As I've grown older, I have become aware of three phenomena: fewer things seem tragic, more things seem funny, and fewer things feel like endings. Today's case in point is "The Ones Who Disappeared," a poem that I wrote a decade ago and offered this week for the Journal of Radical Wonder. I was immensely proud of this poem when I wrote it and still like it very much, but I no longer read it quite the same way as I did ten years ago. Back then, I thought it was quite possibly the saddest poem that I had ever written -- even the most depressing, which is a word that I hesitate to use. Now, I am not so sure. Yes, it is about people who do not live up to the traditional formula for success, and from the poem's perspective, they may have disappeared into a shadowy no-man's-land. But the poem has only one perspective, and a limited one. I have lived long enough to realize that there are more tunnels than I once acknowledged, and more lights at the end of them.

Perhaps you recall those people from the first year or two of high school. I am saying that, of course, under the assumption that ​you graduated and went on to college -- certainly the poem adopts the attitude of such a person. You entered ninth grade with a grab bag of classmates, some congregating in honors classes and on a trajectory toward a four-year university, maybe even a scholarship. Most of you stuck together for the next four years, pleasing the right grownups and making the memories typically expected of teenagers. Those were the people that you graduated alongside, the ones who wound up on your Facebook page and attended the reunions. And then, years later, you thought back on those first couple of years and realized that the cast of characters had diminished along the way. On the margins of your memories, you spotted the peers who stopped showing up at some point: the shy, the antisocial, the eccentric, the immature. They were the ones who washed out, who for whatever reason didn't finish high school. Or, at least: didn't finish your high school. Did they transfer somewhere else? Did they abandon their education completely? You never heard the true story, and very likely never asked. They were the ones who disappeared.

​Certainly, the poem takes it as a disappearance. Those peculiar classmates become an unsettling novelty for those who outlasted them; they are "conjured in asides" years later and remembered for their quirks and shortcomings: "the limp and the saved candy wrappers, / the closed guitar case and the tattered biography / leafed through each morning at the back of the gym." Those specifics are made up, but I knew many people early in high school who had similar oddities. For years, I thought of them as lost. What could their lives have amounted to if they didn't follow the path that I adhered to carefully, the one that I took for granted as the equation for success? For those of a certain middle-class persuasion, there is a fearful template for a safe and prosperous life: accolades in high school followed by acceptance to college, followed in turn by the job market and a comfortable home, all the while accompanied by a stocked refrigerator and a steadily running car. Below that brightly lit path is a shadowy world of precarious living, even if we can't say for sure what is in the shadows. It must constitute failure of some kind. "The Ones Who Disappeared" ends with a question that I intended as rhetorical at the time: "Was the road they escaped on bolder and brighter, / a better deal than for those who stayed?" At the time, my answer to that question was: of course not. Now that I have seen and understood more, I would refrain from answering the question at all.

​Perhaps their path was bolder. Perhaps it was brighter. Quentin Tarantino, who has won two Oscars for screenwriting, dropped out of high school and honed his craft by working in a video store. One of my best friends in graduate school lived on the streets in Germany as a teenager after storming out on her family; she now holds a prestigious university job in Canada. I have known thriving people who were once alcoholics, battered girlfriends, dropouts, gang members. They all survived. Did their former classmates ever wonder what happened to them? No doubt. But their early mistakes (and even later ones after that) were not the end. The world can be spectacularly cruel and spectacularly accommodating; I have met only a few people who couldn't find a footing of some kind. High school is one opportunity to find it. College is another. But some people endure through on-the-job training, through night school, through connections, through carefully honed street smarts, through the simple process of falling and pulling oneself up. "Failure liberates you," the journalist Samuel G. Freedman once wrote. Disappearance, under the right circumstances, can be another word for liberation.

I have been to one high school reunion. It was ten years after graduation, and I met the people I expected: the classmates from my walk of life, who had gone into law, medicine, academia, and, in one case, professional poker-playing. We had a fun and predictable time. None of the classmates who left after the first two years attended. I don't blame them; they had continued their journeys elsewhere. What if I met them today, after so many years? If I recognized them, I would ask for their stories. They might ask for mine, and we might astonish one another. And if they requested a sample of my writing, I might show them "The Ones Who Disappeared" and ask them to fill in the blanks.

