maps do not speak
as vaguely blurred
vowels along riverbanks
where second cousins
two counties removed
slur to their mates
nor sift for finer
details in pap’s
bourbon tongue
(April 26, 2021)
how history begins (136)
Category: storytelling
neither knowing nor unknowing (#134)
there in the day
to day constancy
there in the grain
of our tongues
as we speak
each to each
of the most
trivial things
there is where
the how arrives
on soft cat feet
oblivious of the night
there is the story
you said then said
along the seams
between dark and light
the story we heard
the story we tell
stitching our scars
along calloused lines
one strangled knot
woven into another
an embroidery
of nooses
until we’re hardened
to brittle words
which shatter all
we once were
thin crystal slivers
from a broken glass
scattered like stars
across the floor
(April 19, 2021)
Without the Stories She Must Have Told
All I know of her is, perhaps, this
three-second, eight-millimeter film clip:
discernibly old, she steps through shadows
next to a tall man, who is also in shadow.
Briefly from the sepia tress, she looks back
towards the camera— her face a blurred silence.
(February 18, 2021)
adrift (114)
in the dark a red thrum quickens
the edge of remembrance like light’s
first glimmer across the sea
I trace my gnarled fingers along the slick
interior walls to justify what it is
that pushes back my intentions
like the egg in childhood’s experiment
which floats in a glass of salt water
I drift seemingly unsupported
with vague suppositions and
innuendo to tangle like seaweed
trapping my voice below the waves
and what I would if I could speak
drowns in my first breath
like a fish mouthing silent words
(February 3, 2021)
Narrative’s Default
whose story
your story
my story
some other
someone speaks
some listen
some believe
some obey
here the page turns
hear the page turn
slow whispers
form a deaf ear
control’s the word’s
darkest destiny
(August 13, 2020)
mise en scene
from a work in progress: Memory and Silence (81)
he spoke to silence
the remnants the shadows
gathered into the ghosts
he played across the wall
they were his shadows
his ghosts his play
like dark French caves
the walls distorted
the shadows bent away
from him into a dark
into his larger fears
into his silence
(July 29, 2020)
a darker shape was always present
from a work in progress: “process, not a journey” (78)
after the worst of summer’s heat
we’d sit in the grass
beneath the pecan and cottonwoods
away from the radiant streets and sidewalks
the adults spoke of friends
far away or long dead
they’d laugh and tell stories
which we were not a part of yet
we ran wild through the night
afraid of nothing
(July 18, 2020)
the illusion of narrative fragments
from an untitled serial poem (3)
and nothing specific is ever learned
it’s more a pervasive atmosphere
an inescapable context which traps
us in a web woven and rewoven
moment by moment knitted from our flesh
and residue left from this dark frenzy
*
daily we fall deeper into the tale
yet there is no white rabbit to follow
only desire to ride us like harpies
the news the neighbors our friends all screaming
into a discontent none can escape
nor explain enough to be forgiven
*
as if there could be a strong enough god
to save us from our own stupidity
(January 5, 2020)
Fairy Tale Endings
from an untitled serial poem (2)
tufts of dark fur
scraps of red cloth
broken glasses pools
of wine the remnants
of someone’s meal
are splashed across
the cottage like blood
on a butcher’s apron
she is not here
neither is he
one fled
one’s dead
birds hop and sing
on the window sill
a family of rabbits
nibble grass
along the path
the door lies shattered
on the ground
dry splinters of wood
punctuate the grass
with unvoiced cliches
(January 3, 2020)
Taffy
I tell a story:
I am a part
as are you
being pulled
apart, each
part one.
The horizon’s shadow
flees before
I write this line,
a demarcation–
this path
versus another,
which word
takes us where?
(November 5, 2019)
