Carried by light, images remain while sensation is so evanescent as to be always beyond belief.

The future is all around here.' It's a place, anyplace where we don't exist.

The crowd is made of little gods, and there is still no heaven.

But here I hold your dream in my poem.

Poets tend to form loose groups - the "Romantics" or the "Imagists". And sometimes they write manifestoes in the name of these groups. This can be good. It forces the poet and the audience to think. But it can also be dangerous. It can turn into a branding device so that potential readers believe they know all they need to know once they know you've been associated with a certain group or position. It can freeze things in place. That's where thinking stops.

Poetry wants to make things mean more than they mean, says someone, as if we knew how much things meant, and in what unit of measure.

Like all my poems, 'Negotiations' has several sources. It deals with aging lovers and the often silent deals they make. Thinking about bargains made me think of The Little Mermaid and that made me remember something I had just read about the incredibly complex process by which tadpoles (actual little mermaids) are somehow able to reabsorb their tails and fashion their future frog legs.