When my mother died,
I did not get another—
one being
more than enough
for a lifetime.
(November 20, 2020)
Thanksgiving
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)
patience is a key to hope (92)
we must wait
without fear
for the end
memory’s a mirror
distorted anew
in each reflection
rippled across a dark pond
(November 4, 2020)
mirror mirror
the well offers no echo
for the truth to rise upon
to allow her to step screaming
from the water’s cold depths
to shatter the infinite mirrors
where we live out our lives
(November 1.20200
beaten path (90)
like an old dog
circling his bed
i turn then turn
the idea around
a phrase a word
a memory
until the floor’s
worn away
and i fall
a slow spiral
like a rock
bounces against
a stone wall
and steps
with a clatter
before it stops
and I wonder
as if the thought
mattered
(October 30, 2020)
drifting homeward (89)
dropping soft scraps of light
like rose petals on the floor
the moon threads her way
between the bare branches
purpose requires ambition
which the moon lacks other
than its spiral descent
toward a predestined end
where is the metaphor
who holds reins so slack
trusting the horse’s nature
to find a slow way back
(October 29, 2020)
give pause (88)
crow turns her blacker eye
deeper into the night
then one last direful cry
before she takes flight
(October 28, 2020)
heal thyself (87)
all I have are dull words
to bludgeon my tongue
into submission
but if i strop the blade
the leather’s length
until the edge gleams
as with sliced ribbons of light
then I might excise
the shadows from my heart
without a trace of blood
to mark my disillusions
(October 27, 2020)
within this slow dismantle (86)
as familiar as the cat
on the sill watching
a mockingbird outside
this melodrama’s cliché unfolds
I pull another brick
into my sepulcher
another dead anger
to crush my chest
another tired
misunderstanding
another regret to haunt
my moist graveyard
(October 27, 2020)
No Answers (85)
As the old world swirls
in laconic siroccos of doubt
flinging sand adroitly
into a warm Mediterranean air
how do I stand still with silence
aware only of this moment’s breath
how do i ignore the nattering pedants
who brandish their wet cliches
like limp wands twined from roses
as petulant proof of their originality
how do i negotiate the spaces
i must traverse without
slagging off chunks of flesh
until the sinews abandon my bones
(October 26, 2020)
no returns (84)
step left
step right
I’m here
where else
(October 26 2020)
Anger is an Energy
A disheartening day. upon opening my email this morning, I found out that one of the founding teachers at ARS was resigning because of the covid return polices at AISD. Then, this afternoon just before 5, i got another email from the principal announcing that yet another long time math teacher at ARS had resigned. In one day the heart of the math department was ripped out. Ann Richards is an all-girl STEM school, having not just good math teachers, but fantastic female (role model) math teachers is essential. We had two of the best. Had. Math teachers are already hard to find, but math teachers of the caliber of these two are impossible to replace. The covid return policies trickling down from DeVoss/Trump, to Abbott and the TEA, to AISD and surrounding districts is directly responsible for the loss of these two teachers. There will be more resignations and retirements across the district and the state. These policies are causing irreparable harm to education in Texas, which will echo for years after the pandemic subsides. It does not have to be this way. There is no reason that TEA has to cut funding, which is the club they are using to force the schools to open. There is no reason that everyone has to return. There is no reason to put so many people at increased risk of a terrible and deadly disease. There is no Reason. Just Madness.
Toward Winter
With a late autumn
wind, a burr oak leaf flutters
gently to the ground.
(October 20, 2020)
the rime grows thick (83)
you walk home
it’s late
the snow falls
as thick as your dreams
when suddenly you think
you’re lost and the wood
nearby is strangely
far from home
the bright lights flash
patterns on the snow
like christmas lights
in the village square
the sheriff interrupts you
to say no that yes it is
a normal amount of blood
for a woman that size
you laugh at the absurdity
of dying so close to your home
what was the point of leaving
when you had nowhere to go
(October 12, 2020)
And Then Not Here
On the floor
in a closet
curled tight
like an egg,
he dismantles
what’s left
of what remains;
he shaves away
thin layers
until nothing
like memory
is left,
just a space
where he had stood
filled with air,
and the laughter
of distant children.
(October 1 2020)
What Have We Become?
In a few days I will return to work. I am a teacher. I have been working from home since mid-March. The spring was rough and non-productive; as soon as the seniors figured out that grades stopped on the day before they were sent home, they stopped working. I do not blame them. They are driven and smart. And by that point they had all been accepted to college. I do blame the lack of national, state, and local leadership for what has happened since March. There has been so much left undone, which could have been done to prevent so much illness and death. But here we are.
