“all the borders of itself”
-Ranier Maria Rilke
The worm turns
into itself
to remember
the strands,
the traces,
which wove
the carapace
it will
leave behind.
I must change
my life.
(January 9, 2023)
Category: resolve
-
The light fades again
across the mountains
outside the window
above his desk
where he reads
the old masters.
He looks up,
then, as if struck by a sword,
he furrows his brow.
But now is not the time
for blood to rain from heaven:
the war, as before, continues
unabated and unnoticed.
If he is to find purity’s root
within his world’s manifest divisions,
he must leave his comfortable chair
and charge into the heart of his war.
This must be done, again
and again, with an iron heart,
until he can laugh again;
and, the earth absorbs
the spilled wine
as if it were an apology
offered too late to a god.
(June 12, 2022)
-
The students used to be enough
of a balm—
their curiosity, their light.
Today the ephemera wears me:the pointless testing,
the political demagoguery.
It becomes harder to ignorethe razor thin insults,
the slow bleed.
This should be the end—yet inertia pushes me,
slouching towards another year.
(April 12, 2022)
-
from “Renditions of Change” a work in progress
Speaking truth to myself
is difficult—as to power,
just more dangerous: no
compromise with evil,
nor abatement.
(April 10, 2019)
-
“Love is the root of everything….Love, or the lack of it.”
— Fred Rogers
like glass resonant in trembled anger
the fear is outrageous and constant
one horrific event erases the next
in an infinite succession of bomb blasts
bludgeoning attention to a bloody slurry
only the noise of the moment matters
and it does not matter even then
but only in the silence it creates in you
the silence of the possibility of dissent
so one must learn to hear without
hearing deafly to see again without
seeing blindly to go with open trust
across the shattered shards of glass
onward into the darkening night
(June 23, 2018)
-
Like an old ox under yoke who pullsAgain, and again, until he cannotPull any longer; then stops, and waitsas if waiting were an art to besavored, instead of endured like pain,I’m frayed, worn thin from being;From what I’ve been; from who I am.I wait caught in quandary’s eddy,Without knowing what I wait upon.I linger over every trivial decision,As if all time stood still and waitedFor permission to take the tatters,And transform into someone new.I must move; yet I wait, afraid to move.(April 16, 2017) -
the ephemeral flutterslike feathers along a raven’s neckinconsequentialyet aware of each new windin which to lift aloftthe jet black wings pullinto the air resistinggravity’s cold collapseto fly as he willsno more to the edgesthe distant distractionsto turn a black eye from homeno more fleeting presumptionsto tear away at my heart(February 12, 2017) -
only through the work will I be redeemednot some petty happenstance confessionfor something I may be sincere aboutthen who are you to make that decisionwhen even I who am here in my lifeam unsure how honest is clean truthwhen all falls out truth is not an excusefor your god and self-righteousnessanymore than your god and self-righteousnessexcuses my reaction to the cold chainsI permit my submission to sustainunder the pretense it’s done at your willcreation is what lies before me nowa space to exist with my life my work(September 10, 2014) -
your red regret wraps youin a laughable inconsequencethe earth absorbs the wineas if you were never thereso you fucked up so whatlook to the wood near youalong this path a river runsits rambling way to the seathe past is never more than pasttake stock of the time at handthen pack up your remains and goyou are your only bridge home(from a work in progress: “Arcana,” Vcups, February 8, 2014) -
I should be content withbourgeois comforttend to my rosesswill wine with friendsI should be pleasedif not smugwith the knick-knacksand dust I’ve acquiredI should wallowin self-assured pitythat I deserveeverything about meBut I can’t so I mustchange my life(from a work in progress: “Arcana,” Queenpentacles, February 6, 2014) -
November 1, 1995I will continue,as before, downthis path I havechosen. WhereI am is nowwhere I was then.(from My Book of Changes, 1994-1995)
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