this is where we part
which was not the line
I meant to write down
but the one I remembered
the last time you walked away
(September 12, 2026)
Category: end
-
The grass is dead; heat
and lack of water condemned
it to a fiery death.
The sun sets the skyon fire; the air vanishes
with the last ember.
The dark cannot grantreprieve from the constant heat;
our sweat turns to ash.
There is no relief.Our father has failed us all
The sun chars the dark.
God smells of stale death in ice;A silent corpse’s last breath.
(March 24, 2025)
-
a quarter moon slips
below the horizon
as an empty lifeboat
drifts out of reach
of the sinking ship
(February 4, 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)
-
i see so little,
in the time I’ve been given,
if i think too much
the chinquapin wavesshadows about the back yard:
such a bright spring day
actuary chartspredict my death in ten years;
a rose bloomed today
i wish i knew moreabout the vicissitudes
of time and of love.
tonight, a new moon rises;the tower clock chimes the hour
(April 17, 2024)
-
the problem is time
obstructs,
before it
even begins.
most days
eventually meander
near a river,
not
obliviously, but
truculently:
defining
each
second as a
task which finds
relief
only when finished.
yet, evening
eventually
relinquishes
some forgiveness.
(April 1, 2022)
-
He was dying slowly, and I
was impatient.
The bell, sewn on his pillow,called and called.
All afternoon as it rang,I would go to him.
He would whisper slurred words,as I leaned into his deaf ears.
What do you need? What can I do?Water? Do you want water?
He’d groan, his eyes lost
somewhere in the distance.
What do you need? What do you want?As if I did not know.
(November 18, 2021) -
“but in the end one needs more courage to live than to kill himself”
—Albert Camus
Any tremblethrough the trees
contrary
to the first
wind, the
next wind,
or no wind:
always afraid,so afraid
to simply be,
with no
definition,
with no
place to go,
nowalls left to build,
no excuse
left to believe,
no end;
then again,
no end.
(September 12, 2021)
-
Where words we would have said
were swallowed, like sailors sacrificed
to the waves, possibility slipped shut.
If only we could have heard the words
we sang in secret to each other;
if only we had not died there,
feeding like fabled monsters
upon our embittered flesh;
if only we had relented
to the siren’s cold seductions,
then the screams in the waves
which smashed upon the sea wall
would not be lost to the blind pulse
of froth and spume across the wreck.
(June 30, 2021)
-
turn turn turn (140)
by
cycle, death, end, fate, hope, meditation, patterns, poetry, process, silence, transition, work in progress
with spring’s violence flowers burst
into bloom from winter’s death
as chimes toll slowly in the tree
mere weeks ago ice creakedtightly along the chase tree’s
twisted branches as the chimes
hung limp and people froze
to death alone at home
(May 9, 2021)
-
within a multitude of soft tongues
a flame whispers accusations
around the kindling at your feet
and with a puff from her lips
it flourishes like angelic trumpets
curling toward a blackening sky
then soon enough
the fire fades
to a boredom
akin to sadness
it’s not there
in its absence
as sadness pervades
each need
with lackadaisical ease
(April 5, 2021)
-
to form a new line
just out of reach
like desireand all we remember
we fall away
from ourselves like rain
leaving cloudsto float on the horizon
too tired to speaktoo heavy to hold the sky
we move down a roadalways approaching a line
if we cross we’re freedinto a new chain
a new destructiona new circle to close
like blood squeezedalong sclerotic veins
until the heart seizesat what remains
a lost kiss a touchone last word
(March 8, 2021) -
the last whisper’s echo went
as if the silence was always there
behind his last breath which fell
away like ash from an ember
simply not there any morenot even a hole where he once stood
(January 27,2021)
subtext 