My wife’s parents in their 80’s are in Ft. Worth with her sister right now. Her sister moves to Atlanta sometime after the New Year. My in-laws will come back to live with us after that. Our jobs could kill them. Since my wife has gone back to work in her building two weeks ago, we have not been able to see our grandson. In about six weeks my son’s wife will have another boy, who we will not be able to see because of the risk of Covid. The choice between incomes/careers and the safety of our families is truly fucked. I am not a front-line worker. I am an English teacher. I talk about poetry, and literature, how to write an argument.. to find wisdom in the art of the past.
Austin teachers return to their buildings on October 5th, ironically enough, World Teacher day. The majority of the students will stay home, and continue to do school through their computers. I have been teaching my students for the last three weeks virtually from home. I will continue to teach my students virtually from a room in the very old building where I usually teach my students in person. I, along with two other teachers, will rotate into a room where 9 or so seniors and juniors, who are coming back into the building for various reasons, will be learning in the room using their computers to access their teachers who are teaching virtually from other rooms in the building, or, if the teacher has qualified for ADA or FMLA, from their homes. The students in the building will stay in the room with me and the other two teachers all day.
Do not misunderstand me. I miss seeing my students every day that I am on the computer with them. My students are the absolute best. I wish that I was in the room with them, listening to them talk to each other about poetry and literature. Watch them as they have first encounters with some of the great literature from the last few hundred years. They need little encouragement to engage with deep thoughts with complete delight, making connections to their lives and obsessions, which usually concern topics of social justice. A topic which has become foremost in all of our lives because of Covid. However, I do not want any of them to become ill with this horrible virus, and possibly die. They do not have to be that close to the harshness of life which poetry and literature unfolds for many of us.
And that is the rub, the elephant in the room, the one fact that no one talks about: people are going to die because of a rash decision to open the schools. People are going to die. Say that again: people are going to die. It could be staff at the school, teachers, librarians, principals. It could be students, someone’s child, who dies. It could be the parents or grandparents at home who are infected by the children they love. Now, here is where I fail to understand: why are the powers-that-be willing to risk the death of so many people. Nothing has changed since March when everything closed down. There is not a vaccine; the numbers of infected are still setting record numbers, and people are still dying, lots of people are still dying.
Is remote learning as effective as face to face in the classroom? No, it is not. Is it safer for everyone? Yes it is. Are we that desperate to return to the way things were that we are willing to sacrifice large numbers of our family and neighbors? If so, then I hate to think that anyone thought normal meant willingly allowing death to roam the streets so that we can go have a beer at the local brewery. There must be something more pernicious in play. I fear for us all.
(September 29, 2020)
Here
“there is no absence that cannot be replaced”
—Rene Char
this patch of ground
where i must mend
my old wounds,
this is where I stand.
Minute by minute,
I replace
who I was
with who I am,
then sweep
the ash
into a pile.
I grow small within
this defined space
discarding bits of flesh,
and memory
like an old man
feeds birds
in the park,
alone and silent.
(September 24, 2020)
Reality Versus Belief
I wake,
and hear
a sound
downstairs;
probably
the cat.
I listen
in the dark,
watching
shadows
shift
across the ceiling.
I don’t get up
to check;
although,
I probably should.
The cat’s asleep
nearby.
(September 21, 2020)
It’s a Familiar Enough Lie (a reading)
It’s a Familiar Enough Lie
With a headful of sighs,
I move from room to room,
stand in the doorway, then turn,
followed by dark regrets
which waited to slither back
from all the obvious corners.
I promise myself again
as I slip further away:
it will only be a moment;
then days, then years vanish
before the wait will stop,
before I walk out the door.
(September 19, 2020)
It’s a Familiar Enough Lie
With a headful of sighs,
I move from room to room,
stand in the doorway, then turn,
followed by dark regrets
which waited to slither back
from all the obvious corners.
I promise myself again
as I slip further away:
it will only be a moment;
then days, then years vanish
before the wait will stop,
before I walk out the door.
(September 19, 2020)
As in the Last Days of Pompeii (a reading)
As in the Last Days of Pompeii
In these next darker days,
Shadows walk in laughter
upright and self-righteous,
and we have no where to hide.
Ash floods the bitter sky
filling the streets, the rooftops,
our lungs with thick death.
With no time to cast bones,
our glazed eyes watch
the portents unfold into heaven.
Panicked, we rage in the street,
or cower next to a wall,
a silent witness to the fall.
(September 17, 2020)
As in the Last Days of Pompeii
In these next darker days,
Shadows walk in laughter
upright and self-righteous,
and we have no where to hide.
Ash floods the bitter sky
filling the streets, the rooftops,
our lungs with thick death.
With no time to cast bones,
our glazed eyes watch
the portents unfold into heaven.
Panicked, we rage in the street,
or cower next to a wall,
a silent witness to the fall.
(September 17, 2020)
present
today is today;
only, today’s different:
today, I am here.
