to sleep
we pretend
first to sleep
lay down
close our eyes
drift
until we are
no longer
awake
we dream
as we sleep
as if we are
awake
rather than
dreaming
(January 29, 2026)
Category: liminal
-
no one is home
no one sits in the dark
alone
no one waits for the keyto slip in the lock
and turn with a click
no door openswith a repressed
creak
no one is leftto ask for explanations
but you
no one but youand it is late
and the house is dark
(January 23, 2026)
-
memory agitates into vision media res: the precise moment of peak self-revulsion, the inaction, the cowardice, the lie inherent in regret— when nothing more could have been done, nor anything now retroactively applied which can act as balm to the shame carried for decades through the day in those quiet moments on the way to work, waiting for the light to turn green, or some phrase, or song on the radio which tumbles memory’s cascade through the spongey canyons to again reconfigure itself into this contiguous present as some other story without static cause
(December 25, 2025)
-
I finished There are Rivers in the Sky a couple of days ago. Usually I try to respond as soon as I finish a book, but this time it had to ferment a bit before I could respond. Not that the couple of days more has made it more clear what I am thinking. We read one of her books, 10 Minutes 38 Seconds in This Strange World, for RFB last year. I really liked it, so I looked forward to reading Rivers in the Sky. Like 10 Minutes, Rivers is built around multiple story lines which by the end of the novel converge nicely without sounding forced. Both books stress the importance of community, 10 Minutes on a small group of divergent friends, whereas Rivers weaves a broader tapestry across centuries if not millennia. The connecting thread across time is the Mesopotamian Epic of Gilgamesh, the earliest written piece of world literature arising from the earliest civilization. Which of course, is significant to the novel as a whole. One of the story lines is set in Victorian England (the height of the English Empire), when England is pillaging the past Empires of relics and putting them on display in the British Museum. One of the relics they find is the before unknown Epic of Gilgamesh. It is found in fragments, over time, mainly in the abandoned ruins of the once great city of Nineveh. Another story line involves a small group of people, descended from the Sumerians, considered to be devil worshippers by the dominant religious groups. While the third story line, also descendants from the region of Mesopotamia, Iraq, who have immigrated to contemporary England. Through all three threads, the importance of story, the written word, tradition, and change flow like the rivers,(The Thames and Tigris), which dominate the imagery in the novel. The pollution, re-birth(in the case of the Thames), the destructive and nurturing aspects of the rivers and water in general are constantly in play. Overall it was an enjoyable experience.
One quote out of dozens I underlined: “Hatred is a poison in three cups. The first is when people despise those they desire—because they want to have them in their possession. It’s all out of hubris! The second is when people loathe those they do not understand. It’s all out of fear! Then there is the third kind—when people hate those they have hurt”
-
I wake from the night into memory.
Nearby, I am here again, a soft footstep
in the hall, muffled behind a closed door.
A silence forms like an intake of breath.
Dawn waits darkly along the horizon.It is hard to differentiate the difference
between what I see and what I knew.
One changes the other like the rising sun.
It is as if I have lived here before,perhaps, in a novel I once half-read,
or when lulled by repetitive motion
of an ocean wave adrift far at sea.
I’m present in overlapping visionswithin each one, I’m lost and discontent.
(April 14, 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)
-
Crows fly overhead
with raucous caws.
With less than an hour
before the long night begins,
I start a fire in the back yard.
Inside where candles burn,
guests gather bearing wine and gifts.
Spilling some wine, I turn
from the fire and wave
to my friends inside.
Tonight we share food,
and laughter. Fear of the dark
hangs on the edge of the fire.
Of this, we are all aware.
Tonight, we smile, hug,
and toast the coming year:
there is always hope.
Tomorrow, the light,
in daily increments, begins
to slowly turn from the night.
(December 22, 2024)
-
As if leading a ritual, the dogs wake me from dream. Their wet noses snuffle in my ear, scenting for traces of consciousness. I slowly collect myself, then escape down the stairs alone. Their task complete, the dogs curl into the warm shapes I leave behind in the tangled sheets. I’m cold, so I wrap myself in one of the brightly colored Mexican blankets Lisa bought more than twenty years ago along the border. Behind me on the counter, the coffee pot begins to gurgle and spurt. I watch through the sliding glass door as the leaves fall from the cottonwood and sycamore out back. Chasing squirrels most of the day, the dogs have worn two paths through the grass, each ending in the same place on the far side of the cypress at the bottom of the yard. These paths breathe cliche, no less so because mundane. The squirrels, out early, leap from tree to tree, dropping to the ground unmolested to collect acorns they buried, somehow remembering where they are months after the fact.
(December 10, 2024)
-
In my darkness, where I will not look,
live the parts of me I do not wish to know.
I sense their vague shapes along the edgesshifting toward the trees as the flames flicker.
Sometimes during the day, I can hear them—their mutters rising thick below my words,
like smoke billows from a chemical firefixing its pungent smell across a clear sky.
Mostly, they sleep like bears hibernatingdeeply beneath the snow. I let them be.
Better left with violent dreams of salmon,than cracking open the bones of the dead.
Better chained in soft recriminations,than eviscerated with what I am.
-
I read once when I was young, I believe
in the I Ching, that a tall stone tower
on a hill is a great defense in war;
except it draws the enemy’s attack.
One can run, but not hide from an attack;nor run away while hiding. Paradox.
Yet there is a third option. Wherever
you are is the ground upon which you stand.
You stand openly, steady like a tree,whose roots have coiled deeply into the earth.
Allow the time’s darkness to surge through you,
yet again, in long slow pulsating waves;
until the latest storm’s violence abates,and you find yourself right where you have been.
(March 26, 2024) -
I live within walls,
neither inside nor out.
I place my hand as on skin,
softly pushing in.
The resistance is mine,
pliant and divisive:
less a protection
than a prison.
There is no key,nor knife to slice
the callused flesh,
the polished walls–
only silence to absorb
the incessant whispers.
(January 29, 2024)
subtext 