After picking herbs,
She muddles the mint
or basil depending
on what’s to follow.
She bruises the leaves
like an abusive lover
into an intimacy
he can swallow.
After all,
what is allowed
is tolerated—
no matter
the consequence,
of some god’s rage.
Category: audacity
-
This morning, I pulled a book of unread Russian poetry
off of the shelf. It was contemporary when I bought it
forty years ago. The Soviet Union still had a few years
left to force its tight ideological voices to sing together.
The poet had been condemned to prison for being
a poet — the audacity! Standing there in front of full
bookshelves, I read a few of her poems. She spoke
of silences, talking through walls at night, friendships,
fear, love, and hope for a future, vague and undetermined.
Outside the light changed, it grew darker and forty years
vanished within the pages of the slim book of poetry
I held in my hands. Beneath the deafening drum beat
demanding one voice, one monomaniacal lie, I heard,
through our fears, a hope begin to scratch at our walls.
(February 4, 2025)
-
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 frothof some other’s creation.
(September 6, 2020)
-
A nothing—
you suppose
and assume
too much
upon others:
as if your presence,
and proximit,y
are enough,
you claim space
upon our attention.
You who speaks
a flurry
of flatulence—
Who are you
to say we’re rude?
Like pebbles,
you throw words
to blind,
mock,
and silence.
At best,
you are a gnat
flitting between
this book
and the table.
(September 16, 2019)
-
from “Renditions of Change,” a work in progress
A door blows open;
I wake to a storm.
A familiar room whirls
in disarray. Fear dares
for someone to speak.
(May 17, 2019)
-
He pointed out the apple.
She naively bit her lip, but
not her tongue, and said
Wouldn’t that be wrong?
Who says what’s wrong,
he said, then laughed.
If one is good, and one
bad simply in saying,
should the word hold sin,
or the one who speaks
into division? Do words
so stage our reactions,
or are our words an apple
offered up in innocence?
(October 7, 2018)
-
Sleight of Hand
by
abstract, audacity, change, chant, dream, erato, eros, hermenutics, hope, language, meaning, meditation, metaphor, poetry, traces, transition, ways of knowing, words, writing
I am talking to myself,
or projections of myself,
when I write these poems
to you. Either way,
the audience is oblivious—
focused on melodrama
with a simple plot
to turn attention
from my intent,
and your distractions.
(July 21, 2018)
-
to speak as I desiretrue to my knowingsshatters like icedecorum’s scarabtight sarcophagusthese multiplequick linesof dissectionsharply throughmy carapaceslowly openthe soft oozeof truth to thosewilling to viewmy unsettled life(February 20, 2015) -
hidden deepin a broken cageinsecurity flutterslike baby birdsupon the groundstirring catswith the soundall our pushingback and forthaway awaymight justlymean for nownot untilyou have goneso come backtalk againaround my lifelike butterfliesdancing aboutan open fieldof butter cupsand I will sharemy vagariesfor you to hearand laugh atas if a stickpoking the tiredsleepy bear(January 17, 2015) -
Know this –I am transformedby youspeechlessat a lossas to what to doknowing I ama foolhelplesshopelesshaplessin love(January 14, 2015) -
my mother too cut news articles to sendwhen she felt them pertinent to problemsshe saw in others with the hope changewould flower like cancer’s fractaled growththrough the recipients’ complete beinguntil we thanked her profusely for the helpwe did not seek nor knew we neededsince wisdom unlike arrogance languishesin abeyance among plebeians like uswho wait so eagerly for your enlightenedmissives to transform our troubled livesin these nine easy steps if we could only seewith the same clarity as you what all is wrongwith everything about us which is not you(December 28, 2014) -
I over think most except for myselfI tend to skip along humming past therefor those places I turn away at leastglancing above or to the side afraidif eye contact is made I’ll fail to betrue or I will be me which is worseeither way I’ll be telling lies to passthrough the rest of my troubled dayso when she writes or touches my armI question each nuance except my owndesire which provides the multiple veilsto occlude all sense I see hiding therebecause I so want to need it to bewithin close reach of my consummation(November 10, 2014) -
What do these things mean,he asks: black birds flynorth in a newly clearedsky; a bear’s blood-splatteredscat forms a pattern in the snow;and again today he thought of her.Where desire seeks causationany falling leaf will do to teasethe meaning he wants to create.He knows any connection is onlyhis own, yet; he fingers each link,as if it were a shattered saint’sreliquary, with enough mediationto bring her back again into his life.(October 5, 2014) -
one has to know when one can speak he saidbut I am too much the fool to keep quietto play to caution’s lick-spittle adviceI would rather stumble about the yardslipping in the jackal’s still ripe leavingsthan sit ensconced in sycophant’s glorythe borrowed robes of a chimeric kingdisguise one’s cowardice in silken liesone’s silence imparts a complicityto the swift arc of the truncheon’s skull crackone’s conscience eased as the street’s paved in teethone’s words should wait for the right time to speakstands next to fear with a smile and a noda reception line for the right hand of god(July 21, 2014) -
if you knewI wrote poemsto youas I havefor yearswould you take meto your bedand let mesing my songsto youthroughout the nightor would youlaughat my linesand walk awaywithout so muchas a quick goodbye(from a work in progress: “Arcana,” IIcups, March 15, 2014)
subtext 