when I wake
into the night
uncertain
of where
I am
I hear your breath
nearby
a surety
you are
still
a part
of me
(April 15, 2021)
every day’s most quiet need (133)
palimpsest (132)
tension slips between
skin and flesh
as skillful as a fishmonger’s
blade slices down
the length of an eel
with one stroke
a practiced motion
without thought
like a priest at prayer
each wooden bead rolled
over fingertips in sync
with the slow muttered vowels
one patterned moment
moving toward the next
with endless patience
as the next ritual waits
for the candle to be lit
the words to flow
less with meaning
than as a balm
to still disquiet
(April 14, 2021)
ephemera (131)
each evening
the day’s tasks
settle around you
like dust
in an abandoned house
the fire is low
the room dark
you are worn
a ragged coat
hung upon a chair
tomorrow will differ
only in its minutia
what you will have
for dinner and what
words you will say
(April 11, 2021)
Pentecostal Ash (130)
within a multitude of soft tongues
a flame whispers accusations
around the kindling at your feet
and with a puff from her lips
it flourishes like angelic trumpets
curling toward a blackening sky
then soon enough
the fire fades
to a boredom
akin to sadness
it’s not there
in its absence
as sadness pervades
each need
with lackadaisical ease
(April 5, 2021)
what’s to be done but misunderstand (129)
with a thousand toes to step upon
scattered across the ballroom floor
he negotiates with a nonchalance
reserved for sinister seductions
each phrase she said like a rabbit
testing the air for the slightest sound
to announce the wolf’s ragged debut
yet the wolf is off in some other forest
tracking that red-caped girl and
the wind carries sounds
from some other tale as
everything we once knew
crumbles into sullen ash
(April 2, 2021)
like televisions in empty rooms (128)
at night a window becomes a mirror
where I see through my face
floating upon the glass like ghosts
outside the trees glow in moonlight
I open another door and walk out
across the grass mixing my shadow
with the night’s mottled shadows
as if dark lace woven into the earth
I turn back to watch what I’ve left behind
the figures in the house move silently
from room to room like actors
rehearsing how they will say what they say
(April 1, 2021)
there again as if never there (127)
the rose belies death’s presence
its slow decay into transcendence
like words we almost knew
but failed to say somehow
only to be troubled for years
rehashing conversations
as if our world would change
if we could only stay on script
hearing each cue clearly without
improvisation to distract
from the offerings of love
burning upon a broken stone
as if some deity would take pity
on creatures who could create
no better god than themselves
(March 25, 2021)
side note
indecisive and insecure
I am on an edge
no cliff nor rooftop
from which to leap
more marginal
more like myself
a collection of questions
laced down a ragged page
I take a moment
to pull myself close
to gather myself
into a tighter pile
of misunderstandings
to tie myself to a series
of questionable knots
strung across the night
with a sense of frivolity
like lights at a garden party
or a noose in a lonesome room
swinging beneath a bare bulb
(March 25, 2021)
Look Up
Will another glass
Make my life a better world?
The moon is half-full.
(March 23, 2021)
I am not You (126)
“a border is never neutral”
—Jaques Derrida
on a map it is a line drawn
in color across the landscape
it’s arbitrary except for words
which no longer make sense
when placed abstractly on trees
and through creek beds
no one sees them except
the ones who kill ones
who speak their vowels
elongated or shortened
(March 11, 2021)
with each glance a horizon forms (125)
to form a new line
just out of reach
like desire
and all we remember
we fall away
from ourselves like rain
leaving clouds
to float on the horizon
too tired to speak
too heavy to hold the sky
we move down a road
always approaching a line
if we cross we’re freed
into a new chain
a new destruction
a new circle to close
like blood squeezed
along sclerotic veins
until the heart seizes
at what remains
a lost kiss a touch
one last word
(March 8, 2021)
mill horse (124)
my myopic eyes fix
toward a horizon
I cannot see
as I plod through
this viscous mud
which will be my grave
(February 26, 2021)
Each Moment Re-inscribes the Present (123)
like the good china handled
with delicate hands as if
the people pictured could be
shaken from the scene and lost
they are only brought out on holidays
or as we gather to bury the dead
who were the ones who knew them all
these photographs that stepped from context
as soon as the shutter snapped
the aunts uncles cousins friends pictured
within a tangled patchwork of memory
at their own holidays their own funerals
look back at us with our familiar eyes
wanting to know who we are what we’ve become
(February 25, 2021)
Without the Stories She Must Have Told
All I know of her is, perhaps, this
three-second, eight-millimeter film clip:
discernibly old, she steps through shadows
next to a tall man, who is also in shadow.
