The addition of solitude untrammeled,
one and more and more but always
the inner life astray,

                                1
To each his own hell. Mine was an uninhabited
landscape as far from nature as you can get
without actually leaving the planet, a man-made

Once upon a time. A six-year-old boy almost might be raising himself
from the waters of sleep, onto a beach made glass as a wave’s sheet pulls taut.
His left arm props his torso, his legs (still sleeping?) trail behind like a seal’s

Dear Uncle Chris, welcome back to my mind
   after so many years. Forgive me for
         not thinking you up sooner: the coiled-vine

The seven-story trees
on the jogger-thronged hill
beyond your back garden

The whale eye of the sun in the thin gray overcast,
walleye of a gray wall of animal
washed ashore

I feel so very grand
at this solemn
              and futile hour

will mark the completion,at last,
of nearly ten years’ design.
Soon to rise on a peak in the Chilean desert,

was first performed in 1703, shortly after
the deaths that stirred Chikamatsu Monzaemon
to write his drama. Sometimes criticized

In the Parable of Fire a driver who has been dozing
lowers his car window and pitches his cigarette
into a gulley at midnight. As the spark smolders