from “Renditions of Change,” a work in progress
At night a light
exposes one, opens
like a wound to bleed
out into the dark.
I want to stay
hidden within
my secrets, to hold
my desires close
like a small flame.
It’s safe there, stitched
tight between muscle
and bone, waiting
to enkindle a better day.
(March 23, 2019)
from “Renditions of Change,” a work in progress
Daylight expands
over the dark
earth. I, too,
must find a way
home, to be happy
with my friends.
(March 23, 2019)
from “Renditions of Change,” a work in progress
I wait more often
than react– more often
a squall line doesn’t form
but disperses in the hills.
I know you will
go, and I’ll remain.
(March 21, 2019)
Like flowers in a slow conversation’s
eddy, he floats through his circular day.
Nothing’s amiss. Almost, as memory,
the pattern persists; almost as if he
whispers to someone who listens nearby.
Each flower’s petals fall, by troubled turns,
until the air is not enough to hold
the incoherent world; and, like glass,
it shatters into the composting earth,
oblivious to its own slow demise.
The flower unfolds into its silence;
the swift flutter of bird song in the trees;
the rough caress of dry leaf on dry leaf;
the winter wind’s incessant pulse and pause;
are nothing to his flower’s petal’s fall.
(March 20, 2019)
from “Renditions of Change,” a work in progress
Again, the full moon rises
through the Live Oaks—
how we go on.
(March 14, 2019)
from “Renditions of Change,” a work in progress
Can one be wary,
and still be
unconscious?
Words seduce me—
their pulse and purr,
without my awareness.
I know nothing
more than nothing;
this I know.
Someone
somewhere
whispers to me.
(March 12, 2019)
all folds
into now:
nothing
remains
always
all’s nothing—
no more
no less
only now
here
with you
(March 12, 2019)
from “Renditions of Change,” a work in progress
He holds to the shape
of his world, safe
as a cow’s contentment.
He darkens the light
he reads by, then forms
opinions like fire
softly licking the air
into smoke. As each
day becomes another,
he accepts the work
before him, unconcerned
of what comes after.
(March 12, 2019)
not fairies
but fire
voices dance
dispelling fear
motion as motion
blur the air
not here yet
everywhere
(March 12, 2019)
from “Renditions of Change,” a work in progress
Yet again, the river rages;
I know what to do now,
after so many years.
(March 8, 2019)
from “Renditions of Change,” a work in progress
I worry too much,
or not enough,
yet do nothing.
Here at home
cats curl
in our laps;
when friends visit,
the table’s full,
laughter and wine
flow unabated.
Far away
along the edges,
below the ice,
cracks appear;
and, the ground shifts
beneath us.
(March 7, 2019)
from “Renditions of Change,” a work in progress
I return again
and again to
gain small bits
of what she offers.
Often drunk
at her table,
I feed on
her infinite root.
Even as I am
changed, Poetry
absorbs the earth
and all upon it.
What part I am,
what part I have
become, rises
into her dance.
(March 6, 2019)
from “Renditions of Change” a work in progress
I read,
write,
and teach
still;
thirty years
passed so
quickly.
(March 5, 2019)
Oblivious, he scurries about
without guilt. A paper mask’s
enough to escort him through
this play. By default, self-deceit’s
a natural innocence.
(March 4, 2019)
from “Renditions of Change” a work in progress
As any day, the cicada
sheds its skeleton
then sings once more
into the summer heat.
Each moment returns
to extract hope
from the smallest egg.
I find myself,
yet again,
at a beginning.
(March 1, 2019)
Slowly stirring
the cold ash,
he sifted her words
from a memory
which had drifted
softly into air,
like smoke.
Vaguely,
she danced
away in silence.
His words slurred
into darkness:
his story was
not her story.
(February 28, 2019)
E
“The unexamined life is not worth living”–Socrates
What’s wrong with being
happy? Oblivious,
stumbling along, content
with the morning sun
parsing the petals
of the rose’s first bud?
Under the instant and
insistent barrage
of doubt, the examined
life is not necessarily
worth living. Living
is worth living. Implicit,
joy radiates, each moment
transcendent, without
need to justify within
mocking parenthesis.
(February 26, 2019)
from “Renditions of Change” a work in progressS
I sat still in the dark
on the bank of the river.
The river was rising, so I moved
to higher ground. I could not
stop the river, nor hasten
the oncoming day. Sometimes
to do nothing is resistance.
(February 26, 2019)
Dim light crept like rust
across the leaf’s edge water
tensed into a fall
(February 22, 2019)
from “Renditions of Change” a work in progress
To pitch lit matches
at gasoline is not the way
to shine a light
on small irritants.