Briefly from the sepia tress, she looks back
towards the camera— her face a blurred silence.
(February 18, 2021)
Layers (122)
the cat slept all day
turned tightly into herself
a sublime wisdom
snow begins to fall
silencing the day’s hard sleet
the night grows colder
ice brightens the moon
along the bare branches’ backs
like a hot whip’s snap
by morning the snow
drapes the yard as if with light
the chimes slowly sound
a lone mockingbird chirrups
inside the house the cat waits
(February 18, 2021)
a house without mirrors (121)
from what vantage point
can one see oneself
with a panoramic clarity
reserved
for history
and mountain ranges
in the spring
the answer of course lies
in one’s own myopic
vision blurred
with warm blankets
precise collars
and a dilettante’s
book shelf
(February 13, 2021)
each moment a threat (120)
surreptitiously
he squats beneath
his stone bridge
alone in the dark
like a hungry troll
who waits on a lost traveler
to stop momentarily
between her lies and his
as she peers into the mist
that waits below for her
in the ever-widening crevasse
(February 10, 2021)
Another Sad Love Poem
this letter will be ignored
as so many others
or perhaps worse
misread
as if
some other
were the subject
instead of you
(February 9, 2021)
Blatantly Obvious as Well, to Answer Your Question (119)
another story’s offered
as talisman against
the last day’s horror
i’ve listen to for years
and despite the slow
unfolding I understood
sentences ago i wait
for the last syllable to fall
grace allows misunderstanding
to slip away like ash
from ember as easily as
truth falls to lies
so yes i understood you
each and every time
(February 7, 2021)
Four poems from a series (115-118)
each breath (115)
a butterfly turns
from the chrysalis’s shell
then flutters away like breath
(February 4, 2021)
problematic poetics (116)
each image resists
the metaphor’s
transformation
(February 4, 2021)
each tongue a border (117)
i struggle to translate
my language to words
i may speak with others
who are closest to me
and who are said
to share my tongue
(February 4, 2021)
vocabulary impediments (118)
talk normal
there boy
(February 4, 2021)
adrift (114)
in the dark a red thrum quickens
the edge of remembrance like light’s
first glimmer across the sea
I trace my gnarled fingers along the slick
interior walls to justify what it is
that pushes back my intentions
like the egg in childhood’s experiment
which floats in a glass of salt water
I drift seemingly unsupported
with vague suppositions and
innuendo to tangle like seaweed
trapping my voice below the waves
and what I would if I could speak
drowns in my first breath
like a fish mouthing silent words
(February 3, 2021)
doorway (113)
formed out of these walls to shape
the air to separate here from there
beneath the dark winter quilts
my skin presses to your warmth
longs to be more than my limits
more than what’s contained inside
more an opening to other spaces
other ways with different lines
to cross with a limping accent
a creole to hone words into an edge
I know only what I know
my cell wall’s textures memorized
through the season’s slow change
the light and shadow through the bars
play their fingers in the silent air
like puppets alive to the string’s pull
lacuna (112)
large or small a space
is only emptiness defined
a hermit crab lifts and peers
within a new shell’s prospect
examining the spiral depths
of the nothing there
(January 29, 2021)
neither a whimper nor a bang (111)
the last whisper’s echo went
as if the silence was always there
behind his last breath which fell
away like ash from an ember
simply not there any more
not even a hole where he once stood
(January 27,2021)
tithe (110)
to assuage the beast
i toss my heart into the fire
smoke billows angrily
against the oblivious sky
(January 26, 2021)
as in fields of broken stone (109)
all the ropes and chains
and puppet strings
knotted about
our brittle bones
like love turn us
toward a hell
we’ve compensated for
for years and years
where we coo and flutter
like lonesome doves
*
this is where i am this
is where you are this
is where i need to be
no where else but here
where i followed
continuity’s remains
like snails’ wet traces
through damp vegetal rot
where i find the eyes of the dead
laid on a cold plate
watching the mendicants
offer olives and oil
to a god
who cannot be bothered
to laugh
(January 25, 2021)
Permissable Topics (108)
we cannot talk about some things
because that causes them to happen
