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November 2022
Robert Wexelblatt
wexelblatt@verizon.net
Author's Notes: The first piece is about instants atomized, connected, detached, preserved; but it is also a love poem mining astronomy for metaphor. It is an attempt to translate a transient mood into something firmer, to articulate complicated feelings—perhaps too many of them.

The second item is found poetry. I had a minor problem with the function of a university site and asked the IT experts how to fix it. Their response was useless for resolving the glitch but struck me as pretty good unintended Cyber-Age satire. It is offered verbatim as received.

Verses in the Form of a Starry Night

Could be paradise is a moment not 
a place, a moment like a monument 
that you can return to in all weathers 
and see pigeons. Our grand occasions stand up    
so well to gales they seem outside of time
yet not one will be there unless you are.  
Hellish moments are durable too, shameless, 
ugly statues.  Each instant is intimately joined 
to the one before and the one after, 
a trio of paper dolls among the millions; 
only the most ecstatic and disgraceful
detach themselves and soar, turn into 
dark planets or bright stars.  To summon
the exquisite we must exert ourselves to
remember, to banish the vile apply equal and 
opposite force.  It’s melancholy to think how  
the foul can darken and the dazzling dim.  

Should I confide to you my favorite paradise 
you’d scoff, then that moment too would 
detach from my telling and your reproof
would make another paradise, stone 
statue in a fountain, matchless paper doll, 
newfound planet, a constellation to 
which I could assign your luminous name.
A version of this poem first appeared in Innisfree Poetry Journal

Advice From IT

You may wish to attempt clearing your cache. 
Attempt from another supported browser.
Attempt to access the site through a 
private or Incognito browser window.
Enable cookies. Enable mixed content. 
Check your network speeds at speedtest.net 
to make sure you are getting good speeds.
If you are running multiple applications, 
try closing apps that are not required 
for the task you need to complete.
Disable extensions in your browser. 
Try restarting your computer.
                        
©2022 Robert Wexelblatt
Editor's Note: If this poem(s) moves you please consider writing to the author (email address above) to say what it is about the poem you like. Writing to the author is what builds the community at Verse Virtual. It is very important. -JL