(September 11, 2020)
there is no life outside of this
this body holds no answers
other than its own
I listen to its stories
all the iterations
the looped variations
as if razors inscribe each word
labyrinths within labyrinths
a slow-cut scratch through skin
to bleed heal and cut again
until what is true
what is believed
what is said
intermingle
their incestuous scars
like runes carved
across cave walls
and I have nowhere to go
and nothing left to say
(September 9, 2020)
What I Imagine When Someone Explains my Poetry to Me
He stands on a small rock
in the middle of a river;
the water rushes past
an obvious metaphor.
He ignores the danger,
and leaps the gap to land
on the next wet stone
barely within his compass;
And there, as he teeters,
searching for his balance,
he hears the falls hunger,
then is neither here, nor there,
but lost in the churning froth
of some other’s creation.
(September 6, 2020)
Day’s End
If I could peel these veins
from my arms and fashion
them into a noose,
then I’d find a dead tree
to swing upon
like a tattered paper lantern
dancing in an empty breeze.
(August 30, 2020)
Moments that Do Not Need to be Accounted
As the last bits of sun brush
the sporadic clouds in pink.
late August heat flows slowly
across your skin like whispers.
Cicadas, nearby, hum desire to others
who hum along in the distance.
Even the trees are tired, dropping
their leaves like an old man’s regrets.
The moon, of course, rises once more
from the dark, alone and unnoticed.
(August 28, 2020)
self-flagellation
The words I have
are enough
to tear
my flesh from bone,
to feed
the ravenous voices,
the hundred mouths
which peck,
and gnaw, and savor
my base
foundations
as if blood.
They are enough
for this—
(August 21, 2020)
Afternoon Transience
Briefly light lays lace
across the crepe myrtle’s leaves,
then whisks it away again,
before this sentence ends.
(August 18, 2020)
Narrative’s Default
whose story
your story
my story
some other
someone speaks
some listen
some believe
some obey
here the page turns
hear the page turn
slow whispers
form a deaf ear
control’s the word’s
darkest destiny
(August 13, 2020)
No One Watches the Train Fall From the Broken Bridge (a reading)
His problem has nothing to do with the train which travels steadily through the night. Everyone is content, if not happy, on the train, reading opinions they already agree with, drinking champagne, eating delicacies imported from foreign countries. They pretend they do not like the food, but wish they could eat as well at home. All of the people on the train are facing the same direction, which gives them all a strange comfort. A few of them look out the windows, but it is too dark to see the trees in the forest. It all follows along so logically, like a math problem in high school where rats scuttle east over well-polished wing-tips at a variable rate of three feet per second. They stop randomly to nibble on discarded bread crumbs dropped with nonchalance by the passengers on the train. Meanwhile the train travels south at a consistent seventy-three miles per hour directly toward the crumbled bridge which once traversed a chasm one thousand feet deep and a mile wide. There is no question at the end that one must answer. However, there is an answer; there is always an answer. No one watches the train fall from the broken bridge. No one hears the explosions as it crashes into the rocks below, or the last cries for help of those who are momentarily still alive.
On a trail nearby the train tracks, a monk moves through the dark as if he has been here before, thinking vaguely of other things. He pauses, peers into the dark, then wanders off along his way. The monk’s tangentially wandering mind is not enough to mark the train’s passing beyond the silence which lingers in the mountains for several hours after the sun has risen again.
(July 6, 2018)
alone
from a work in progress: “Memory and Silence” (83)
without chatter
without books
without the day’s noise
with only gossipy mouthings
within my head
with nothing to shore against
I drown in the slurry
gasping for air
(August 2, 2020)
mise en scene
from a work in progress: Memory and Silence (81)
he spoke to silence
the remnants the shadows
gathered into the ghosts
he played across the wall
they were his shadows
his ghosts his play
like dark French caves
the walls distorted
the shadows bent away
from him into a dark
into his larger fears
into his silence
(July 29, 2020)
Structures and Forms
I started a serial poem back at the beginning of January. The plan was to write 140 poems, each poem’s length pre-determined by a random number generator, ranging from 3-140 syllables. It was to follow vaguely the rules of a renga, where each poem grew out of the one before it somehow, whether through theme, pun, image, or a reply. The number of poems was determined by the number of syllables in a sonnet.
I have reached 80 poems in this series. I hit 40 back at the end of March. I have 60 more to go. I would like to finish this by the end of December, which means I should speed up a bit. LOL. I have never really written under a deadline except for required essays in grad school. However, 80 poems in 7 months is a fairly phenomenal pace for me.
I will now begin to move forward with the third ‘stanza’ while collecting and tightening sections 1 and 2, in hopes that as I reread and work over the first two sections, the third stanza will continue the conversations, if you will, that began in the first two “stanzas,” and the themes and images will continue to echo and grow organically in section three.
