from “Renditions of Change,” a work in progress
There is no center to hold;
no story of violent gods
to tell while drunk
around a fire.
There is no fire.
Yet still, we turn
to one another
with what words
we have, and begin
again to speak.
(May 8, 2019)
Slowly stirring
the cold ash,
he sifted her words
from a memory
which had drifted
softly into air,
like smoke.
Vaguely,
she danced
away in silence.
His words slurred
into darkness:
his story was
not her story.
(February 28, 2019)
in explanations explanations
that happens
to him to her to us
the story starts
well before this
then as now
more unfolds
within the seams
than seems
then as now
contexts inculcate
like wisps of mist
dampening fields
as god not us
speaks from silence
(February 11, 2019)
from “Change” a work in progress
My story is
not the same
as yours.
(January 23, 2019)
Since I do understand the importance
Of narrative, I tell stories without
Telling stories, like now, as I write this
Poem. I’ve created a fiction of me,
Truthfully, yet still a grounded fiction,
Who is speaking to you, someone absent,
As if we were strangers ordered to share
A rough table in a pub. But instead
of talking about the local football
team, or rudely about the government,
I talk to you as if you are in love,
Listening, as I speak, rather than write,
These simplistic thoughts upon this blank page,
And pretend you did not leave years ago.
(January 11, 2019)
Within the parameters
Which define me,
Am I who I am,
Or who I have created?
I revise a simple story
Of which I am a part;
The story compels belief,
And I comply completely.
I am only a part of
this story as a voice
I hear, which stays near
Slightly behind all I do:
I am this voice, this story;
I am my only limitation.
(November 20, 2018)
“Chorus But there is no remembering the human mind.”
— Gertrude Stein
Even in the act,
the mind is not
remembered.
Memory is
remembered
as past.
Yet mind
mediates
creation
of a present
past cast
as memory–
a story still
told today.
(September 27, 2018)
