If I understand
correctly, then
I have stumbled
on a rule,
a pratfall,
in my case,
accidentally
into a truth.
Not that rules
or truths must
ever exist
necessarily:
here, where I am lost, is
where the first word falls.
(April 24, 2026)
Category: difference
-
-
The snow, the road,
the woods, the town,
the wild geese, the sleepy cat
are not the snow, the
road, the woods, the
town, the wild geese, the
sleepy cat; the words I use
are not what I am saying.
Like lovers’ conversationslate at night after many years
and a second bottle of wine
are never about what they say:
a metaphor is what is left;
a metaphor is what you fear.
(April 22, 2026)
-
he shifted to the third person
someone outside his skin
someone easier to understand
someone easier to forgive
somewhere easier to hide
he felt under interrogationfor years answers formed easily
short sentences small words
now the simple questionswere grey nuanced and difficult
set with slow traps and baited
with articulate parenthesis
now he was no longer firstnow he had someone to blame
(February 5, 2026)
-
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)
-
There is a difference he implied
between what you do— (write
your poems), and this book—
which had been published
and which he now held out
(like a capitalist Eucharist)
before him as empirical evidence
of his claim’s veracity; the attention
toward profundity, cannot simply be.
Cannot simply happen. As if
there were no luminescence
inherent in the creative act,
no value to the happenstance.
Yet it does happen,
as we happen. The ineffable silence
fills in what cannot be said—
no matter the credentials, or what
god waits to make the first move.
The writing, the process, the evolution
of the text opens the word into light,
and power, and even glory
as has been done forever and ever.
(December 23, 2025)
-
The wind gusts in bursts
rushing leaves down the street
in a spasm of seasonal ritual,
as if a pattern’s repetition
creates a meaning separate
from our own simple noticing.
I have a hard time hearing
these voices of the world
through the constant clatter,
through the daily dazzle
and flash of the spectacle
playing in the wind’s
petulant laughter.
My screams are too loud.
To maintain my illusion
of safety, of purpose,
I whisper stories to myself.
I know stories are stories
and how they move through
each other like incestuous ghosts,
or confluent rivers, shaping
one another as they change.
I know change is incremental,
so I listen closely to my heart.
I notice a difference, but
am unsure what is different—
my notice, or the angle
of the wind through the trees.
(November 13, 2025)
-
Against an indifferent blue,
the clouds are brighter,
a harder white,
than even a few years back.
The air’s seared earlierin the mornings now;
one can taste it, raw,
at the back of the throat.
Before midnight,sunset brings small relief;
and even then, morning’s
heat breaks early.
Lizards, not here before,skitter across the rocks.
(June 6, 2025)
-
She thought, but that it need not be mentioned.
She doubted he could understand at all.
The party pulsed around them obliquely.
She thought about her old dreams once again.
He claimed she was being irrational.
She doubted dry reason’s caste privilege.
She laughed and twirled toward the dance floor.
He kept talking as if she were still there.
Dancing in tight angles and broad circles,she thought at her best with her blue eyes closed.
He felt comfortable in closed boxes
easily stacked in a dark corner room.
She knew that reason was an emotion.
He desired life to fall tightly in place.
(May 27, 2025)
-
Either/Or
by
“I have committed adultery in my heart..”
—- Jimmy Carter
the moments went unnoticed
until days sometimes years later
when the obvious slid past
like shadows tossed through a window
by a passing car late at night
and he realized what had been offered
when the difference in time between what
almost occurred and what he desired
vanished so regret could have grown
from a surreptitious kiss bestowed
instead of the one that was not
(April 26, 2025)
-
Despite the despots,
despite the collapse
of oceans’ currents,
despite the anger
flowing through the streets,
the iris push up
though the garden mulch,
and roses burst into bloom.
(April 6, 2025)
-
no more than this moment of light
which is enough for now
to bring me to a halt
long enough for the dogsto look at me bewildered
then a deer rises from the earthbounds over the high grass
silent as the slow glow
of the rising winter sun
one dog noticesthe other notices
our notice
both wag their tails(January 16, 2025)
-
On a sunny day in mid-November
in a newly gentrified part of Austin,
the restaurant is full of the young and educated
who chat at tables beneath the large oaks.
Waitresses bring armfuls of food and drink,
then easily sweep away the empty trays
in an all consuming dance of plenty.
Conversation at our table stays light
with talk of work and dogs and nothing,
nothing at all, of the coming darkness.
(November 10, 2024)
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