SAMPLE POEMS
copyright © 2014 by Anna Kochkin

A Metaphysics

For Dr. Howell

Inscribed by the inscribing machine,
nothing is like anything, nominalism,
what an abstract fact.

Everything is one thing and
nothing is like anything else,
the profound absurdities made manifest.

They are exposed to me
in the early hours of dawn
when my mind is trying to rest.

As that early light comes in,
sky seen through slanted blinds,
lightening, mind resting, birds screaming.

“Nothing else is like this,
no life is more real
than the one you’re living.”

Entropy

I have been explaining to my sister
that there are no closed loops, no isolated systems,
in nature everything is open, a part of something else, I
have been explaining to her, and she may be understanding
some of my explaining, but I can’t help thinking that
she’s living in a different country, she’s no longer speaking
to my mother, she takes care of stray dogs and cats,
she teaches English as a second language now
to Ukranian school children and young professionals,
and I’m a graduate student living a different life
in a different place, and my parents are in different places
from either of us, and all of us are constantly growing apart
toward different suns, orbiting in different worlds,
and I am standing at the window watching autumn’s annunciation,
seeing the October snow dusting around the house
blowing dry leaves together to disperse again, billowing,
explaining to my sister that everything is one closed loop,
one single isolated system, nomadic monad, and I feel
that my heart is breaking as life falls to pieces.

Whiskey Ire

Yelling out the window
at the neighbors, passerby, mailman woman,
screaming his head off in his nightshirt
in daylight, late morning, sun shining,
empty colorless blue sky, cloudless,
midsummer heatwave, New England humidity,
sweating insomniac, drunken, raving,
I can’t sleep, this heat is too much,
this earth is too heavy with oppression,
I can’t take it, I hate everything,
you hear me lady, you hear me,
you see me, it’s all too much, look,
the sky, look, empty blank nothingness,
looping within dark space, mute, impervious,
and here this heat, you hear, this heat,
I’m sweating to death in my furnace-coffin apartment,
I haven’t slept in days, I’m dying, I’m dying,
he starts shaking helplessly, sweatdrenched,
he starts vomiting right out the window,
right onto the sidewalk, right onto the sidewalk,
he’ll never remember any of it,
right onto the sidewalk.

Babble

Where did my father go?
He saw his empire fall, his house collapse,
his family get smitten.
He felt his teeth gnash, his tongue bleed,
his eyes roll. He felt lightning strike
repeatedly at his cerebral cortex,
and penetrate down into his pineal gland—
right inside, right in there!
He saw spies and devils everywhere.
He shuffled and stuttered alone in the basement,
he mumbled lost secrets alone to himself,
he entangled himself in his own limbs,
he grew paralyzed in a web of whispers and muffled laughter.

Oh, where did my father go? Where?
Where did he disappear to now?
“You know, he’s always running somewhere,
always in a hurry, always has somewhere to be
and something to say. Don’t worry,
he’ll be home soon.” Soon, soon he will.
Soon he will be home, and dead, and lost.
And soon we will all be dead and lost to each other.
Soon I will find my way to my father’s house.
I will board up the windows and rant in the dark,
I will descend into the wilderness after him.
I will seek out his muffled voice and follow his guidance.
He will know his way around.

Apeiron

move on, move over, turn over, see again,
see sun rise, see things illuminated, God’s grace
in all observed facts, mute and indifferent,

things moving around, going around, coming around,
the great centerless circle, expanding still, still extending
its great reach, great influence, asserting its enclosure,

one great loop, lasso, noose, holding us all,
binding everything together, grinning in the background,
exerting its will, doing its duty, holding its own

Lazarus Lives

Road up, road down,
it’s all the same.
Sea in, sea out,
it goes around and around.

My mother and I
are driving to the ocean
together, to rest, to relax,
to take in the sun.

Road up, road down,
it’s all the same.
Sea in, sea out,
it goes around and around.

We lie on the beach,
we swim in the ocean,
my feet dig into the sand,
I hear crickets and waves.

Road up, road down,
it’s all the same.
Sea in, sea out,
it goes around and around.

I feel reborn
us driving back,
later to be sick
fevered with sunburn.

Road up, road down,
it’s all the same.
Sea in, sea out,
it goes around and around.

Sabbath

Be at ease with the world
go with ease on the earth
go forth with good cheer
giving the best you got
laughing at the jokes you’re told
drinking beer in the summer sun
always looking a little bit distant
the old horizons broadening to new
with day settling down into stars circling
on the lawn by the fire friends gathered
exchanging stories with smoke on their lips
collection of matter and light in darkling dusk
smiling and laughing and digging toes into dirt
sending sound out into interstellar space
rising to whistling whisper to dissolve
men and women getting blown by a cold wind.

Again and Again

Going through God’s grandeur
seeing everything’s single system
stars above the soul within
everything that we’ve been taught
going on as it has been as we’ve been
taught to expect it to be all in all—
try to remember that this never happened
before like this nothing is like anything
every moment is idiosyncratic
its own and unlike any other—
November leaves swirling on a dusky road
beneath a gently winking baby moon—
have you ever seen these things before
ask yourself and in answer forget
all you’ve been taught and all you’ve thought
and see the scenes as they pass by
recognizing them for the first time anew—
just look at things as they occur directly
like never before and never again.

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