After picking herbs,
She muddles the mint
or basil depending
on what’s to follow.
She bruises the leaves
like an abusive lover
into an intimacy
he can swallow.
After all,
what is allowed
is tolerated—
no matter
the consequence,
of some god’s rage.
Author: subtextures
-
I could write about the dogs,
their usual sniffs and yips
as they go about their doggy lives,
but they are both curled asleep
on the rugs in the front room;
or I could write about Lisa,
who I have loved and written
about for more than forty years,
but she too is quietly napping
in one of the overstuffed chairs
by the back room’s windows.
Outside, the wind waves slowly
through the sycamore and oaks
like a man treading water off shore.
Earlier a friend sent me an article
showing Americans who say they drank
over the last year has declined
by a third since the 1970’s.
This does not alleviate at all
the grey flannel feeling this hangover
has draped across my melancholy day.
(May 17, 2026)
-
It is three forty-seven in the morning;
my eyes are closed, I am still not asleep.
The old whispered violence collects
like spittle along the corners of my lips.
An anger suppressed by custom
and obedience waits with patience,
its old friend, for others to gather
from their day of quite rage.
The night cannot go on unbroken;
the day will surely return to itself.
Yet there is no reason to assume
the moon will fall or the sun will rise.
My eyes are closed, I am still not asleep;
It is three fifty-one in the morning.
(May 14, 2026)
-
I finished May’s RFB book, The Dispossessed by Ursula K. Leguin, a few minutes ago. Great book. It was published 50 years ago, and it still reads as if it is commenting on the contemporary world. I good sign of it being a powerful work of art. The book is set on the two worlds of Annaris, and Urras; worlds which share a common people, but very divergent ideologies. Annaris’s being anarchy, and Urras—capitalism. On Annaris the populace pursues their own interests as long as they do not harm others, each of the citizens taking turns with the tasks which benefit all by either volunteering or by lottery. Everybody is taken care of during hard times, and everyone works to help each other survive on a very hostile world. While on Urras people are caught up in the manipulative games, which help the individual get ahead. The planet is divided into competing countries which are often at war, while the countries are built upon a caste system where there are owners and workers. This is not to say that Leguin sees one as a paradise and the other as despicable. Annaris has over time lost much of its revolutionary drive and there are cliques of special interests who resist change and innovation, where on Urras, the governments have, through strict control, managed to create a world of beauty if not equality. In addition to the obvious political themes of communalism and capitalism, the book has strong currents of feminist thought, class, science and creativity; loyalty, love and friendship. It was a fun read full of ideas and possibilities which I like in Science Fiction.
-
“How have you made division of yourself?”
—W. Shakespeare, 12th Night, 5.1
I lean over
my sleeping body
run my hand
down my arm
to wake myself—
I feel my presenceabove me—
-time to wake up-
I stir reluctantly,
but I am so tired.
Still I wake enoughto find myself
-crawling back into bed-
once again alone
and return to sleep.
(May 3, 2026)
-
to decipher with speed
from repetitive marks
in a collection of pages
one clump of sounds
and their relationship
to another sequence
centimeters apart
then reconnecting
them all with ease to other
clusters arranged in similar
fashion across hundreds
and hundreds of pages
and between hundreds
and hundreds of books
often returning to see
again in unseen ways
the meaning change
in deeper and more
complex manners
for the entirety
of one’s short life
and even so one
still feels as if
one knows nothing
nothing at all
(May 2, 2026)
-
He stopped forgetting,
and began again to see
the shadows in the trees.
No longer willingto hide in oblivion’s
darker eddies,
his questions turnedto soft acceptance,
and he felt free.
Memory shiftedand reshaped itself
to a looser fit,
more comfortableto the details
he wished to deny.
(April 30, 2026)
-
my resistances arise
through the day
in the wayI see
the trees leafthe roses bud
and bloom onlyto let go
their petalsto the ground
and hereas well as there
in the streetsfilled with anger
is a beautyand a love
which must be heldwith all our arms
and namedwith all our voices
no matter how smallor fleeting
we feel our heartsto be
no matter the terrorslithering nearby
laugh as wellas mourn
sing as wellas scream
see morethan is allowed
see what we weresee what we are
and see whatwe can become
(April 29, 2026)
-
Both long for some other than exists now,
and then vanish when consummated.
Both, in their hearts, contain a tarnished shardof pessimism which gives them a meaning.
Both are wrapped in a spongey optimismto protect them from dark life’s toxic barbs.
Both are twin aspects of an endless hell:one leads you there, one absconds at the gate.
(April 26, 2026)
-
—11:11am, 81 degrees
After an interrupted sleep,
I am slow to wake
into a muggy spring morning.
The dogs were restless
and anxious all night
disturbed by shadows
shifting across the moonlit yard.
Both now curl at my feet,
silently asleep.
I sip my second cup,
stare out the window
at the sycamore’s leaves
slowly stirring the still air,
and try to start the day.
(April 26, 2026)
-
If I understand
correctly, then
I have stumbled
on a rule,
a pratfall,in my case,
accidentally
into a truth.
Not that rulesor truths must
ever exist
necessarily:
here, where I am lost, iswhere the first word falls.
(April 24, 2026)
-
The snow, the road,
the woods, the town,
the wild geese, the sleepy cat
are not the snow, the
road, the woods, the
town, the wild geese, the
sleepy cat; the words I use
are not what I am saying.
Like lovers’ conversationslate at night after many years
and a second bottle of wine
are never about what they say:
a metaphor is what is left;
a metaphor is what you fear.
(April 22, 2026)
-
“Oh, God said to Abraham, ‘Kill me a son.’
—Bob Dylan
I want to write
something other
than this poem;
this trifle;
this moment,
but this is all
I have to give
after another
eventless day.
Another day
which was enough
for what I had
to accomplish,
as this poem
is enough for
it is all
that I have
left to offer.
(April 20, 2026)
subtext 