A little obsessive, but then what about life is not.
(July 27, 2020)
revision
from a work in progress: “process, not a journey” (81)
summer bears down
without any ambiguity
of phrase
a crucible burns away
the last impurities
without regard
what remains is ash
which with one puff
vanishes
(July 23, 2020)
iteration’s torment
from a work in progress: “process, not a journey” (80)
so he thought if
as if she said
what he heard
he thought she
said more
he wanted her
to say more
yet her metaphor
slanted in then
out like a kite
testing the wind
with her string
(July 22, 2020)
Fear Lies
“Why aren’t you bold and free of all your fear?”
-Dante Alighieri, Inferno, Canto III
as smoke
infuses itself
throughout the house
long after the fire’s extinguished
so fear
circulates in silent eddies
flowing like ravenous minnows
nibbling sharply at our toes
.
my fear lies
within doubt
it breeds
in the crevices
in the misunderstood word
in the scene not played out
it’s brood hatches
hungry needing to feed
skittering along memory
like spiders alive to every
web strand’s tingle
it descends to attend
to the fly’s quick dispatch
(July 21, 2020)
Unconsummated
Why shouldn’t I?
A wren perched next to a cardinal
like a drunkard on a stool
looking for a bit of trouble:
Am I such an easy fool
to think this wind is for me?
A yes, and a yes, waited unsaid.
(July 21, 2020)
a darker shape was always present
from a work in progress: “process, not a journey” (78)
after the worst of summer’s heat
we’d sit in the grass
beneath the pecan and cottonwoods
away from the radiant streets and sidewalks
the adults spoke of friends
far away or long dead
they’d laugh and tell stories
which we were not a part of yet
we ran wild through the night
afraid of nothing
(July 18, 2020)
emergent world
from a work in progress: “process, not a journey” (77)
the abstract
takes shape
along an edge
a plane
teased
to a form
more tangible
than shadows
in the grass
beneath the stars
(July 14, 2020)
templates
from a work in progress: “process, not a journey” (76)
so many boundaries
are employed
in any definition
the outlines cut
from what is not
are as important
as what remains
a pattern
even with
a patch
bears a pattern
if not original in intent
with care I fold my words
into this conversation
like origami cranes
from crisp white paper
(July 14, 2020)
answers require supplicants
from a work in progress: “process, not a journey” (75)
with a hand lightly
touching a wall
as guide where
do you turn when
there is no wall
to the left
to the right
(July 13, 2020)
Metaphor’s Threat
from a work in progress: “process, not a journey” (74)
It is hard to hear
what must be said
easy to fall
into cliche
a pair of shoes
softly worn old
they know the way
to take you home
as cows wear down
a simple path
between one place
and another
no difference
really matters
our thoughts carve out
the same channels
and run like rats
trapped in a maze
never pausing
to look for more
than what was there
the last time here
repetition
a common thread
comforts us all
with old ideas
and traps us too
with such fools as I
(July 11, 2020)
source
from a work in progress: “process, not a journey”(73)
beneath this static
this white noise
silence flows
unnoticed
pervasive
the river’s source
as in prayer i kneel
cup my hands
and drink
(July 9, 2020)
even now I hear them (a reading)
even now I hear them
from a work in progress: process, not a journey (72)
“Sea, I am like you, filled with broken voices”
—Guillaume Apollinaire
insistent demanding attention
soft whispers curl at my feet
like cats they claw at me
with their sharp reminders
lightly pulling at my skin
until the ground is awash
in the blood of memory
and then slightly below the surface
small phrases embedded in dead
conversations rise like tattered faces
from the sea to mouth their silent
vowels like fish dying in the sand
until the raw scraps of language
in which I am tangled
are cast out in a storm surge
far out among the dark waves
and I drown choking
with nothing to say
(July 6, 2020)
even now I hear them
from a work in progress: process, not a journey (72)
“Sea, I am like you, filled with broken voices”
—Guillaume Apollinaire
insistent demanding attention
soft whispers curl at my feet
like cats they claw at me
with their sharp reminders
lightly pulling at my skin
until the ground is awash
in the blood of memory
and then slightly below the surface
small phrases embedded in dead
conversations rise like tattered faces
from the sea to mouth their silent
vowels like fish dying in the sand
until the raw scraps of language
in which I am tangled
are cast out in a storm surge
far out among the dark waves
and I drown choking
with nothing to say
(July 6, 2020)
there’s no time
from a work in progress: “process, not a journey” (71)
some time after sunrise I wake
go downstairs book notebook
pen in hand make coffee take
my meds check various
social platforms eat some thing
shower get dressed
sometimes read sometimes write
sometimes nap wake
cook dinner wash the dishes
watch TV listen to music and
then after some time go to sleep
(July 2, 2020)
