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Returning Home

Like lover’s forgotten notes,

disturbed dreams fold

into night’s pocket. I wake

into another dark morning,

surprised I was still asleep.

It’s wearing to be aware

even I one’s dreams. The days

protective surety thins

and the ground falls away

into air. Too often I return

to you, who does not exist

beyond my desire for you

to exist. Like stepping

suddenly into a forest

clearing, each narrative

trace left from dream,

or memory leads me into

a present space. Not caught

up in past complications,

nor the fractal explosions

on the verge of occurrence,

I notice momentarily

the effulgent light along

The edges of the shimmering

leaves, and I am happy.

(January 15, 2018)

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Ecce Homo

There are no gods

to absolve

vain transgressions.

Stripped bare,

little’s left,

but flesh,

and a sack

of broken emotions:

shame, regret,

hollow laughter–

a thin grist to feed

what ever’s left.

The man remains–

the fool!

(December 30, 2018)

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Whirligig

“Desire is a moment with no way out”

–Anne Carson

I parse each moment’s possibility

Pretending the past can be reconciled

With present desires. Memory wears me

Like a palm stone smoothed from idle handling,

Until no difference exists between

Me and what I have perceived to be me.

The unstable threads interlace with all

The lies, the truth, the last dry sip of gin.

The metaphor for myself unravels:

The little that was left unsaid is said,

And the air sparkles with embarrassment.

I have built constructs out of Tinker Toys,

Vast whirligigs of simplistic ideas

To clack and flail in an ignorant wind.

(December 6, 2018)

Storied Definition

Storyteller-New

Within the parameters

Which define me,

Am I who I am,

Or who I have created?

I revise a simple story

Of which I am a part;

The story compels belief,

And I comply completely.

I am only a part of

this story as a voice

I hear, which stays near

Slightly behind all I do:

I am this voice, this story;

I am my only limitation.

(November 20, 2018)

Leaf Fall

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Somewhere, not here

A field lies open,

Unframed, without

Mind, as if lost,

Waiting on ritual.

In Increments,

I have changed.

Each day dawns

Into itself;

There is no other.

Hear, and here

As well, I

Still seek

Her across

These echoes:

She followed

A fragile winter

Ice across a lake.

I am cold; the wood

Grown dark.

(October 30, 2018)

persona non grata

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“She is a forgery.”

–Anne Carson

since

she fears

she will be

discovered

as

so much

less

then she appears,

she revises

her lines,

practices

improvisations;

until,

she vanishes.

(October 23, 2018)

Mother

Not from any petulant resentment,

Nor a lack of matriarchal love, but

It does not bother me much now

That mom died a decade ago.

Worry distracted her and kept

Her distant. She wanted me

To be something she wanted

To be, without regard for me.

Her love, no doubt, was sincere,

But was obligated, and entangled

With obligations in return with

A thousand hair-thin lines to untie.

Like rags, I wring my hands, like her;

And wish, like her, I was someone else.

(October 8, 2018)