When we scattered mother,
the ash swirled about me
like a cape. I breathed her
in, then spit out what
I could into the winter grass.
Metaphor’s bitter aftertaste
lingered between my teeth
for years. Now, left with
a handful of ash to toss
to the wind, I resist this
final gesture, and begin
again. Life’s easy without
thought, or a nearby pattern
to hold one together, despite
death’s constant push to contain
the living who remain.
(December 12, 2019)
Yes, even today—
as dark devours day,
light breaks the night.
(December 11, 2019)
All around him, the forest burns,
uncontrolled, beautiful.
The warmth reassures him
with its certainty.
His fingers burn; the flesh
chars as on a spit.
He turns, searching;
but she is gone, if ever
she were truly there.
He stands alone,
arms outstretched.
Flames leap through the trees;
smoke swallows the sky.
(December 10, 2019)
The cracks proved the power
of words. Such spells cast
across the fissures formed
fears of a painful death.
Who would be willing to test
this hypothesis on one so dear?
Her survival, by correlation,
confirmed the childish chant.
She lived. Not writhing on
the floor, vertebrae shattered,
just oblivious to your heroic
leaping, like a hopscotch knight,
from slab to concrete slab
to save your one true love.
(December 5, 2019)
What we wish
to hear, what
we wish them
to be: scolds,
advisors, absolvers
of guilt, devour
us like desire.
Yet, table thumps
and tarot cards
talk only
with our tongues.
The dead cannot
speak except
through ghosts
we evoke
in memory
late at night
when we cannot
sleep again.
(December 4, 2019)
I do not know
what it is
I do,
nor if what I do
is possible:
a girl, in creative writing,
says she knows
nothing
about love. Yet,
she writes
a love poem;
so lovely,
so simple,
so honest,
that I believe
in possibility’s
incremental
transcendence
in that moment.
(December 2, 2019)
I am from a poem
I have yet to speak;
words puzzled together
which will absolve me
of a last explanation,
one last precise detail
to bend my lived framework.
.
Useless without function,
my life is a broken gun
displayed beneath glass.
My past wears me
like skin stretched tight
across an empty drum.
(November 30, 2019)
The ghosts have returned home
slipping between the day
to day conversations
holding our silences
in locked yellow boxes
without a trace of air
.
I would say I’m happy
to most circumstances
with my small discontents
not sad enough to search
for bits of joy scattered
across a field like grain
weeks after the harvest
was gleaned by dark sparrows.
(November 30, 2019)
In downtown Baltimore
Years after he died
Lou Reed sings from the sound system
Of this corporate hotel lobby.
This is funnier
Than it should be.
I am almost sixty years old,
Attending an English teacher convention.
Back in Austin, hours later,
I casually toss herbs into the mortar,
And without thought, begin to grind:
“I don’t want to know…
All the streets you’ve crossed
Not so long ago”
(November 24, 2019)
Like remnant threads
lifted from the floor,
I collect shreds of shadows
from my heart. Then later,
when the room’s dark,
and the nights grow long,
I pack them tightly in a jar
and place them on a shelf.
Some nights, I’ll rise from
sleep into the dark, and sneak
a slice of one from a jar;
And in an ecstatic occlusion
to shroud what I’ve become,
I dance bodly beneath the moon.
(November 22, 2019)
My commute is long;
my mind wanders
lost along the way:
miles pass,
and the exit
is almost here.
(November 19, 2019)
Our words hold close,
unhinge, this dream–
a singular
translucent dawn.
Narrative fragments
float around a room,
flotsam and jetsam
without back story,
without connection
to a set array
defining truth, lies
into difference.
An organic flux
tendrils arabesques
along fractal lines
until we shatter.
(November 11, 2019)
I read with difficulty,
poets I once admired,
not seeing anymore
the simplicity I once saw.
I worry stones smooth
between my fingers,
as if patterns emerge
through a force of will.
There must be something
more than what is here.
Certainties tremble, then
fall like ash into dust.
I’ve come to know less
than I have ever known.