Years ago, my 6th-grade class and I tried to write a Harry Potter story in which nothing bad happened. It was part of a lesson on conflicts in literature, and I urged the students to be counterintuitive by spinning a story with no conflict at all. We delved into our knowledge of the Potter universe and came up with a...well, maybe not a "plot," but a series of events. Harry aced all of his classes. Ron and Hermione fell in love. Draco Malfoy refrained from bullying anyone, and Voldemort didn't impose. At the end of the term, everyone racked up awards, Dumbledore hosted a giant feast, and everyone went home beaming for summer vacation (Harry, presumably, didn't go back to stay with his awful aunt and uncle). Once our magnum opus was complete, I asked the students what they thought of it. A few faces grimaced around the room, and I asked what the story was missing. One boy finally raised his hand and uttered seven words that have bewitched me ever since: "We don't want Harry to be happy." I deemed the lesson a success, and we soon went back to reading Greek mythology, where virtually every story ends with at least one character dying a horrible death.

Authors are kind of mean that way. One of my favorite bits of Shakespeare comes from King Lear, where the Earl of Gloucester intones, "As flies to wanton boys are we to the gods. They kill us for their sport." He might just as well have said, "As characters to authors"; we create Harry (or Hamlet, or Achilles, or whomever) and then make his imaginary life miserable. Harry being happy makes an uninteresting story, at least for those seeking suspense or catharsis. On the other hand, we don't always insist on misery being part of other mediums. The Mona Lisa smiles, and we never expect anything else from her. David stands frozen with his confident gaze, always healthy and primed for Goliath. Jackie Wilson belts out "(Your Love Keeps Lifting Me) Higher and Higher," and he hasn't plummeted back by the end of the song. Yes, each of these works depicts a moment in life. Yes, life is a story, with plenty of peaks and valleys. But characters in paintings, sculptures, and songs sometimes have the privilege of being eternally happy. If I hadn't invoked so many classic artworks in this paragraph, I would throw in a quote from John Keats' "Ode on a Grecian Urn" as well. Pull the poem up on Google; you'll see what I mean.

No matter. I am happy as I write these words. It is Thanksgiving, actually -- you will read this blog entry a few days later, when it goes online -- and I am sitting in a comfortable chair in the backyard. My wife is beside me, reading, of all things, a Harry Potter book. (Surely Harry is in some kind of trouble right now.) The rest of our family is playing catch or chatting in the lawn chairs. Our dog, who had a tough life as a stray before she was rescued and adopted by us, is radiating her usual Zen-like calm. I couldn't write much of a story about this moment, but I could paint it, maybe, or compose a melody. That might be more pleasant than spoiling the mood with a crisis, just for the sake of building to a climax and resolution. As one who teaches novels and short stories on a weekly basis, of course I love stories. Once in a while, though, I need a break from them.

​My poem this week in the Journal of Radical Wonder, "Moment," is my own contribution to the annals of mega-happy art. (I borrow that phrase from the movie Wayne's World, in which the heroes regale the audience with a series of possible resolutions before concluding with the "mega-happy ending.") Nothing bad occurs in this poem, although it features a cast of characters who, for the simple reason of being human, will encounter frustration soon enough. The setting is the track outside an old school building on a warm day. A boy runs while his father times him, presumably because he has a race coming up. A girl with a sketchpad sits nearby, thinking of her own father and brothers as she watches this moment of familial bonding. The boy and his father finally leave, arms slung around each other's shoulders as their shadows cross the dirt, "both of them titans / through a trick of the light." That's all that happens, but a moment doesn't require anything more.

Sitting here in front of my computer, I am asking myself if I have ever felt as content as the characters in that poem. The answer is, of course I have. I have been blessed with many moments. When I was younger, I felt​ like each one would last forever. Now that time has passed, I find myself more intrigued by how they end. The universe has a way of winking on us before long: cars fail to start, knees become skinned, well-intentioned words get taken the wrong way. If we pay good money to watch Harry Potter suffer, perhaps it's to remind ourselves that we're not alone. Or, if his trials are bad enough, perhaps we're simply glad that it's him instead of us. I suppose if J.K. Rowling wants him to live unbothered, she can take up grecian urns.

My poem this week in the Journal of Radical Wonder is "The Science Fiction Author Meets with Himself," a new piece from my manuscript in progress. A few weeks ago, I noted that "Poems at the Station" was the first poem that I had written with an epigraph. This is another one. Other than that, I will let the poem speak for itself. Thanks to John Brantingham and the other editors at Radical Wonder, as always, for the recognition.

Here are a couple of other recent noteworthy pieces in the journal:

John Yamrus, whose rough, spontaneous prose style has a way of cutting right to truths that many authors would avoid, has a genuinely poignant piece about the life of a small-press author. He has a new book out called TWENTY FOUR POEMS, and, as he writes: "all i know right now is that i got a new book out…i got a publisher who’s spent their hard earned money on putting it (and me) into print…and if i don’t tell you about it and ask you to buy one, then i’m doing me and you and them a great big fat dirty…and i’m not about to do anything even close to that." Please read his piece here, and then, if you're inclined, please look up his book on Amazon.

