The Poetry of
Michael G. Khmelnitsky

look how far we'd been brought
by natural selection
i can smell the coffee
in my urine
and the world is no more
than one word
after another

transformed by the sound or
rather
the expectation of sound
i observe intensely
 that
which is not
that which is
and that which cannot be

what do i have
no
let me rephrase
what has me
what has to be
what has me
has to be

it is not you
not i (or I
it is simply the expectation
which yields
the absolution of absolutes
that have no equals
and no points of reference

to compare itself to
what else is
there
nothing else
only elsie's engine
and the turn
and the twist of the phase

of the fool moon
that transforms so well
under observation
changing while
(and because
it is being
observed