“I like poems that explore complexity. And ambiguity. / Often while appearing to speak plainly,” writes Ralph Adamo, and his new collection, All Fall Down, Poems 2020-2024, does indeed speak plainly to the complex ambiguities of our current condition. Take this short poem near the beginning of the collection:

On a Beautiful Spring Day

a day when everybody and they mama was beautiful
like those days that turn around
and are gone
before you can
pin them to a page or
even a screen
those days swinging along
with your tongue hanging out

Or this one near the end:

2024

A beltway of recently traveled dreams
A galaxy of one’s own choosing on the horizon
In the details, next to the Devil, was

[This might be about having to come up with
something
when nothing comes up]

was your own what it is is what is it
before there was a public on earth

all the terrified young soldiers
in all the wars in history
praying with closed eyes
could not stay the time

Unfathomable light

And please check out all that comes between.