Yet, I have my tinderbox
ready to strike,
my clothes are soaked to skin,
waiting to burn.
(February 21,2019)
from “Renditions of Change” a work in progress
My voice is not
enough to speak.
(February 29, 2019)
from “Renditions of Change” a work in progress
I observe myself
to obscure
myself. Too
many explanations
destroy the art.
Platitudes, as these
and this, are
easy to impose—
my reader,
my brother,
myself. Notice
the time, yet
be honest
in yourself,
without becoming
the lie as well.
(February 29, 2019)
from “Renditions of Change” a work in progress
Hope flourishes
as spring buds appear;
My students grow anxious
as graduation approaches.
(February 20, 2019)
L
The beginning squeezes back
like a hermit crab retreats
deeper into its ever-tightening
shell. This moment opens
into and closes off the last
and next, as we each pretend
we are a cumulative consequence.
God, if extant, does not care
about time and its causes, the click
and clack of the marble rolling
through preordained mechanics,
nor the butterfly landing on her hand.
I fear pat endings’ homilies,
as if someone turns off the lights.
(February 15, 2019)
Last year on Valentine’s day, my students were working on three of the stories which are alluded to in T. S. Eliot’s the Wasteland. On the way home that day, I listened to NPR’s reporting of the shootings at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, where seventeen people were killed, and another seventeen injured. Since the Columbine High School, Every time there is another school shooting, I think about the students I teach everyday: the joy, trust, hope, and curiosity they bring with them into the world. As news of another killing happens, I cannot avoid thinking about them bleeding out on the floor of my classroom. I am horrified at the “solutions” offered by our political leaders: arm the teachers, “harden” the schools, conduct live shooter drills as casually as fire drills. Last year, I responded personally, the way I respond to most of what troubles me by writing into the horror. A few weeks later Shantih Journal ( https://shantihjournal.org/issue-2-2/) put out a call for writing about social justice after the March for Our Lives protest in Washington. I sent them the poem I wrote the day of the shootings, which they graciously published. I would like to think that there has been a change in people’s political will to do something that will end the slaughter of our children, but I fear we are too mired in sclerotic thinking to change. Here is the poem I wrote:
Today’s Lesson
“These fragments I have shored against my ruins”
–T. S. Eliot
my students work over the abstract
idea of redemption in three stories
as a preparation for the wasteland
which we will read for the next class
one thousand miles away students
hide as their classmates are killed
and we are told there is nothing
nothing we can do except pray
prayers are useless balms for the dead
and pale recompense for the living
who must clean blood from the walls
and mix memory into the earth
devoid of hope near an open door
we are in a hell we have created
(February 14, 2018)
From “Renditions of Change” a work in progress
Caught in a tight
spiral of self-loathing,
I try to scrape
and cut away
memory,
like a benign tumor.
Yet, I return and return
to each malignant moment,
and paint my face
in ritual guilt,
as if one could absolve
the past, and be free.
(February 12, 2019)
in explanations explanations
that happens
to him to her to us
the story starts
well before this
then as now
more unfolds
within the seams
than seems
then as now
contexts inculcate
like wisps of mist
dampening fields
as god not us
speaks from silence
(February 11, 2019)
from “Renditions of Change” a work in progress
A
Tentatively, I stumble down
the hall in the dark. This time,
this is not a dream. I tell
myself I will kill myself
tomorrow. I laugh, as if
I was joking. Then I hear
a draft of a first line,
and hope I can hold it long
enough to write it down
before I drown in a river
of my own clotted blood.
(February 9, 2019)
F
from “Rendition of Change” a work in progress
The stories I teach
open a space.
Our day demands
patience and rest.
Following our talks,
my students leave,
their candles leading
away into the night.
(February 9, 2019)
A
Even against prevailing winds,
the pattern persists—Happiness
is a myth. Too troubled to
untangle this moment from
the last, I am trapped in
a quandary of happenstance,
an Irish know woven from briar.
Unlike Lao Tzu by a pond, I hesitate
allowing decisions to pass undecided.
I don’t wait for the wind to fall,
or the murk to settle into clarity.
(February 8, 2019)
from “Renditions of Change” a work in progress
Music plays under the earth;
its poetry delights,
like fireflies.
(February 8, 2019)
from “Renditions of Change,” a work in progress
I’m too proud too often
when time’s safer
to stay humble,
thus unnoticed;
the gods take joy
in slapping down hubris.
(February 8, 2019)
from “Renditions of Change,” a work in progress
As I teach my students,
I try to be honest
in who I am;
yet, fear
I’m a fraud.
