A rose requires
no one to notice
it bloom; come spring,
it just blooms.
(March 27, 2026)
Category: clarity
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Poem
by
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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)
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The full moon’s near Jupiter—
as if I can know
what someone else has told me.
I believe and see
the sky unfold around me,
each star in its place
fixed tightly with divine faith.
I know only this:
my truth is only my truth.
The chihuahua knows
he must go into the dark;
I open the door.
He barks at a Great-horned owl
who stares into the cold night.
(January 4, 2026)
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I’ve tossed yarrow stalks on a table,
and stared blankly at arcane cards
pretending at small divinations.
Last week I’ve been reading poetrythat survived orally for millennia
before copied slowly onto a page.
I’ve done all these things before,so much so I almost recognize
the footprint’s patterns in the sand.
Each morning repeats itself:I let the dogs out, start coffee, piss,
as if the sun wouldn’t rise otherwise.
Yet, it does, as it will again:so starkly beautiful, so new.
(December 15, 2025)
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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)
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The ghosts have returned.
Along an edge, they tremble
into view, then vanish,
if I turn to look.
It is best I ignore them,
as they roll and tumble
near my hesitant feet.
I fear to step on them.
They are soft like kittens,
but with longer memory,
and a sharper clarity.
Details bend, slowly feel
their way, to insert tendrils
along darker fissures
to occupy spaces reserved
for conflicts of the present,
but now quiver gently
with decades of regret.
(October 30, 2025)
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Still Point
by
Ritual consoles
through repetitions solace:
“I’ve been here before.”
(August 16, 2025)
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“way leads onto way”
Robert Frost
I was reading a poem
about how hard it is
to attend to the world
with all its distractions,
and; I lose that poem
to my thoughts of the poem.
Even now, as I writethis poem about losing
the poem I read,
I lose the thoughts
in my head, and the poem
I meant to write instead.
(February 27, 2025)
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“untroubled by a leaf falling
in a garden”
—George Oppen
lost in worry
which troubles you
more than
the obvious deaththe obvious moment
in which you live
most of what you knowhas diminished
from nuance
eroded into a massirrelevant
grave
(January 23, 2025)
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Occluded
by
I’ve lost my glasses.
Fog hangs thick; it’s hard to see
beyond the back fence.
The new moon lurks above me,
almost as dark as the sky.
(January 19, 2025)
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if I understood I would not
need to write this moment
i’d simply let the breeze washacross my skin without metaphor
like morning sunlight strikesthe strings of a silent guitar
(December 18, 2024)
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Jiggers of time measured out:
a mixture of meals, dog walks,
and predictably mundane
intrusive thoughts. Skoal!
(November 15, 2024)
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