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)
Category: space
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“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)
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I’m not sure I do much,
but open doors, set up chairs,
provide a place to read,
talk, write; which is enough
and yet, is not enough
to beat back the belligerence
barking like a spittle-flecked
beast. I can’t save them
from what is to come,
nor always be there to speak
amiably into their distress,
and voiceless traumas.
But there is this room,
an open door, and a chair.
(March 27, 2018)
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“the outline of what he learns”–Anne Carson, Eros the BittersweetHierarchical needsCreate stone stacksTo a non-existent god.Doubt displaces belief,I believe. Love needsNo proof to know.Not only the clearPath lays the wayThrough a dark wood.Side steps by tanglesAllow departures pastShapes only alluded.I hold the darkCognizant itselfOf more than I am.(August 29, 2017) -
there’s always a dooran emptiness to crossunknown spaces on mapsfilled with dire beastsa perpetual thresholdto move love throughlike a bearded iris unravelinginto a crisp spring morningwith no latch except hesitancya hand lingers on the jambas if time can framea portrait on a wallcontaining as a thoughtthe next step and fall(August 10, 2016) -
The full moon in Arleshung above Austin as well.We all live one life.He watches the moon;she hears a whisper, and looks up!Months of silence pass.She watches the moon;alone, he sees it too—light dawns to the whole.They watch the full moon,lost in their separate lives:love’s pervasive light.Like you, I exist alone:
O, Moon! Reflection of love.(October 28, 2015) -
Each moment bears in its fragilitythe omnipresent weight of all my wounds,as if they were only feathers adriftafter a sole shotgun blast silencesthe crisp air in a sudden gasp of fear.Desire for silence propels me to gloom,for few will tolerate such dark despair.They wander off embarrassed to intrudefurther than any wish to be allowed,leaving me far from any distant crowd.Solitude allows the mind to wanderaway from life’s niggling inconsequenceand the dark voice’s articulate doubts;allows the rage and fear to fall away,leaving love like light to a new day’s dawn.(August 29, 2015) -
“It took dominion everywhere.”–Wallace Stevenswhy do we pretendour moves determineso much as to whatwe allow ourselves to seelike the harried touriststopping along the wayto gather the viewinto something knownsomething manageablesomething easily foldedinto a pocket and lostthe wilderness flowswithout our definitionsof control or of whatwe want the wildernessto be for us but beyondbeyond the tight marginson our inscribed mapsbeyond dream’s awarenessbeyond what we pretendto grasp in translationstuttering each to each(October 20, 2014) -
Is it simply naïveto assume your answeris in play at all time,or that the questioninvolves you at all?Do you see a line –a place to cross,like a roadside memorialof a brutal deathcasually caused,yet purposely desired?Where do you place the rose,pour the wine on the ground,shed whatever tear you have?Does a monument manifesta space around itselflike a finger lightlytouching the water’s surface?(July 19, 2014) -
Our souls’ tendrils longacross narrative fragmentsarbitrarily held up as one,lacework traces to veil a chaos;the folds, vaguely demarkedlike sheers breathing into a room,resonate a stillness like rainwithin the day’s tectonic fractures:sense abstracted into a reduction,momentary and illusive like air.(July 7, 2014) -
Breathe in —within an allowed space:the air we breathebends light,refracts,another visionshimmers.Belief foldsall around alllike air.Breathe out —with speecha new space,sounded and shaped,appearslike frost in air.(June 23, 2014)
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