today is today;
only, today’s different:
today, I am here.
(September 11, 2020)
present
Category: sentence
quandary
“sadness of those unschooled in the bottles’ gloom”
–Rene Char, Poets
Tonight, I hold my shape
tenuously, like a rabbit,
tense, on the edge
of a field: hold tight
in silence, or flee
into the brush?
(January 22, 2020)
A Thin Arrogance
As if I have anything
to say, I ponificate
more than I listen;
a silent skull one
assumes is laughing.
(July 18, 2019)
A Gleaner Dons a Disguise
From bits she left behind,
he pieces himself together:
thousands of shards sifted,
then rearranged to form
fused-glass mosaics
into patterned fascimiles
others easily recognize.
(July 18, 2019)
The Army
from “Change,” a work in progress
Poetry, like dark earth,
contains my strength.
(January 24, 2019)
Desire’s the First Motion
I cannot stop
thinking: thought
takes tangent
from thought
like traces
of bubble chamber
particles, arcs
spin angles skew
to the intent
as if even
a tendency
toward a line
could be maintained
for any strand
to cohere.
(January 6, 2018)
tentative
with no cautious
humility
to amend
he steps lightly
through his
incompetence
as if there
were
some place safe
where he could
escape who
he has become
(September 29, 2018)
wicker man
first bits
then fragments
fall away
like branches
on fire
crack off
until
wholly ash
which wind then
wisps to air
adrift
incorporeal
a spirit singing
in each breath
(August 9, 2018)
life sentences
like dust dancing in the light
filtered through a shutter’s slats
I walk through my emptiness
leaving less than a ghost behind
the room’s stark silence belies
the turmoil of indifference
which roils beneath my indecision
like marbles scattered to the floor
yet the indignant day grinds on
each definition thickens and blurs
through ever vaguer variations
until the very air clots with blood
(November 30, 2017)
the pattern I’ve become
The light turns,
I shift, and change
lanes, oblivious
to what occurred:
the grackles rose
in mass like plumes
of ash, only to settle
back as a blanket
shaken across a bed,
a quick ruffle, then still.
(October 14, 2016)