(November 8, 2019)
When I read a poem, the voice
of another being is enough.
Someone extant in the world
who for this moment speaks,
resonant with each leaf,
with each burgeoning flower.
I do not expect epiphany
to fall from Spring’s mouth
for that would not be true;
truth grows in retrospect,
a mirror to distort the past
reshaped to an image more divine.
All gods are just us
without desire for more.
(November 7,2019)
I tell a story:
I am a part
as are you
being pulled
apart, each
part one.
The horizon’s shadow
flees before
I write this line,
a demarcation–
this path
versus another,
which word
takes us where?
(November 5, 2019)
He sat by his pond content
with the depth of his longing.
Then one day, she dropped in
laughing her way into his dream.
He thought he heard a splash,
and a glimmer near the bottom.
She played along the pond’s edge,
waiting for what he might bring.
When he returned to the surface,
the forest was dark and she was gone.
The castle was so far away—
and it was just a toy after all.
He sat by his pond discontented
with the depth of his longing.
(November 4, 2019)
if change will happen it will
happen now whenever
it happens so simple
–
yet still fear stays
the turn in the dance
the conversation the poem
–
where change shifts without
the moment noticed within
light which drifts through a window
–
or rose petals scattered
across an afternoon floor
oblivious as a sleeping cat
(November 1, 2019)
A little more than a month ago, one of my work mates proposed that she, a math teacher, and myself write a haiku a day for a month. After 37 haikus (I wrote more than one some days), I am going to stop the exercise. I think that my fellow English teacher proposed the undertaking in order to make her write everyday. I do this already, so it did not motivate me to write. I did find it a calming activity most days: a time to stop and think about what was in front of me either physically, mentally, or spiritually. However, it also deflected my attention away from other poems I had been working on. Usually I post about 15 or so poems a month (sometimes even pushing to 20). In October, because of the haiku event, I posted 38 new poems. I like haiku, and like writing them. Usually I make up parameters for my writing in an arbitrary and random manner. During the exercise, I used the traditional 5-7-5 syllable count, although I have in the past ignored that stricture focusing more on the brief flash of attention than on a numbers game. Figuring the syllable count is more of a guideline than a law. I don’t plan on giving haiku up; I’m just not going to sit down each day to write one. I have always written in small snatches of time, never having the leisure to write for extended lengths during the day. So, haiku, and imagism, lend themselves well to going from start to finish in the brief time I have to write. However, I also like spending time in my head as I go through the day, thinking about a longer piece. Therefore, as I stated at the beginning of this ramble, I am going to end my participation in the project. Thanks to all of you who read and liked the work I have posted over the last month.
(October 31, 2019)
then his breath expands
his silence into the room
nothing more to say
(October 31, 2019)
A cold morning breeze
curls through the sycamore’s leaves;
the sky’s a crisp blue.
(October 31, 2019)
My mind’s blank again;
the mirror reflects the room:
Another Haiku!
(October 30, 2019)
I am tired today,
as I am most days these days.
I’m caught in a loop.
(October 29, 2019)
Darkness is a balm
with early morning’s silence.
A cat prowls the room.
(October 28, 2019)
On the bookstore floor,
I sit and read poetry;
thus, my life has passed.
(October 27, 2019)
Bright fall light dazzles
the trees in fading green leaves.
Squirrels squawk all day.
(October 26, 2019)
Bread crumbs were not enough—
insubstantial as memory
flitting away like sparrows
through the trees. He was lost,
tangled in possibility’s inevitable
collapse; he could not pull past
the brush to a salient interpretation:
where he went, where he was going,
or what language he now spoke.
–
She had fled years ago,
escaped to the witches who
had forgiven her childhood
sins. She no longer believed
in the lies of her father,
the long walks in the woods
with her brother. She returned
now for some redemption,
only to find him not at home.
(October 25, 2019)
this is the moment
we find ourselves
ignorant and lost
hung upon a cusp
–
another idea
malformed and old
gnaws open bones
to lick our marrow
–
with trees being trees
we do not notice
the iron sentinels
stolid as chessman
–
they seem to say—
do not pass
we’re surrounded
yet we are in love
–
(October 25, 2019)
The bees are dying—
Beauty and Truth of Nature?