Teaching’s resistance:
how to read,
analyze,
break meaning from words–
then rewrite
in the students’ voices
without becoming
a lie that exalts
the life
they are not.
(February 7, 2019)
S
As if with a spoon,
she scoops the words
from his pliant mouth.
The rounded vowels,
and crisp consonants
shred her tongue
with shards of ice.
Meanwhile, with slick
knives, he carves
all conversation,
leaving bits of blood,
like rose petals,
to stain the ground
in a red-wet lust.
Neither he, not she,
can speak into
what was said.
They stare, stunned,
past empty eyes;
their mouths slack
like the recent dead.
(February 5, 2019)
from “Renditions of Change,” a work in progress
We ate a simple shared meal,
a sixteen-bean soup with bits
of Christmas ham. Afterward
we played a counting card game:
They laughed and talked awkwardly,
as players dropped from the game.
I realized, once again,
I do not fit in.
(January 31, 2019)
Our Trespasses
From thick decades,
memory emerges, with
miniscule shames and sins,
to taunt and accuse again.
Laced like briars between
raw sinew and bone,
the castigating voice
scratches and pricks.
Unable to forget, thus forgive,
all the awkward trespasses
harbored in memory
claw their way free,
like lizards from eggs,
hungry and ready to feed.
(January 31, 2019)
from “Renditions of Change,” a work in progress
Stand Still (Stagnation)
Teaching shatters
my attention;
I return home
to a still silence.
After the storm,
the cistern’s full.
(January 30, 2019)
from “Change,” a work in progress
Other’s discontent wears
on me. No peace exists
as time’s delusions
divide all eternity.
(January 29,2019)
from “Change,” a work in progress
T
In my oafish way,
I step quite softly—
Wary as I write,
I set myself aside,
and then laugh.
(January 25, 2019)
from “Change,” a work in progress
Our government horrifies me,
and I feel powerless–
Each day I read and talk
with my students;
they exude such optimism
and hope, I’m humbled.
A slight breeze stirs
the oak leaves;
dawn breaks slowly
over all.
(January 25, 2019)
Lisps and shadows pulse
an aura about him—grey
partial truths like a tongue
along the edge of a lover’s lip.
He’s seduced into his dreams,
limply tangled with desire
for different words, altered spaces;
until his waking life’s effaced,
and he vanishes into mockery
as if he only existed as parody
of everything he once believed.
(January 25, 2019)
to Lisa
from “Change,” a work in progress
Holding Together
For decades now—
I cannot imagine
waking without you.
We move together
like rivers
through the earth.
Even when lost
in tidal shifts,
we are an ocean
holding together
who we are
in the world.
We share this day,
with each small embrace.
(January 25, 2019)
from “Change,” a work in progress
Poetry, like dark earth,
contains my strength.
(January 24, 2019)
from “Change” a work in progress
My story is
not the same
as yours.
(January 23, 2019)
from “Change” a work in progress
Too often, when I find time
to write, the clamor of the day
staggers about drunkenly,
muddling my thoughts. So,
I wait, go for a walk, cook.
Eventually all the falderal
falls away to silence;
and, I write again.
(January 22, 2019)
I found myself
without looking
for myself.
Only fools question
and question, then
doubt again.
I was there
from the start;
I simply noticed
where I had been
all along.
(January 21, 2019)
from “Change” a work in progress
Finding water,
roots slip past
earth’s grain;
I cannot decide
at which fractured
line to start.
(January 20, 2019)
from “Change” work in progress
I am open
as the earth;
all rivers flow
through me.
I walk out
following the sun–
radiant with intimations
from fate– here,
now, light flows
into the dark
forever determined
to be free.
(January 19, 2019)
from “Change” a work in progress
Once,
I was
not here;
but still,
I am
today
In time,
I am
complete;
Ouroborus
becomes
the egg.
(January 19, 2019)
Amid twilight’s slow dance,
along a moment’s periphery,
always some other lurks close,
whispering him toward the rocks:
“Don’t stop. Over here, no here.
Somewhere other than where
you are, someone other
than the person you are.”
As the voices rattle like bones
in a box longing to be heard,
he barely notes the susurrations,
never knowing where he goes.
Thus, the lackadaisical waves
slip him limply past the shore.
(January 16, 2019)
from “Renditions of Change,” work in progress
He could force the moment,
sweep his way clear
without consequence–
He could act,
high-handed,
dismissive–
He could succumb
to his appetites,
devouring all —
and yet, he doesn’t.
(March 21, 2019)
