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 listen
in the dark,
watching
shadows
shift
across the ceiling.
I don’t get up
to 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)
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)
