“I contain multitudes”
-Walt Whitman
I am not a voice,
but an echo of silence—
before and after.
Like dried flowers in old books,
I live pressed within these folds.
(May 27 2020)
Contained
Category: poetry
Control’s an Illusion
I negotiate the moment:
the shape of a shell;
the color of a shoe;
the proper knot for a noose;
what was said when,
and to whom. As if time
whispers the secrets
it finds in tide pools:
what belongs
scuttling in the rocks,
and what has washed in
with the last full moon.
(May 24, 2020)
enough (a reading)
enough
a stir of air around a leaf
a hesitation brief enough
to give pause to be still
to listen through the quick silence
for the birds’ chatter and flirt
to return and then it doesn’t
and it doesn’t matter
that you missed it
there’s always enough
for any day to be enough
(May 11, 2020)
enough
a stir of air around a leaf
a hesitation brief enough
to give pause to be still
to listen through the quick silence
for the birds’ chatter and flirt
to return and then it doesn’t
and it doesn’t matter
that you missed it
there’s always enough
for any day to be enough
(May 11, 2020)
dark earth (a reading)
dark earth
from a work in progress: process, not a journey (60)
obsessively the earth gives birth
to its dead rich and fertile
safe inside itself unseen
unvoiced like ecstatic dancers
beneath a moon-bright sky
the earth lifts the rose
the oak twisting and throbbing
into the air so i burrow deep
beneath the black soil a worm
gnashing rocks like prayers
until i find a darker god
and somewhere in the black clay
an old woman natters
lost in perpetual disappointment
as a death skull’s laughter’s
trapped in his life’s delusion
(May 7, 2020)
dark earth
from a work in progress: process, not a journey (60)
obsessively the earth gives birth
to its dead rich and fertile
safe inside itself unseen
unvoiced like ecstatic dancers
beneath a moon-bright sky
the earth lifts the rose
the oak twisting and throbbing
into the air so i burrow deep
beneath the black soil a worm
gnashing rocks like prayers
until i find a darker god
and somewhere in the black clay
an old woman natters
lost in perpetual disappointment
as a death skull’s laughter’s
trapped in his life’s delusion
(May 7, 2020)
Infinite Watched Pot (a reading)
Infinite Watched Pot
“That is, if you write it has it happened twice”
—Michael Palmer, Notes for Echo Lake
I woke and now it is now; the sun’s setting.
Was the writing the thing that happened?
Would today happen without being written?
Are they two events or one?
I see something—
like a car crash,
or water boiling on the stove.
One’s disconnected,
one’s intentional, possibly
even a causation; for example;
I’m hungry, so
I hop in the car for a burger.
She was in a hurry. It was
raining. She slams through a yellow light.
The driver in front of me dies
on the wet street. Or,
I’m still hungry. I hold dry
pasta knowingly, and watch
as the tiny bubbles form
on the bottom of the pot.
Did anything happen?
I am hungry, and will be
each time you read this,
even if I was the driver
who died, or I just wrote
it down; even if something
more than this
was in my thoughts
as I waited for water
to boil.
(May 3, 2020)
