The mirror’s a mask
for who I think I am;
How long have I been gone?
Where did I go?
The man I see is worn
and fragile, skin dry,
wrinkled; eyes deep
with dark half-moons
floating below them
like shadows on water.
I am not who I am,
yet more than an echo.
the mirror’s a mask
for what I have become.
(September 5, 2019)
Always nearby, Fear hangs back
floating like the hint of smoke
on the horizon. The city lies
in that direction. Home lies
in that direction. We are not
going back again. Still, it comes.
Its tongue insinuates the air; soft
words clot our ears with ice.
This is the time which we live in:
slow lumbering ideas, empty and angry,
tumble through the streets like rocks
tossed by giants from mountain tops.
No one notices the viscous fire
burning the flesh from our bones.
(September 4, 2019)
his breath
like a sigh
or prayer
*
be sweet
her whispered
life’s summation
(August 30, 2019)
falls from branch
to branch to
tail to hand
to foot to
ground then
walks away
fruit in hand
(August 30, 2019)
“It’s up to poets to revive the gods.”
—-Jim Harrison
There are no more gods
to conjure our hope
against this darkness,
no soft rituals
filled with smoke and fire
to sate writhing snakes.
We must shape the dark
to find ourselves
a space to live,
protected from rain
and heat, a space
to sleep and be reborn.
We alone must be
the wood and spark.
(August 29,2019)
Several weeks ago something made me think about rereading Tristan Tzara’s “Approximate Man.” I searched every bookcase in the house multiple times( yes, I am obsessive). I couldn’t find it. I knew I had not loaned it out… I mean who do I know that would want to read it? Then yesterday, from across the room, I spotted it on the shelf in plain sight. I figure a ghost, or old age.
She spoke without preface,
as if sh knew him:
each sentence a non-sequitar
even to itself; no beginning
no end, no predicate
to bend into an open heart.
Askew to his position,
she formed a fulcrum
with no place to stand
like surf far out to sea
crashing against itself.
Until in a froth of inaction,
he drowned, swallowing his words,
as if they mattered.
(August 21, 2019)
