Pick red you live, guaranteed.
If half or more pick blue everyone lives,
under half and blue pickers all die!
Which button do you choose?

    I don't know, I say, Let me think—

A machine predicted your choice.
It has yet to be wrong.
Box B is empty if the machine thinks you're greedy.
You're a millionaire if it thinks otherwise.
Are you taking one, or both?

    Where did the machine get this money?

You see three doors and make a guess
Monty Hall opens one with a goat
Care to change your guess?
Win a car or find another goat?

    Umm

There's a trolley and two tracks—

    Fed up I ask, 
    Will you put away the shopping cart?

Social media had quit a few of these rationalist problems floating around this week. I decided to have some fun and write a poem referencing the themes.

We start with the question that took over this week, the Red vs. Blue button problem,then Newcomb’s Problem, which has a good video discussion. Some classics; the Monty Hall problem and the trolley problem before finally closing with the only one you will ever encounter in real life, the shopping cart problem.

Nihilist penguin marches to doom
toward mountains of the interior 
"He's just like me," you say

"But not like me," I say.
This is the penguin like me
napping and unbothered

There in the almost dark dusk of early spring
we knelt side by side by the wet concrete
and you told me to go first and I said, No you first
so we started together and the sticks broke
in that thick wet stone.
We should have known but how could we?
That what flowed smooth in the day
would be firm in the night.
Less like writing and more a scratching
the effort made us strain, at last we each drew
our own half of the heart that outlined us
and with the veil of night we ran home laughing.

I passed that spot today—I saw them
breaking and carting away our slab
without ceremony

Here is the full text with my erasure poem in the highlights. Plain text follows:

Rock, granite, granite, stones
sea-wind
stones, dust, leaves, wind, smoke

ducks, nest-birds, coasts

horse

coast, ocean, fish

sky, sea
gulls, sky

day, dawn, dusk

hawk, night,
firefly, shore, mouse
.
.
.
God

That one work “Prehuman” jumped out at me and I removed all that was human from the text leaving only the nouns we can find in nature. That which existed before man and will surely exists after.

I.
Snow melt sounds like mountain streams
tinkling down the city streets
almost at peace when a car horn
blares

II.
Not snow but minute hail
falling and making the sound
of bacon frying

Then there’s that other one that symptom
forgetting things before you know them
What’s it called?
Something like a cloud or is it a cloud?
A Cloud of Unknowing like the book
I bought it and still haven’t read it
Or is it…………
I’m sorry what was I saying?
Yes, symptoms like a cloud
Like a brain cloud 
that’s what killed Tom Hanks
in Joe Versus the Volcano, right?
No wait, he doesn’t die in that one
Sorry, what was I saying?

In this poem I try to capture the feeling of dealing with brain fog. Let me know if you can relate

Hearing the thump thump thump of her racing heart
over alien noise that barely registers as sound
and they feel the very room itself as it spins
shattering windows and walls—turning the world spiny

I’ve been feeling a little stuck and not writing much poetry. Today I broke out a little randomness to and used the words I came up with in solving today’s Wordle puzzle at the end of each line. If you’re feeling stuck I recommend adding a little randomness to the mix.

Can’t login
Launch failed
No resources available

DDoS at the data center
Read poems
Write poems

The snow day reborn

I’m supposed to be working right now but the data center that hosts my company is down. Until it’s back I get to just chill here on Substack, reading and writing poetry. It made me think of getting a snow day from school.

The fisherman so poised with spear in hand
spends everyday in the rivers clear water
his catch piled high upon the wet sand
he could eat for a month, why the slaughter?

They say years ago he sailed the open sea
where the fish were big and he a success
then he spied a fish massive and mighty
a golden marlin, stolen in trespass

And awoke the sea dragon, king of storms,
in fury he sent forth thunder and squall
that fisherman’s love they tore from his arms
appeasingly sent to the  dragon’s thrall

Now he practices spearing fish whose size
most closely matches the dragon’s eyes

This sonnet was written for the Clarity Cut Ekphrastic Challenge. For more information see here:

Crafting Clarity

The Clarity Cut: Ekphrastic Challenge

I’m excited to introduce a new monthly poetry contest…

Read more

4 months ago · 28 likes · 16 comments · JC

Fat pigeon—I saw you there 
on the floor outside the 
Penn station souvenir shop.

Do you survive on discarded pizza crusts
and fallen Insomnia Cookie crumbs?
Station bird, do you remember how to fly?

What’s inside? Poetry of course. Featuring work by myself, , , and a special guest poet whose work doesn’t appear online. If you want one to call your own simply send a piece of mail with a return address to:

Daniel V. Gaglio
PO Box 540114
Flushing, NY 11354-0114

A man at the doctor was petrified 
fearing the diagnosis when verbalized
    I'm a coward, doc,
    say it with no shock
Well, a part of you is immortalized

A dark joke loosely inspired by real world events. Events that, fortunately, do not apply to myself. I think the joke would be ruined by too much explaining so here is a hint.

Fatigue, explain a symptom
Fatigue, you sleep eight hours or more
Fatigue, you still need a nap at 2pm
Fatigue, and another nap at 5pm
Fatigue, better not make plans today
Fatigue, because it’s always there
Fatigue, consuming the days

Inspired by my experience with Crohn’s disease and an attempt to explain the symptoms and the effects on day to day life.

Eight hundred pages, it started in September
when the air was still hot turning to warm 

All through that month and the next it was read 
with a pillow supporting its weight in the lap 

that brick 
that tome 

The air turned cool then cold and it was finished 
and what is missed most is the sound of the thud 

when it closed

Pumping gas, I asked the clerk
if he knew the road to town
he look around, confused and said
Don't you have a phone?

In town I stopped a man, Point me to a hotel
The man on the street was sure there was one
He just couldn't tell me where. Look it up, he said,
Don't you have a phone?

What's that your writing?
The bartender asked of the napkin at my side
Just some math I'm adding up, Why?, she said,
Don't you have a phone?

I asked the woman beside me her name
where, perhaps, she was from
she sighed, and wearily said,
Don't you have a phone?

This poem was inspired by this recent interview with author Michael Kirn. I don’t think we fully appreciate the impact smartphones have had on society. Thankfully we have authors like Kirn to help document these changes. Check out his work with County Highway if you want a good physical newspaper in your life.

Shill shriek of a drill
and scent of tooth dust. Thank you,
God for Novocaine

Think hard and see the future
dancing across these squares
with pieces pinned and forked

There the queen is won
Black's position cracks
can victory be assured?

No, nervous player,
only at the mate
is victory yours

Notice the clock ticks
and only seconds remain
Black wins by timeout

I’ve been dabbling in chess again and it’s been fun. Even when I lose I manage to do so in new and unexpected ways.

Sirens sound a 4AM alarm clock
as false dawn of red emergency lights
pulse against the curtains

Curious and called to adventure
On this autumn’s first night
The air so pleasant and cool
but smelling of smoke
and a mist from lawn sprinklers
nourishing co-op lawns

Walk just one block over
to see the hooks and ladders
and hear buzz saws screeching
while the smoke curls out white
from the broken windows of the grocery
where just yesterday I bought a dozen eggs

“Sometimes a lie can tell a bigger the truth. By hiding our secrets the lie points to what we hold most dear. What we love.
“Think about it, the liar is despised. More so than the thief. That is the risk we take when we tell a lie. The lost honor and a cloak of shame. To risk that much is a testament to all that we love and fear.”

“Sir,” said the state trooper, “I’ll ask you again, Have you been drinking tonight?”