to sleep
we pretend
first to sleep
lay down
close our eyes
drift
until we are
no longer
awake
we dream
as we sleep
as if we are
awake
rather than
dreaming
(January 29, 2026)
Category: samsara
-
Maise, our dog, lounges on the over-stuffed arm
of the old leather chair which squats squarely
next to a bare window in the front room.
The late afternoon sun pours bright puddles
of warmth on the floor for her to bathe in;
and from which, if inclined, she may muster
yips and growls at people slowly walking
their sweatered dogs on the sidewalk outside.
I fear falling on ice still lingering
on neighborhood paths, so we stay inside.
But that is just an excuse, I hate cold
weather as much as I tolerate heat’s
dominion during the long summer months.
Even when I, like this poem, go nowhere.
-
rain
by
a soft drought-ending rain
falls overnight
and into the morning
one liveswithin the moment
only
when one understandsthere is nothing
to stand under
and lets the rainwithout metaphor
wash over you
(December 8, 2025)
-
Today as I do most days
for the last fifty years,
I write the life
I have left to me.
Most days I have little
to say of consequence;
yet, I continue
to rattle along
with a naive trust
tomorrow will arrive
trembling with nascent rage.
(November 28, 2025)
-
I fear I’m dying,
but that is nothing special—
I still have to shit.
(April 27, 2025)
-
“Hold infinity in the palm of your hand
And eternity in an hour.”
—William Blake
The cabinet clock has stopped again.
After following me through the house,
the chihuahua curls in my lap,
This morning, I’ve read some poetry,
talked to Lisa over a breakfast I made,
and folded laundry. Now, I take time
to think, and write this poem
as the dog sleeps contently nearby.
I think about winding the clock, then don’t.
(April 24, 2025)
-
The dogs wake me to feed them.
So, I go down stairs half-asleep.
They dance on their hind legs,
then happily wag their tails
as they wolf down their kibble.
Moments after licking the bowls clean,
they are back upstairs curled asleep
in tight balls next to Lisa.
These are my days now: no longer clottedwith work tensions from day into dreams;
no longer consumed by other minds.
I have my books, our garden, our friends,
and the time to tend to them all.
It is my life to live as I live it.
(April 21, 2025)
-
I have a Spring cold,
my chest thick with congestion.
Still, I go outside.
One must be at work,they say, for inspiration
to find room to breathe.
Oxalis from mom’shouse in Victoria grows
beneath the iris.
Our yard is chaosplanned out from the beginning;
nature is random.
The roses need to be pruned.A hummingbird whirrs nearby.
(April 11, 2025) -
“You seem quite normal. Can you tell me? Why
does one want to write a poem?
Because it is there to be written.“—William Carlos Williams
somewherefor decades now
it has been there
in this sequence
of unlined sketch books
waiting
unwritten as I write
out of a present
necessity
never knowing the why or how
anxious each moment
it will not
trusting
it will be
(April 10, 2025) -
I wake. The puppy needs to go outside.
The older dog comes along as well
hoping to roust a nervous rabbit.
It’s close enough to six by this time
to feed them, and take my daily meds.
I am tired, and worried about the world.
They finish their ration of kibble
and head happily back up the stairs.
I turn off the light, and follow along.In the hazy half-minute it takes
for me to crawl under the sheets,
they’ve both tightly curled in bed.
I lay there unable to return to sleep,
and listen to the dogs’ soft snores.
(April 4, 2025)
-
The thing is you won’t live long
anyway
the thing is to see where you are
While you are—
—George Oppen
fool, look out the window
And write
—George Oppen
You must go on. I can’t go on. I’ll go on.
― Samuel Beckett
I made the mistake of looking at an old “manuscript” from about 15 years ago. I made it about 10-12 pages in before I ran across a couple of lines that I could call good enough to be poetry. There are about 40 more pages to go. I hesitate to go on. I have always over the decades cycled up and down in my opinion of my writing. I know, every writer has doubts. But that does not make it any less depressing when I am plummeting, nor any more justifiable when I am flying high. I remember Robert Frost saying somewhere that he didn’t write experimental poetry, because experimental poem was another name for failed poem. The poem either worked or it did not. If it did, then it was not an experiment; if it failed, then it wasn’t a poem. The old manuscript was not a poem—which was depressing. Instead it was a series of posturing hoping without hope to somehow adhere from one poem/stanza/blither to another without any real attempt on my part beyond “chance” in some misguided belief that John Cage’s ghost would descend to lead me out of the wilderness of my hubris. I take solace in the belief that I knew it was crap, because I put it away and never really looked at it for the last 15 years. I somehow knew without knowing….I am smarter than I let myself be (to use a mantra I said about my students on myself).* My current plan is to plow through the fallow field, and see if there are some living roots that can be salvaged. It will be a trudge. But then, what else would I be doing.
*They are smarter than we let them be.
-
fuck my life I say
as I go about my day—
ritual defines
(January 10, 2025)
subtext 