Who can save us now?
(October 25, 2019)
Are haikus the same
as internet cat pictures?
Here, look at this one!
(October 24, 2019)
Darkness surrounds me
as the coffee pot gurgles.
A cat purrs nearby.
(October 23, 2019)
A pile of essays,
formulaic and so dull—
no real data here.
(October 22, 2019)
Old Plato dissects
the tree from our soul’s vision.
Do I stand a part?
(October 21, 2019)
Chopping bell peppers,
I slice my left thumb deeply;
blood splats on the floor.
(October 20, 2019)
My feet ache tonight,
burning like a sack of coal.
The work week’s over.
(October 19, 2019)
Bourbon’s no answer,
yet, our day begs the question—
Where else could I be?
(October 18, 2019)
The Calico purrs,
and rubs her head against me.
Where am I to go?
(October 16, 2019)
My classroom is hot;
my students droop on their desks
like fruit left to rot.
(October 16, 2019)
The sound of my last dream
will be silence: the silence
of fog, the silence of fear.
My last dream will echo
the clack of high heels
on wet London streets.
My last dream will be warm
like your bare skin beneath
my hands late at night.
My last dream will linger
over the thousand, thousand
kisses: your lips soft,
warm, hungry for more.
My last dream will be free
of doubt, secure in coherence
with all the lines blurred.
My last dream will not wake
to return me to a place
it can never know.
My last dream will be
a harbor, a sanctuary,
a last whispered breeze.
(October 15, 2019)
I put on my socks.
The sun slides across the sky.
I take off my socks.
(October 15, 2019)
Pale in a white sky,
the moon hangs low this morning.
I must go to work.
(October 14, 2019)
The bar exudes warmth.
The old bourbon is loquacious;
our talk’s tangental.
(October 13, 2019)
Wind tosses the leaves
ecstatically to the air–
Summer is broken!
(October 12, 2019)
All day my eyes ache
from reading student essays:
Flowers grow so slow.
(October 11, 2019)
to erase presence,
blend into dust
dancing in sunlight;
or, to be aware,
beware, constantly
of the eternal now
is not a choice
between happiness
and a lived life,
nor, life and death
for that matter,
but compromise:
to watch the sunrise,
to see the sunrise,
despite the sunrise.
(October 10, 2019)
The cat stalks the bed;
insomnia’s companion.
A mouse hides nearby
(October 10, 2019)
Brown tinges on green
grass like light dancing on wind;
I’m no longer young.
(October 9, 2019)
The house’s silence
echoes the darkness outside.
A wind chime rings once.
(October 8, 2019)
A dove descended
to peck out my tongue;
I gargled the names of god,
and spit blood flecks,
like splatters of ink,
into my broken hands.
I read without words-
the nuance in gestures,
rippled patterns on a lake.
Oblivious to the obvious
writings on the wall, and
without hope of redemption,
I mouthed my prayers
to any statues I came near.
(October 7, 2019)
I read without words
the nuance in a gesture;
her fingers touched mine.
(October 7, 2019)
I made her breakfast:
cheese, bread, and a sliced red pear–
what love can offer.
(October 6, 2019)
I am here
I am here abuzz on coffee
I am impatient with the speaker who is reading her power points to us
I am a reader, as is everyone in this room
this is an English teacher conference after all
the power point is structured like an academic research article
I only know this because once
I was, or wanted to be, an academic
I am a teacher
I understand research and its power
I want my students to feel this power
The presenter has stopped reading her power point
a student of the presenter has stood to witness
he was successful, he feels transformed
so he is transformed
another student stands to witness
she too was successful-
and transformed-
Bless Us Jesus-
which no one said, but they could have
or did say without being religious
or calling on Jesus
this presentation is a sales job
not just for the class on research
but for the presenter’s new book on research—
your students can feel this way too
BUY my BOOK
I’ve had too much coffee
and leave to find a restroom
(December 6, 2019)
