k obscurities:
Pound-Stirling number.

Irony is nice
but distracting: Tantalus'
hell is the hunger.

Don't make a mountain
when life gives you lemons, make
an apple a day.

still again always
always only returning
melodies echos

All's fair in love, and
what's good for the goose is good;
laughter is the best.

The hypotenuse
squared is the sum of the squares
of the other sides.

Absence makes the heart
give a man a fish you can't
sew a silk purse from.

Events fossilize
into place—stopping here—here
is where it happened.