doctor, I said,
I had a near-life
experience

no, he said, you had
an hallucination

it was real

hallucinations are real experience, yes,
he said, but experiences of the unreal

no, doctor, I said, you don’t under-
stand. I had a near-death—

no, son, you don’t under-
stand; you had an hallucination

but another doctor explains to me,
in the velvet voice of sir Anthony Hopkins
quantum cohesion at the Planck level
some call it quantum entanglement
within the microtubules of your brain
it’s the rudiment of consciousness
and perhaps a prelude to afterlife,

though science has no means, as yet,
to either gage or quantify such . . .

either way, I’ve come to accept
that experience is a doubtful thing
though I was there and saw it all
it perhaps, as poe supposed, a dream
within a dream of waking was

David M Pitchford
28 Jan 2012

distant though inseparable, they languish
in time . . . is it the appointed hour?     she
subdues her own urge to call him fifty
times each hour; he, as though on hunger strike,
ignores his own impulses as though they
were deceptive messages from sinister
adversaries (impatience itself their
nemesis).          they get together only
monthly, and their cravings mount as soon as
sated in the moments stolen in coy
hotels partial distances between them.
something like quantum entanglement binds
them impossibly together across
distances for which planck could not account.

David M Pitchford
28 Jan 2012

heaven by way of forgiveness
shone in the eyes of onetime friends

but it plays a little hell with everything, this guilt
weighing down the days and the nights
sideways falling up
spiraling
followed
pride

David M Pitchford
23 Jan 2012

David M Pitchford
22 Jan 2012

she calls from the road: family drama,
a continuation of previous
emergent circumstance. she won’t be ruled
by it, though   —   it’s in her voice as well as
in her words, not brave so much as defiant;
happiness itself may be a tenuous
thing, but her grip remains sure, firm in its
resolve though she early came to the wisdom
that control is as chimerical in
nature as is a vacuum.          he sees her
strength as a beauty forged in brilliance, verse
baptized in experience guided by
keen intelligence, sharp and unbeguiled
through cultivating her humanity.

David M Pitchford
22 Jan 2012

she speaks of particles, physics, and laws
of nature: we are all debris shaken
in a maelstrom, caught up in gale force winds
victim-participants in this universe
of molecular tornadoes   —   irony
that we speak of ourselves as separate
from this, often as though superior
to it while it rages around and through
us continuously, feeding us even as
we feed it, feed each other, and feed upon
the particulate fruits of atomic all.
we’re all relative to this, and to light
in all its glorious though dichotomous
speed quarking through reality to love us.

David M Pitchford
16 Jan 2012

hey, you remember that girl vicki from
charleston  —   we all called her ‘bama’ account
of her accent and it pissed her off every time  .  .  .
danny always has a story of some
irl, some tragic tale of love from the past   —
so much so we call him dan juan of yella’s   —
she was a feisty little southern belle;
that girl could cook like nobody’s business!
and a lover   —   sheee-it!   —   ain’t been a girl
since could do what that girl could do to me!

o yeah? whatever happened to her, dan?
she went back to her brother down south, and
I ain’t heard a thing about her since.     sad
thing, a girl like that  .  .  .  buy me a drink, pal?

David M Pitchford
15 Jan 2012

mama’s on a tirade today.          details
never matter, she’s just a disgruntled
bitch barking at passing trains or autos
or the moon or last summer’s pesky fleas   —
it’s something inside that just has to have
expression, to spew itself out in life’s
opera so that she can be the center
of attention, and it matters nothing
that said attention holds no kind, gentle
affection but instead is the umbrage
and defensiveness of those offended
by the indecency of decency
self interested and conscious only of self.

David M Pitchford
13 Jan 2012

dave came in last week to buy rounds for us
and ask after heather, whom he for the
longest time had a crush on.         after some
silly questions jibing dave to describe
her   —   slim, gorgeous, green-eyed, about five-five,
a spitfire on whiskey and a daddy’s
girl on wine . . . oh, and a dishwater blonde
with godiva locks past a chiseled ass   —
jimbo, our latest ‘jim’ bartender, told
him heather had run off to college out
west somewhere  .  .  .  jimbo omitted that she
had run off with some adjunct professor
of theology and that they were out
living in some commune as man and wife . . .

David M Pitchford
12 Jan 12

void
nothing
vague absence
bang! universe born
matter-antimatter chaos
resolved in some cosmic accident impossible

to understand or describe well
without mysterious symbols 

scribed across, emblazoned within all our scientific
ponderings evolving in time
toward the simple
vague presence
nothing
void

David M Pitchford
12 Jan 12