Early Snow

Winter crept right up on fall,

Slugged it with a blackjack, took its cash,

And left it bleeding in the snowy street,

Still dressed for a party that was over now.

It was an ambush. It was beautiful -

The shock of white against the blazing leaves.

Thank Heaven for surprises, even those

That catch us gormless and make fools of us.

Fall fell, but spring will spring up; spring will take revenge,

And color, coming back in triumph, will

Make mincemeat of its bragging frozen foe,

Who, knowing when he’s licked, will lick his wounds,

And dream in dark places of his next attempt.

Thank Heaven, too, for rivals; without them,

How would we know what secret stuff was ours?

How would we forge the straight shaft of a soul,

If not in fires meant to vanquish us?

Let us be tempered by what means us ill,

And that which does not kill us, let us kill.

Stan Lee

Really sad to hear about the passing of Stan Lee – shameless huckster, unrepentant cheeseball, ham-fisted prose stylist, inveterate limelight-hogger, and stone-cold genius. His creations will endure as long as pop culture exists, and his imagination brought color, vibrancy, and gosh-wow excitement to an all-too-often gray and serious world.

In the words of The Man himself: "Marvel is a cornucopia of fantasy, a wild idea, a swashbuckling attitude, an escape from the humdrum and the prosaic."

Thank you for living, Stan Lee. Excelsior.

Small Talk

People who hate small talk just don’t understand subtext.

Witness

Everyone in New York is on the phone.

They are all having conversations

They want me to overhear.

They follow me on the streets and into cafés;

They talk on subway platforms, even subway cars.

It is all very urgent. It cannot wait one moment.

It has already been put off too long.

Most urgently, I have to overhear it;

It must be at such a volume

That I can't miss a word.

I guess I must be everyone's alibi –

Their conscience, maybe, or their chronicler.

I must be somebody very important,

Or else anybody else would do.

I hear you, New York City.

None of this is lost on me.

I will remember the time of your dentist appointment

And what an asshole your landlord is;

I will remember your sister's birthday

And how much you've always hated her,

And every detail of your hip surgery,

And why Carlos can go fuck himself.

And in return I ask for nothing.

There's nothing to remember about me.

I'll be slipping out of here like a ghost this evening

And making my phone calls tomorrow in Connecticut,

Where only the river can overhear me –

The river that does not care at all.

Stress

 

The kind of stress where people want things from you is better than the kind of stress where you want things from other people.

Unseizing the Day

Someday you will die.  But not today.

Today you will live, and worry over trifles,

And aggravate the people you love most,

And stoke your vanity, and nurse a grudge,

And waste an hour staring at a screen.

This is what it means to be alive –

To always be failing to cherish what you have.

To always be distracted, busy, blind,

And always fumbling in pursuit of dust,

While treasure gleams behind you, patiently,

Praying you’ll madly dare to turn around.

It’s too much pressure to imagine death.

It’s too much to live up to.  Let it go.

Assume instead that you will never die,

And never read a poem that begins

By bluntly telling you your death will come,

Because, however much the poet means

To celebrate the inconsequence of life,

He’ll only do the opposite.  He’ll seem

To say that you should seize the day,

When all he really meant to say was that

The day can seize itself, if necessary,

And you can dream away your short long life,

Because you’re human, and that’s what we do.

Experiment

If you were to let go of your most cherished beliefs – just for a moment – what do you think you would suddenly see?