British flash fiction author Dave Alcock has a new piece called "Wreck," which offers a snapshot of a barroom conversation between two men. The story ends with the sentences: "Paul put his fingers to his forehead. He saw a friend’s wits sinking deep into an abyss. And he pictured Guy’s decency streaming rapidly away from him, like silver bubbles from the ruin of a ship." To find out how Paul and Guy reach that precarious moment, click here.

The hardest I have ever laughed at a poetry reading was the night I heard Brendan Constantine read "The Search Party" at the Ugly Mug in Orange. It was (or is -- I can't find it anywhere on Google, but I hope that a copy still exists somewhere) a short poem about a man who is invited to a "search party" and takes the word "party" the wrong way, dressing for the occasion and bringing a gift for the host. As he follows the other attendees in an all-night search for a tragically missing person, he maintains his optimism, even as the host mysteriously never appears. The poem's final line is "I still have my gift. It's a book." Perhaps you're smiling a bit at this description. It's funny enough to read. But my summary can't remotely equal Brendan's delivery; he projected the poem with a dogged earnestness that made imbecilic delusion sound almost admirable. I remember that he read it during the open mic and that it was the second of three poems. I have no idea what the third poem even was. I was in stitches after "The Search Party" to the point where my hearing momentarily stopped.

In a 2005 essay on Poets.org, David Groff wrote about one of the staples of poetry readings: the "mmmmm" from the audience that often follows the ending of a poem. "You’ve probably heard the sound yourself at a reading—an 'mmmmm' emanating from somewhere in the crowd, usually at the conclusion of poem with a linguistic or emotional zinger," Groff wrote. "Does that 'mmmmm' mean that listeners have been transported into the sublime? Or is the poem just cheap, the mmmmm a smug 'Amen!'?" As one who has attended scores of poetry readings over the years, I can vouch that the two most coveted reactions at such events are "mmmmm" (which typically comes after a closing line that is sad or harsh in a particularly eloquent way) or raucous laughter. Poetry readings, at their best, are performances, not simply recitations of written material, which means that short and pungent is often best. Yes, I know there are exceptions; Allen Ginsberg debuted "Howl," after all, at San Francisco's Six Gallery in 1955, and the wine-fueled attendees who listened through the entire poem had a superhuman attention span by ordinary standards. More typical reading hosts would encourage a featured poet to consider that the audience is tired after a long day and eager to be entertained. Perhaps that doesn't result in many poems as revolutionary as "Howl," but it does result in lively Wednesday nights.

Some live poets are great actors or orators, and some are great comedians. Brendan is a great comedian, as are Jaimes Palacio, Eric Morago, Mary McIlvaine, Mindy Nettifee, Ben Trigg, Dmitry Berenson, and any number of others that I've seen over the years. I am not sure if I belong in that group myself. Yes, in the 11th grade, I was voted funniest student in my English class, an honor that I hold dear to this day. But as a poet, I've never tried hard to be funny, maybe for the simple reason that I would have to try hard to do it. If I inject humor into a poem, it tends to be dry and unforced. So it's a bit of a gamble that I submitted "The Poet's Nightmare" for publication this week in the Journal of Radical Wonder. This poem is an obscure item in my catalog; it appeared in Spot Literary Magazine in 2011 and never in any books afterward. I thought about including it in Tea and Subtitles: Selected Poems 1999-2019, but opted to leave it out. As an outright attempt to write a comic poem, it might not have fit in with the other poems; then again, maybe it would have provided a nice change of pace. I don't know. In any case, you can read it in Radical Wonder this week.

What more is there to say? I hope the poem makes you smile. If it doesn't, then something else will soon enough. I'll leave you with the words of an anonymous open reader at a poetry reading years ago, who came onstage looking disheveled and, clutching a ragged sheet of paper in his hand, delivered six lines that no doubt prompted an "mmmmm" or two mixed with giggles:

     Roses are red,
     violets are blue.
     I'd suck as a horticulturalist
     if that's all I knew.
     If this poem were any worse,
     it would be a haiku.

If I have ever written a poem that could go on forever, it is "Poems at the Station." This poem is about nothing in particular, or everything all at once, and it could be either half its current length or longer than Ulysses. All it requires is a series of random times on the clock -- the poem mentions 6:57 a.m., 10:30 a.m., 1:18 p.m., 4:03 p.m., 7:15 p.m., and 11:59 p.m. -- and some general descriptions of activity that might happen in a train station. Of course, it opens itself up for a sequel. Yes, that last time mentioned is the minute before midnight, but something must still be happening at 12 a.m., even if it's only the janitor mopping the floor.