We cannot talk about sex
or death or injustice
because they do not exist
we cannot talk
of our experience
because it contradicts others
we cannot speak to each other
because that could build bonds
we cannot speak of the voices
that await us at school
at home and in our heads
we cannot speak
we cannot talk
we are not allowed
(January 21, 2021)
there lies the rub (106)
she said you said he said but shouldn’t have
said what you said she said quiet angrily
because what he said dared to disagree
with what she said you said were simply lies
(January 19, 2021)
ephemera’s viscous nature (105)
cast off like rubble
from the melodrama’s troubles
the constant clack and tumble
the rush and rumble
swallows my voice with a gurgle
(January 16, 2021)
which simple metaphor shapes my day (104)
a different time with new shadows
wraps the light in different patterns
more random more abstract less fragile
less likely to crack like a beetle’s
carapace beneath my careless boots
I roam between my vacant days
then disappear easier than I thought
between quick ire and old resentments
like broken branches slip easily
with the river’s froth across smooth rocks
despite all the engrained justifications
despite the comprised and contradictory
narratives despite the feral rage
I am who I am stripped of language
laid down since birth like shrouds
(January 15, 2021)
A Few Days Past New Year’s
A honey bee dances around my head,
searching for something else.
Once, I would have jumped up
waving him away; now,
I shake my head,
and he floats away,
as I will eventually. Now
with less time than I’ve had,
there are no new beginnings
just a slow unraveling.
(January 3, 2020)
Slow Read
A few days ago I read about a thing called a Slow Read. You choose a book of poetry by a single author (I added in not a collected works), then each day you read one poem out of that book several times during the day. The next day you do the same with the next poem in the book, and continue until the book is finished. ( I also added in the further restrictions that it had to be a book I had not read yet, and it had to be by a woman). I am starting today. I am going to slow read the 2010 Pulitzer Prize winner in poetry: Versed by Rae Armantrout.
Solace in Hope
All day the rain fell
Soaking the cold winter ground
The year ends tonight
(December 31, 2020)
shadows near shadows far away (103)
as if trapped in a net of shadow
afternoon light through the window
struggles on the opposite wall
to form a coherent pattern where
a difference may be discerned
between shadows near and far away
outside the oak and elm stand mute
allowing the air to whisper for them
allowing easy cliches to answer
decades of hardened blood
to answer questions never asked
to form opinions from shadow
as old palimpsests below the scars
re-inscribe the day hour by hour
Reflection’s Projections
“the other is the figure of my truth, and cannot be imprisoned in any stereotype (which is the truth of others).”
–Roland Barthes
He is no more this, than she
Permits outside the walls
He hides behind. No trope
To be conjured within, she
Vaguely files her nails,
And thinks of him less
Than what to have done
At the spa. He knows
Her as he imagines,
Not as she is told. She
Believes she does not
Change outside herself,
As much as he desires
Her to be more than both.
(June 15, 2017)
what silence waits to give voice
how much must be
etched across the glass
like ice across the lake
before I can hear
the ravens in the wood
caw out their hunger
before the dark wings’
fluttered descent disguises
the sharp peck and pull
that is my final vision
what silence waits
as an echo’s first reflection
before it wraps itself again
around the trees like snow
(December 24, 2020)
to divine the past (102)
from any chance moment
wherever you happen to be
like light and dark dancing
across the forest floor
memory without warning
will step out from a phrase
to raise the ancient dead
the way dust devils
on cool autumn afternoons
will twirl lifeless leaves into the air
like moon-pale bacchants
arms twisting above their heads
then within your next thought
let fall still trembling to the ground
leaving you ashamed for some act
of cowardice or petty remorse
at best remembered less if at all
and then only as a trace of flame
flickering shadows upon a wall
(December 21, 2020)
Why I Carry Multiple Pens
I went to get a pen
which I normally have nearby,
and forgot by the time I found one
what I was to write.
