from “Renditions of Change,” a work in progress
I return again
and again to
gain small bits
of what she offers.
Often drunk
at her table,
I feed on
her infinite root.
Even as I am
changed, Poetry
absorbs the earth
and all upon it.
What part I am,
what part I have
become, rises
into her dance.
(March 6, 2019)
from “Change,” a work in progress
Other’s discontent wears
on me. No peace exists
as time’s delusions
divide all eternity.
(January 29,2019)
from “Change” a work in progress
Too often, when I find time
to write, the clamor of the day
staggers about drunkenly,
muddling my thoughts. So,
I wait, go for a walk, cook.
Eventually all the falderal
falls away to silence;
and, I write again.
(January 22, 2019)
from “Change” a work in progress
Once,
I was
not here;
but still,
I am
today
In time,
I am
complete;
Ouroborus
becomes
the egg.
(January 19, 2019)
I project myself onto a new world
Which is not mine, but simply becomes mine.
These become moments when something happens
And nothing happens. I exist tangled
In marginalia, a handwriting
Stitched upon the edges. Another book
Becomes a palimpsest to my tired thought,
A filter to strain away the slither.
Roman priests examined the intestines
Of animals slaughtered for sacrifice.
To devine auguries in the moment,
When something happened, and nothing happened,
They would take the eviscerated signs-
The clots of blood, the bits of flesh, as truth.
(November 30, 2018)
hands cupped beneath
the water wait,
like still bells hang
about to sound
the sky’s dark depths.
spaces open
where there were none
like hope rising
with a new moon
above the trees.
out of nothing
a shape’s contained;
out of nothing
a world’s remade.
(October 9, 2018)
“chiseller of inaccuracies”
–Fernando Pessoa
I would not speak
if I knew what to say.
There would be no need
to form words around
an unrealized dream.
It is the unsaid
which must be given
shape; which calls us
from its shapeless dark
to speak into existence
what we cannot know.
Yet, I know so little
about so much, I must
speak about it all.
I start where I am
which is always here.
First, I must listen,
discern the shapes
before I can speak.
My words carve out
what is there
from what is not
as the silence unfolds
a new kind of truth.
(August 23, 2018)
