Since I am
no snake
sloughing skin,
I hide my scars
in an imagined other.
Not the obvious,
oblivious sheep,
but one more wary,
who waits
along the edge
knowing fear,
knowing
like rabbits:
one step left,
one step right,
without calculation,
equals death;
and any
volition ends
with a quick flutter
of feathers,
and the talon’s
sharp pang
lifting one
toward heaven
like a song.
(October 1, 2019)
The Seine flows
endlessly
around us.
We sit on the tip
of the Ile de la Cite
as if on a boat’s bow,
sailing up the river.
The sun shines,
like a promise,
after days of cold rain.
We drink a decent Bordeaux,
eat fresh pate smeared
across chunks of ubiquitous baguette.
Notre Dame looms
darkly behind
in its medieval bulk.
We are in love, as we
are still forty years later.
Nearby,
above a former morgue,
is a memorial
to the two hundred thousand martyrs
handed over to the Nazis by the Vichy
for deportation to the camps
forty years before we sat happily
oblivious to all but the beauty
of that one Parisian afternoon.
(September 19, 2019)
A nothing—
you suppose
and assume
too much
upon others:
as if your presence,
and proximit,y
are enough,
you claim space
upon our attention.
You who speaks
a flurry
of flatulence—
Who are you
to say we’re rude?
Like pebbles,
you throw words
to blind,
mock,
and silence.
At best,
you are a gnat
flitting between
this book
and the table.
(September 16, 2019)
an inch is as easy
as an ocean
to drown, we venture
into waves, unafraid
one is different
from the next and next
rolling vast undulations
toward the horizons
(July 13, 2019)
from “Renditions of Change,” a work in progress
Can one be wary,
and still be
unconscious?
Words seduce me—
their pulse and purr,
without my awareness.
I know nothing
more than nothing;
this I know.
Someone
somewhere
whispers to me.
(March 12, 2019)
Amid twilight’s slow dance,
along a moment’s periphery,
always some other lurks close,
whispering him toward the rocks:
“Don’t stop. Over here, no here.
Somewhere other than where
you are, someone other
than the person you are.”
As the voices rattle like bones
in a box longing to be heard,
he barely notes the susurrations,
never knowing where he goes.
Thus, the lackadaisical waves
slip him limply past the shore.
(January 16, 2019)
