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)
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)
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)
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 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)
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.
All day the rain fell
Soaking the cold winter ground
The year ends tonight
(December 31, 2020)
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
“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)
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)
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)
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)
“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)
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)
“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)
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)
“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
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)
When my mother died,
I did not get another—
one being
more than enough
for a lifetime.
(November 20, 2020)
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)
The odds are I won’t;
Yet, someone will die today:
I let the bones roll.
(November 16, 2020)
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)
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)
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)
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. 2020)
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)
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)
crow turns her blacker eye
deeper into the night
then one last direful cry
before she takes flight
(October 28, 2020)
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)
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)
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)
step left
step right
I’m here
where else
(October 26 2020)
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.
With a late autumn
wind, a burr oak leaf flutters
gently to the ground.
(October 20, 2020)
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)
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)
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)
“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)
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
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)
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
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)
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)
today is today;
only, today’s different:
today, I am here.
(September 11, 2020)
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)
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)
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)
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)
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)
Briefly light lays lace
across the crepe myrtle’s leaves,
then whisks it away again,
before this sentence ends.
(August 18, 2020)
he walked along the quay and listened
to the waves shush each other
as they lay down on the shore
the moon wove between clouds
lacing the waves in white
before they sank beneath the sand
he wanted the waves
to wash it all away
what he wrote what she said
(January 20, 2021)
