Just Three Ways of Seeing Burning Incense

In a vertical vortex,
Like Yeats's gyre,
The incense respires.


The smoke submits
To unseen currents.
It crumbles,
Disintegrates, and testifies
To grander lies.


The incense-smoke pools
Under the blue arm-lamp
'Til surrounding gas soaks such dust
Into the damp.

Postmodern?

We must abandon reality, really.
Honestly, the word is silly,
"In reality he was actually there,
Actually knowing the truth and proclaiming."

"I think therefore I'm real,"
Skinny as an apple peal,
Or "I think therefore I'm real,"
Boasting and laughing and drinking, I steal.

I'm telling you, now you tell me.
In reality, thinking's free.

On the Use of Words

The brick wall built on the habitable hill
Occluded the sky and the enemy still.
The monument of mortal birth beside,
A place for no one's nomads to reside
And settle. This be but a history lesson.
The challenge is to write from just discretion.