Ex Nihilo

I wrote this about 8 years ago and I have never been able to find a place to put it. It is written in the rhyme scheme of ottava rima (abababcc, for you poetry junkies), and I always hoped that I would be able to integrate it into a larger poem.  But it seems to stand rather shakily on its own.

So, I publish it here, out of context, in the the hope that it will find a place on the Internet, if not in your heart or in your memory.


New York: A Fragment


Nothing in this City lasts; nothing is

       This dust, impossible to dust away—

Pollen, maybe, pulverized asbestos—
       The gulf between today and yesterday.
But nothing’s more insidious than this—
       This feeling of despair—what can I say?
Yet out of nothing, next to nothing—silt—
You and I, our Universe is built.