if
—as when each night
i close my eyes and pretend
to be asleep so that
i will fall asleep—
i pretend
to close my mind
to the injustice
in the world
will it cease to exist?
(May 5, 2026)
Category: oblivious
-
No blood splatted rubble
no violent clashes
between blind love’s
engendered hatreds
no screams
nor whimpers
of the dying next door—
only a silent room
is left to clarify
another day’s first light
as it expands
through an open window
(December 1, 2025)
-
He sits in a darkened room, oblivious
to the metaphor of time: today
is today he says to himself.
The door shuts; he cannot leave,
any more than live out of context,
a moment without past or future.
A rose buds, blooms, petals fall—
without narrative, without sequence.
(May 14, 2025)
-
if I understood I would not
need to write this moment
i’d simply let the breeze washacross my skin without metaphor
like morning sunlight strikesthe strings of a silent guitar
(December 18, 2024)
-
Even in late Spring as light grows larger
the shadows deepen and stretch from beneath
the twisting Live Oaks. Hope’s a tricky thing:
We cling to it like dust motes in sunlight,
ever afraid it won’t be enough.
Later, the inevitability,
so obvious, stuns us into silence:
All the signs were there waiting to be seen.
Yet, we did see them slithering beneath
the lightest shadows, only pretending
what was there was not truly there at all.
And there lies the rub, our willful blindness
allows us to believe our world is safe,
and Spring brings endless fields of daffodils.
(March 9, 2024)
-
“corpses are set to banquet”
–Ezra Pound
the dead are fed
without fear for
without awarenesswithout consequence
the dog licksthe negligent’s hand
as easily asthe master’s
the servers smirktaking the plates
away
who knowswhat is served
at the end of the day
(February 26, 2023)
-
the time between
the events they list
in the blurb
they post
after you die:
like now—
as the dog barksincessantly
at the back fence
as the birds flitter
and chirp
from tree to tree
as the grey cat
sleeps in the rocker
oblivious to it all
(April 4, 2022) -
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)
-
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)
-
I wake,
and hear
a sound
downstairs;
probably
the cat.
I listenin the dark,
watching
shadows
shift
across the ceiling.
I don’t get upto check;
although,
I probably should.
The cat’s asleep
nearby.
(September 21, 2020)
-
from a work in progress: “process, not a journey” (78)
after the worst of summer’s heat
we’d sit in the grass
beneath the pecan and cottonwoods
away from the radiant streets and sidewalks
the adults spoke of friends
far away or long dead
they’d laugh and tell stories
which we were not a part of yet
we ran wild through the night
afraid of nothing
(July 18, 2020)
-
if change will happen it will
happen now whenever
it happens so simple
–
yet still fear stays
the turn in the dance
the conversation the poem
–
where change shifts without
the moment noticed within
light which drifts through a window
–
or rose petals scattered
across an afternoon floor
oblivious as a sleeping cat
(November 1, 2019)
-
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)
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