to sleep
we pretend
first to sleep
lay down
close our eyes
drift
until we are
no longer
awake
we dream
as we sleep
as if we are
awake
rather than
dreaming
(January 29, 2026)
Category: abstract
-
In this dream,
I unfold other maps
between petulant winds.
In this place, I am known,but not by this name,
not in this direction.
I have lost my way.It was a mistake
to come here today.
Ignorance always wins,because it does not know
it lost long ago.
Tracing a vein in my arm,I find a way home.
(January 17, 2026)
-
What do I dowith the I here,
with the voice here,with an other
who is just me;yet, not as well?
For so long now,I have written
into my lifeout of my life;
I know myselfas different,
something otherthan what I write.
Someone must breathebehind these words,
must speak slowlyto understand.
What is beingsotto voce?
Am I speaking?
Or listening?
What tight constraintsmust be applied
in order to saythat I am here?
(January 7, 2026)
-
memory agitates into vision media res: the precise moment of peak self-revulsion, the inaction, the cowardice, the lie inherent in regret— when nothing more could have been done, nor anything now retroactively applied which can act as balm to the shame carried for decades through the day in those quiet moments on the way to work, waiting for the light to turn green, or some phrase, or song on the radio which tumbles memory’s cascade through the spongey canyons to again reconfigure itself into this contiguous present as some other story without static cause
(December 25, 2025)
-
No blood splatted rubble
no violent clashes
between blind love’s
engendered hatreds
no screams
nor whimpers
of the dying next door—
only a silent room
is left to clarify
another day’s first light
as it expands
through an open window
(December 1, 2025)
-
The wind gusts in bursts
rushing leaves down the street
in a spasm of seasonal ritual,
as if a pattern’s repetition
creates a meaning separate
from our own simple noticing.
I have a hard time hearing
these voices of the world
through the constant clatter,
through the daily dazzle
and flash of the spectacle
playing in the wind’s
petulant laughter.
My screams are too loud.
To maintain my illusion
of safety, of purpose,
I whisper stories to myself.
I know stories are stories
and how they move through
each other like incestuous ghosts,
or confluent rivers, shaping
one another as they change.
I know change is incremental,
so I listen closely to my heart.
I notice a difference, but
am unsure what is different—
my notice, or the angle
of the wind through the trees.
(November 13, 2025)
-
these wounds will not heal into darker scars
these words will not heal into darker scars
they will burn forever on tongues of flame
they will burn on lecherous tongues of flame
what slow darkness grows in from the edges
what slow darkness reaches in from the edge
there is nowhere to go but further in
there is nowhere left except what is here
caught in this spiral as vast as the sea
the words shift along incomplete circles
what songs can be heard in this vast darkness
what old music must play against the night
unformed patterns shatter into fragments
like laughter breaking across an old fear
(November 4, 2025)
-
The fool’s dog’s sharp yip
is not dire enough
to ward off the fall
into the canyon’s echo.
Is it worth the death,
this life? The timidity
to make an attempt
is inlaid as context.
The sun sets in context
of a new risen dawn.
The view of other’s views
block vision’s sole vista.
What’s left is improvised—-
each day a blurred whirl,
simulating a design,
as the dance continues
teetering along an edge,
one leg in the air.
(October 25, 2025)
-
even memory becomes a lie—
that was a truth, and so goes
the old paradox— out of truth
a lie to beget yet another.
The hollowness must be filled.So, the words fall into the holes
like wet sand, thick and dark
until the voices have stopped;
until the voice becomes itself:pervasive like white static
smoothing all to a null point
where what we know is allowed.
I know my truth for now:one thing leads to another
(October 6, 2025)
-
the small things:
the weather,
people’s names;
any number of unconscious
tic marks
on unacknowledged
lists,
lists which you havegrown like bark
to create a stability
which permits you
to falsify, in some way,
some senseof integrity as day
bends to another day
which has somehow
changed
without you
(September 28, 2025)
-
It’s rumored one sees
as you die one’s life.
What if what one seesis the life as lived
unfolding in timeso fleeting, yet vast?
Each momentarilya live memory
not a life once livedbut the life you have.
Then it disappearsas if in a dream
of which one forgetswithout waking up.
(September 4, 2025)
-
At the door
Someone
Something
Some time
Waits to enter
Waits to leave
Waits for you
To answer
To turn off the lights
To hide
To wait for them
To give up
Before the confrontation
Before the violence
With someone
With something
With some time
Which will happen
Despite the door
Being opened
Or closed
(July 30 2025)
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