this is where we part
which was not the line
I meant to write down
but the one I remembered
the last time you walked away
(September 12, 2026)
Category: alone
-
circa 1979
The night is close
to the day. My head’s
thick with whiskey
and bitter ideas.
My hands ache. I find
it hard to speak
at length without
losing words, or how
to say them. So, I wait
and listen to the silence
for the words to stop
their emotional slither,
and allow me to go
home, alone again.
(July 16, 2026)
-
Your hands dance the air
as you sit across the table
describing an event we shared
decades ago in our youth.
We are both there as before;a sequence of events similar
enough to be the same events;
yet, causality and context shift.
Like Wittgenstein, it dawnson me slowly that the story
you are telling is not the one
I have told about love’s loss.
You ask why I’m crying;I realize you never knew.
(July 15, 2026)
-
no one is home
no one sits in the dark
alone
no one waits for the keyto slip in the lock
and turn with a click
no door openswith a repressed
creak
no one is leftto ask for explanations
but you
no one but youand it is late
and the house is dark
(January 23, 2026)
-
Lost at Sea
by
People try to talk to me.
I hear, perhaps, half,
then, as they go on, drift,
moved as if by tides.
Alone, most days, slipping
slowly from book to thought,
to roll my tongue through words
plays with incoherence.
There need be notes like stones
left as markers to return;
or bits of marginalia
tossed along the shore
to hint towards an origin,
I can no longer explain.
(October 24, 2025)
-
He didn’t know how to act, and had no script to follow. She knew her part without book, and said all her lines with ease. This was, she pointed out, not her first time in this role. It was, he thought, a true love story, not just another chance for her to reprise a stock character. Repeatedly, she set the scene, hitting her mark, an easy cue to follow. Scene after scene, he vaguely wandered the stage, wishing he knew what to say; wishing he knew what to do; unable to act on his desires. She was confused. What was his motivation? Why wouldn’t he act? Why did he not respond correctly? Eventually, the farce ended as it began, without preamble, or resolution. Some one laughed in the wings, followed by a slow clap. Then, like a ghost, she left the stage, leaving him to ponder their performance alone, as the lights slowly faded past memory.
(September 5, 2025)
-
in the end
by
he did not mention
any more than did she
what was never said
those parts off stagenever explained yet
implicit to the scene
the vast open silencestheir words spoke into
the vast open silencestheir words tried to seal
the resonant confessionswhich adhered
(February 21, 2025)
-
I would like to say
I was just visiting
that I had somewhere elseto be where I belonged
a secret place otherthan this constant vigil
I would like to saythis was a pleasant trip
that it is time to goback home again
but none of that is trueI have no where to go
and loneliness is allthat happiness is not
(June 21, 2024)
-
Too many old ghosts walk about today,
leaning against the walls, blocking doorways.
They lounge around the house, reading sad books
they’ve read before, never leaving their chairs.
I wave my hands in the air, futilely
trying to chase them away. Like house flys,
They vanish along the periphery,
only to reappear within seconds.
They are in no hurry to return home,
where their versions of the story can’t change.
They like the nebulous nature of life.
I’m tired of talking to their shapelessness;
I want to slough off their soft vaguery,
and cast them into the unanswered night.
(June 18, 2024)
-
Through others we become ourselves.
— Lev S. Vygotsky
We think we are
what we think we are,
because we believe
we think ourselves
into awareness,
that it is us
who is thought
when we think.
I am unsure,which part of me
is me, and which
part is part
of who I am
supposed to be.
(June 12, 2024)
-
false starts
with tired thoughts
begin
in faltered steps
then end
off trail
vaguely muttering
lost
alone
in the dark
like Gretelwithout crumbs
to follow home
or a Hansel
to hold on to
(June 7 2024)
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