On the floor
in a closet
curled tight
like an egg,
he dismantles
what’s left
of what remains;
he shaves away
thin layers
until nothing
like memory
is left,
just a space
where he had stood
filled with air,
and the laughter
of distant children.
(October 1 2020)
With a headful of sighs,
I move from room to room,
stand in the doorway, then turn,
followed by dark regrets
which waited to slither back
from all the obvious corners.
I promise myself again
as I slip further away:
it will only be a moment;
then days, then years vanish
before the wait will stop,
before I walk out the door.
(September 19, 2020)
In these next darker days,
Shadows walk in laughter
upright and self-righteous,
and we have no where to hide.
Ash floods the bitter sky
filling the streets, the rooftops,
our lungs with thick death.
With no time to cast bones,
our glazed eyes watch
the portents unfold into heaven.
Panicked, we rage in the street,
or cower next to a wall,
a silent witness to the fall.
(September 17, 2020)
this body holds no answers
other than its own
I listen to its stories
all the iterations
the looped variations
as if razors inscribe each word
labyrinths within labyrinths
a slow-cut scratch through skin
to bleed heal and cut again
until what is true
what is believed
what is said
intermingle
their incestuous scars
like runes carved
across cave walls
and I have nowhere to go
and nothing left to say
(September 9, 2020)
If I could peel these veins
from my arms and fashion
them into a noose,
then I’d find a dead tree
to swing upon
like a tattered paper lantern
dancing in an empty breeze.
(August 30, 2020)
from a work in progress: “Process, Not a Journey” (67)
our earth wobbles its way
about the sun like a drunk
unsure of her footing
moves again
toward the bar
*
day by day minute by minute
plods toward darkness
for the next six months
each day grows darker
by one minute
*
not quite disturbing
the dullard doves
who coo complacently
on the fence
–
cardinals and jays
fussing constantly
slip after each other
between tree branches
–
I watch and listen
to this dance
for hours
and can do nothing
*
as it was in the beginning
world without end
(June 23, 2020)
“sadness of those unschooled in the bottles’ gloom”
–Rene Char, Poets
Tonight, I hold my shape
tenuously, like a rabbit,
tense, on the edge
of a field: hold tight
in silence, or flee
into the brush?
(January 22, 2020)
All around him, the forest burns,
uncontrolled, beautiful.
The warmth reassures him
with its certainty.
His fingers burn; the flesh
chars as on a spit.
He turns, searching;
but she is gone, if ever
she were truly there.
He stands alone,
arms outstretched.
Flames leap through the trees;
smoke swallows the sky.
(December 10, 2019)
I am here
I am here abuzz on coffee
I am impatient with the speaker who is reading her power points to us
I am a reader, as is everyone in this room
this is an English teacher conference after all
the power point is structured like an academic research article
I only know this because once
I was, or wanted to be, an academic
I am a teacher
I understand research and its power
I want my students to feel this power
The presenter has stopped reading her power point
a student of the presenter has stood to witness
he was successful, he feels transformed
so he is transformed
another student stands to witness
she too was successful-
and transformed-
Bless Us Jesus-
which no one said, but they could have
or did say without being religious
or calling on Jesus
this presentation is a sales job
not just for the class on research
but for the presenter’s new book on research—
your students can feel this way too
BUY my BOOK
I’ve had too much coffee
and leave to find a restroom
(December 6, 2019)
Lost amid the accusations
and misappropriations
in bars and vague hallways,
he wakes into his troubles
unable to disaggregate
his shadows from the dawn.
Behind him, they trail ribbons
of smoke, curling about his feet
like cats hunting rats,
whenever he stops to think.
From frozen puddles, old friends
and loves rise toward him;
their faces blurred beneath ice.
They then sink away, as quickly,
leaving him to shuffle his fingers
uncomfortably across the steering wheel
as he waits for the light to change.
(July 24, 2019)