(December 17, 2020)
continuous balm (101)
“but little thought”
—W. Wordsworth
today as I drive past sorghum fields
on my way to work I recall
a train in the Netherlands
decades ago moving through tulip fields
long strides of red and yellow
that stepped toward the horizon
(December 8, 2020)
ambient fear (100)
on the edge of a field a rabbit
sits still as a new wind stirs her fur
with the resonant dangers nearby
thus the day’s anxieties flow
through my skin as if I were a net
tossed into the ocean’s pulse to collect
the bits of how I am defined
by everyone but me
the deeper I drop the darker it becomes
and I am too tired all the time
to watch my last breath rise
in swirling bubbles like butterflies
lifting as one from a field of flowers
(December 6, 2020)
high mountain lake (99)
“where absent-minded prophets come to drown”
—Benjamin Peret
near the water’s edge he sat
as if waiting for something
momentous to occur
although the sun shimmered
brightly across the water
the mountain air was cold
for a moment he sensed someone
watching from the trees
he turned but nothing waited there
far away his life changed
as he watched the light
dance along the water’s surface
he swam out slowly
to the middle of the lake
and sank into the dark
(December 3, 2020)
chronic cough (98)
when mom died
we scattered her ashes
near the New Sweden cemetery
the chill wind swirled
like a witch’s spell
I inhaled then spat her out
today a cold wind dances
fall leaves down the street
I cough slightly then spit
(December 2, 2020)
you forget yourself (97)
“interwoven by the tragic spiders of the present”
—Ingeborg Bachman
I am not
who i was
nor who I will be
I am only
who I am
nothing
and no one
nothing more
than anyone
memory lies
laughing
like autumn leaves
feed
the ground
from which spring
emerges
knowing
only itself
how much self-denigration must occur (96)
if i gnaw out my fragile heart
canines slavering through flesh
the way wolves trapped
will desperately gnaw off
a leg to escape the hunter
will I be free with only a blood
limped trace dropped like roses
through freshly fallen snow
to mark my passage like stale crumbs
scattered across the frozen forest floor
a vaguely cogent sentence fragment
to parse a meaning into salvation
will I see in time the breach
open wide enough to squeeze
rock against chest between
tightly held breaths balanced
on a desperate fear that I have
lost the best bits of myself
(December 1, 2020)
Thanksgiving
When my mother died,
I did not get another—
one being
more than enough
for a lifetime.
(November 20, 2020)
parenthesis (95)
with an accent slightly different
than any dialect spoken here
a hole opens around us like an amoeba
and we are contained within
an other’s misinterpretation
as if we were not a part
of the conversation like a rock
is not a part of the river
which erases incrementally
shaping the rock as it surges past
oblivious like memory to the change
as each remembrance rises
to take dominion everywhere
if only for the moment it takes
to speak and then to unhear
all the patterns which brought us here
(November 19, 2020)
Going to Work During a Pandemic
The odds are I won’t;
Yet, someone will die today:
I let the bones roll.
(November 16, 2020)
only mine (94)
I cannot see much of life
beyond the ragged hedgerow
I’ve grown from broken thorns
scattered like blood
across still water
unless the walls fall
and all the little boxes
open like rain misting
the tightly trimmed
topiary with ice
and the cold parenthesis
cracks like cicadas’ wings
as i slip from myself
a worm through earth’s minutia
feeding on the remains
and fragments that were mine
(November 13, 2020)
an assumed direction (93)
this labyrinth has no end
no center in which to be eaten
no twine to trace an origin
just a blind turn toward hope
a quick glance back toward despair
one cannot be lost without direction
yet our angled descent is certain
I can see the sun before it sets
listen to the fuss of squirrel and jay
or be consumed in worry’s fire
there is no clear path to happiness
we are always here
(November 5, 2020)
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 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)
I wrote this three years ago on the day of the Parkland massacre. I think about my students every time there is another school shooting. And there always seems to be another shooting. And still nothing is done. This poem was published by Shantih Journal.
Witness
Through the chase tree’s arms,
The full moon rises again;
I am here as well
