this letter will be ignored
as so many others
or perhaps worse
misread
as if
some other
were the subject
instead of you
(February 9, 2021)
Another Sad Love Poem
Category: obsessions
doorway (113)
formed out of these walls to shape
the air to separate here from there
beneath the dark winter quilts
my skin presses to your warmth
longs to be more than my limits
more than what’s contained inside
more an opening to other spaces
other ways with different lines
to cross with a limping accent
a creole to hone words into an edge
I know only what I know
my cell wall’s textures memorized
through the season’s slow change
the light and shadow through the bars
play their fingers in the silent air
like puppets alive to the string’s pull
beaten path (90)
like an old dog
circling his bed
i turn then turn
the idea around
a phrase a word
a memory
until the floor’s
worn away
and i fall
a slow spiral
like a rock
bounces against
a stone wall
and steps
with a clatter
before it stops
and I wonder
as if the thought
mattered
(October 30, 2020)
Structures and Forms
I started a serial poem back at the beginning of January. The plan was to write 140 poems, each poem’s length pre-determined by a random number generator, ranging from 3-140 syllables. It was to follow vaguely the rules of a renga, where each poem grew out of the one before it somehow, whether through theme, pun, image, or a reply. The number of poems was determined by the number of syllables in a sonnet.
I have reached 80 poems in this series. I hit 40 back at the end of March. I have 60 more to go. I would like to finish this by the end of December, which means I should speed up a bit. LOL. I have never really written under a deadline except for required essays in grad school. However, 80 poems in 7 months is a fairly phenomenal pace for me.
I will now begin to move forward with the third ‘stanza’ while collecting and tightening sections 1 and 2, in hopes that as I reread and work over the first two sections, the third stanza will continue the conversations, if you will, that began in the first two “stanzas,” and the themes and images will continue to echo and grow organically in section three.
A little obsessive, but then what about life is not.
(July 27, 2020)
Writing About Writing My Work in Progress
I read this morning that Hemingway said that better writers didn’t talk about their writing; I think it is often important to reflect on what one is doing as one writes: metacognition to use education jabber. So, fuck off Ernie.
I started a serial poem back at the beginning of January. The plan was to write 140 poems, each poem’s length is pre-determined by a random number generator, ranging from 3-140 syllables. It was to follow vaguely the rules of a renga, where each poem grew out of the one before it somehow, weather through theme, pun, image, or a reply. The number of poems was determined by the number of syllables in a sonnet.
I have come to the end of the first “stanza” section—40 poems. The last poem in the section #40, ‘rhymes’ with (39), (20), and (1); as (10) and (30) ‘rhyme—in an attempt to create an overall section unity. I will now begin to move forward with the second ‘stanza’ while collecting and tightening section 1, in hopes that as I reread and work over section 1, the themes and ideas that emerged in section one will echo and grow organically in section two: a conversation between sections one and two, if you will, as section two talks to itself.
Well, it keeps me something to do, and think about if nothing else.
(March 22, 2020)
one
from a work-in-progress: process, not a journey (40)
for years years ago
I thought about amoebas
.
how I wanted a metaphor
which would work well
.
with the amoeba image
to surround and absorb
.
until there was no difference
to contrast a comparison
.
no space between to slip
a prosaic definition
.
where on wanders safely
through dusted hallways
.
and life’s sharp ambiguity
blends into one
(March 16, 2020)
Mistranslations
My past imperfections intercede
to lay claim to what I can see.
The air between thickens in time
like delirious veils in the wind.
Each word she spoke I heard
as if her fingers on my arm
traced a secret in braille
I was too blind to read.
*
Now too tired to transform time,
I watch myself as if dead;
the chill pushes through my flesh,
like a rat gnawing in the wall.
Time’s translations fill my silence
with the words neither of us spoke.
(December, 20, 2019)
Limitation
from “Renditions of Change,” a work in progress
Random borders set blurred forms
to contain apportioned bits
of chaos. He accepts these
chains, like religion, to free
himself from the infinite.
(June 10, 2019)
Marginalia
The ghosts in his forest sift
between the bramble, collect
momentarily in clearings,
and compare notes on their
unconsummated affairs.
His apparition slips along
her edges, begging the margins
she ignores. Annotations,
without context, entangle
his thoughts, growing a life
of their own, a meaning
of their own, as blooms
of moss on the forest floor
disguise the broken trees
in a green effulgence.
He tries to trace her designs
within her fractured words.
Each turn he takes leads away
form yet another possible exegesis;
until, he falls into a clarity
forever uncertain and voiceless.p
(May 5, 2019)
Weeks Before Winter Solstice
W
“and I am
out with hanterns, looking for myself”
–Emily Dickinson
Despite the lights in the house,
The darkness penetrates.
It assumes positions in corners,
Presumptuous in its domain.
Like lions pace a cage’s confines,
I am lost in loops of thought
Looking for a set of keys
Which will let me inside.
Yet, there is no rest within
Nor without which can comfort
Enough to bring a closure;
Locked in my obsessions,
I worry each item in turn,
Tangled like tumblers at a fair.
(November 26, 2018)
