Poems

Jack Wiler once said I was lost
he wrote it in a poem.
I don’t think I’m lost
though I do like to wander.
Lately everyone is so confident
confident they are right
confident they know the way

confident they’re going to get laid

so sure of how to punish 

guilty people they see on tv.
Often I have nothing in my head.

I’ll be walking down the street thinking
I should be thinking about something
but I’m not.
Sometimes I think about where
I parked my car

or if I need a haircut

or why old people don’t like loud 

music when they’re a little deaf
or how I should call my sister 

even though she’s dead

or how the multiplicity of the multiverse
already exists in the form of
8 billion living worlds
each a universe unto itself.
But then I look up at the tree

in its orange autumnal splendor
on the side of Our Lady of Grace
beneath the bluest burst of sky
Hoboken has to offer
and think this is life,
my life, one of billions.
Not too bad at all,

Thank you for this gift.

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