circa 1979
The night is close
to the day. My head’s
thick with whiskey
and bitter ideas.
My hands ache. I find
it hard to speak
at length without
losing words, or how
to say them. So, I wait
and listen to the silence
for the words to stop
their emotional slither,
and allow me to go
home, alone again.
(July 16, 2026)
Silence is silent.
Except it is not,
just ask John Cage.
He’ll look at you
for four minutes
and 33 seconds.
In Vermont
I met a man
from Boston.
He could not sleep;
the forest was loud
compared to the city.
In zen, the goal
is to still the mind
into silence:
to be aware
to such an extent
to become extant.
In an anechoic
chamber, one hears
one’s bones,
and the thrum
of one’s blood
beneath the skin.
(November 14, 2025)
1)
too often,
too eager
to exist,
I interrupt
to take part
outside myself
2)
too often
too impatient
to follow convention,
I stutter,
or stay, too often,
silent
(September 29, 2024)
I live within walls,
neither inside nor out.
I place my hand as on skin,
softly pushing in.
The resistance is mine,
pliant and divisive:
less a protection
than a prison.
There is no key,
nor knife to slice
the callused flesh,
the polished walls–
only silence to absorb
the incessant whispers.
(January 29, 2024)
he walks through his life
with a string of nows
hanging from his neck
most days slip away
from dawn to dusk
without distinction
yet some he can see
with a clarity
which is unmoving
with a cold silence
which strips away time
like a broken tomb
the past and future
vanish and the now
opens around him
like a white lotus
rising from the palm
of his outstretched hand
(November 12, 2023)
He had no stories
to tell, no reason to speak:
what he was was not.
It did not matter.
All those years simply vanished
like day into dusk.
The day’s regrets rose,
a wealth of embarrassments,
to trouble his nights.
His sense of purpose
(marginally important)
Spun away like stars.
Until there was nothing left,
but blank pages to be read.
(July 2, 2023)
talking to fellow Texans at the Grand Canyon
We stood at Yaki Point, silent, awed
content in the silence of the wind
through the piñon trees.
They walked up the trail behind us:
There are no words,
she expounded as if someone asked.
(But there are always words
I thought, even in the canyon’s silence).
Yet, they kept talking:
how Yosemite is more Impressive
Oh, you have to go there
The hikes— so strenuous
We were so sore afterwards
Then they walked away talking
as if to someone else.
While the wind moved through the piñon trees
filling the silence they left behind.
(June 9, 2022)
I dance across broken ground
with what little grace I have,
picking out patterns in my dreams
as if connecting the stars
to something larger than themselves.
I cannot find my balance:
I wobble to the left, to the right
like a top about to fall—-
with all directions tossed
into the periphery like ice.
Nor can I stand still enough
to learn the silence beneath
the inexorable chatter
clattering about my skull
like bones from a wooden cup.
(February 15, 2022)
As if it were easy
to enter silence
enough to hear
what’s said:
my thoughts are mine,
static oppressions,
null constants
like x, or y.
What’s replaced
varies with availability:
her laugh, your
glazed eye.
Something’s said
too quiet to hear.
(January 17, 2022)
For several days, I don’t write at all,
then start to worry I won’t write again.
Not that it matters to anyone else,
except me and the niggling voice within.
I know, time to think will quiet the voice
which fills the silence like an open wound;
for Time’s a negligent god, not caring
if I pick up any of the dry bones
she casually drops as talismans
on this twilight path I long to travel.
So, I tear out my heart as sacrifice
to the twisted beast who is my other:
will it satisfy this constant hunger,
and let grace fall on me like winter rain?
by
with spring’s violence flowers burst
into bloom from winter’s death
as chimes toll slowly in the tree
mere weeks ago ice creaked
tightly along the chase tree’s
twisted branches as the chimes
hung limp and people froze
to death alone at home
(May 9, 2021)
by
the cat slept all day
turned tightly into herself
a sublime wisdom
snow begins to fall
silencing the day’s hard sleet
the night grows colder
ice brightens the moon
along the bare branches’ backs
like a hot whip’s snap
by morning the snow
drapes the yard as if with light
the chimes slowly sound
a lone mockingbird chirrups
inside the house the cat waits
(February 18, 2021)
formed out of these walls to shape
the air to separate here from there
beneath the dark winter quilts
my skin presses to your warmth
longs to be more than my limits
more than what’s contained inside
more an opening to other spaces
other ways with different lines
to cross with a limping accent
a creole to hone words into an edge
I know only what I know
my cell wall’s textures memorized
through the season’s slow change
the light and shadow through the bars
play their fingers in the silent air
like puppets alive to the string’s pull
the last whisper’s echo went
as if the silence was always there
behind his last breath which fell
away like ash from an ember
simply not there any more
not even a hole where he once stood
(January 27,2021)
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