Dancing on Occam’s Razor

The principle of Occam’s Razor says that the simplest explanation for something is usually the correct explanation. Don’t overcomplicate an argument with unnecessary evidence. Don’t look for a conspiracy in the commonplace. How many of us wouldn’t like to go back and apply Occam’s Razor to some of choices we’ve made?

Written over a period of 35 years, the poems in Andrew Amster’s first poetry collection reflect lessons learned — and unsolvable mysteries eventually embraced — about such things as young love versus old love, joyless jobs, inevitable heartbreak, booze, sex, marriage, death, and the unexpected second chances of life’s repeating patterns.

Relativity

Five A.M., and the cat on my pillow
is not my cat. The pillow is not my pillow.
I’ve awakened in a room I do not know,
palm on breast, no movement or…

We know what it is to fall —
we dream of it, the giddy tumble
and anticipation of ground
rushing up the way a camera zooms.

But what of years’ gradual descent,
our easing into love, toe first,
testing the water, then gliding in,
the way a keel cuts the wake, razor clean?

Without a frame of reference, all is still,
and I don’t know where we are, tracing
flesh’s blue-veined paths, heart to hand.
The touch is familiar. The cat is you.

And, yes.  There is a poem about Pangaea.