A few years ago, author Jonathan Gottschall wrote a book called The Storytelling Animal about how humans instinctively view life in terms of narrative. That's how we make sense of the chaos of random occurrences, which are really what fill our lives until we start assigning beginnings, middles, and ends. Things only seem chaotic when we pause to realize how many stories are going on at once. True, most of them don't involve us. Imagine that you're at a train station now, waiting for your departure time. You are probably not doing much of anything; when your memory writes the story of your life, this is a moment that it will edit out. But just now, someone tossed two dollars into a collection cup for a Third World charity. (This image is taken from "Poems at the Station," as are the rest that follow below.) A football game has just reached a crucial moment on the wall-mounted television. A toddler is going out of her way to stomp on every crack on the floor. On the newspaper dispenser, an obituary headline reveals that a person has died. There are magazines on the rack, music playing over private earbuds, a shadow of a white oak outside. Meanwhile, the clock on the wall reminds you what time it is, an update -- or an anxiety -- that we constantly seek throughout the day.

You are here to catch your train; that's what this moment means to you. To the emaciated child who will receive whatever food those two dollars can buy, it may mean life itself. Possibly the quarterback on TV feels like his reputation (or future NFL contract) depends on what happens next. The toddler -- why is she stepping on each crack on purpose? In the corner of your eye, as you scan your smartphone, you may have just witnessed the moment when she learned to confront a superstitious fear. The recently deceased, who evidently was famous enough to have his death reported on the front page, might have smiled at the thought of not dying in obscurity. To sit still in a public place is to sit at the intersection of countless narratives in progress. To feel each of those stories -- feel them, rather than simply acknowledge or empathize -- would require an out-of-body experience. There are no out-of-body experiences. Whatever our sensitivity, whatever our awareness, we can never absorb the world through any perspective other than ours. Each of us will never cease to be the lead character in our own life, never cease to live off the blood in our veins and the air in our lungs. As John Horgan wrote in an article for Scientific American, which sports the striking title "How Do I Know I'm Not the Only Conscious Being in the Universe?":

     Solipsism, technically, is an extreme form of skepticism, at once utterly illogical and
     irrefutable. It holds that you are the only conscious being in existence. The cosmos
     sprang into existence when you became sentient, and it will vanish when you die. As
     crazy as this proposition seems, it rests on a brute fact: each of us is sealed in an
     impermeable prison cell of subjective awareness. Even our most intimate exchanges
     might as well be carried out via Zoom.

It is impossible to know precisely whether another person feels the atmosphere the same way we do, because we cannot trade our neurons for that person's. What we can do is watch, and rationalize, and try to help when needed. So we smile at the toddler and keep waiting for our train.

"Poems at the Station" begins the final section of my book Angels in Seven, which ends with a series of poems about travel: to San Francisco, Iceland, Los Angeles, Cape Cod, Harpers Ferry, Virginia, some unnamed destination on Alaska Airlines. I am a compulsive traveler; my current project is attending all 50 states, of which I've notched 43 so far. I am not sure what I get out of travel, although clearly it's something. Perhaps it's pure adventure, maybe a desire to see the world from new angles. Perhaps it's to speculate about what another person's life might be like, even if I can only live mine. At stations, or airports, I sometimes find myself looking at the people gathered around. What are the odds of our paths coinciding here? We don't know each other, for the most part. Few of us will ever be in the same room again. We are here because all of our stories dictated that we should be in this place at this time; whatever our destinations, this depot or terminal is the jumping-off point to all of them. Certainly, we are not all here on a lark. Last summer, while my wife, daughter and I were awaiting our flight at the Boise Airport, we watched out the window as the coffin of a U.S. soldier was brought off another plane. A group of people -- probably family members among them -- waited outside for a ceremony on the tarmac. For the rest of their lives, this airport would be embedded in memory as a place of ineffable grief. Somewhere on our side of the glass, there must have been at least one child giddily anticipating his or her first flight, a milestone that would forever have the label "Boise" applied to it. Even at a moment of extreme joy or sadness, we can recognize the opposite emotion in others. It may just currently seem impossible for us to feel.

Then the clock changes. We all know what it means. We speak the same language enough to know that "station" for me is "station" for you, that each of us can scan the faces in line and affix the same word -- happy, sad, hopeful -- to each of them. We have all experienced the sensations that they do, we think. Maybe it was in that spirit that I started "Poems at the Station" (which appears this week in the Journal of Radical Wonder) with an epigraph from another poet, something that I had never done before. The lines are from Lee Mallory, the most flamboyant Orange County poetry showman in his day and a protege of Charles Bukowski, who once wrote, "there is time and hopefully / a train." In Lee's poem, those lines are the ending. In mine, they're the beginning. As train stations remind us, any moment will suffice for both.