earth turns towards the sun
trees abandon their crisp leaves
the kidney wood blooms
the heat in texas
hangs heavily in the air
summer will not leave
lizards sprint sprightly
across the back patio
no rain for weeks now
they warn it will end
even now summer lingers
like a slow sickness
everything unfolds slowly
we are here then we are not
(September 22, 2025)
I arrive early at nothing, no door,
no prison wall to climb, a vast unknown.
Like time standing still in an open field
with an infinite empty perspective,
all direction the same grey hollowness,
the same vacant stare into cold distance.
There’s no point in looking back for a road;
it too slowly vanished into nothing.
The foreground is without prior context
and smudges vaguely into the background,
as if a charcoal sketch had been erased
haphazardly and without proper care
leaving bits of paper and eraser
debris scattered across an empty page.
(May 21, 2024)
Outside in the yard,
spring’s green garden grows dormant;
ice holds to the ground.
Petals fall like snow.
As I walk through the garden,
the cold kills the rose.
My son wants something:
I can only be myself.
Winter’s wind is cold.
Ice covers the grass;
Even inside, I am cold.
All my friends have gone.
The low grey clouds hang like shrouds;
the cold grows into the night.
(January 15, 2024)
another day ends
the night swallows the last light
a new year begins
the old clock rings out
ten minutes behind the time
the night knows no time
fireworks break the light
across the darkest of skies
rain falls to the sea
the morning is cold
leaves have fallen from the trees
for now the wind waits
ring out bells ring in ring out
ring in bells ring out ring in
(January 1, 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)
(four haiku and a tanka couplet refrain)
The flames slip across
the old wood in the fire pit.
I think of you.
My life trails behind
before I step into it.
I’ve been here before.
I am always here.
Today, I lost who I am:
I tripped on a root.
I see who you were
when I fell in love with you.
Forty years slip past.
A mountain is a mountain;
a river flows to the sea.
(October 31, 2021)
It’s like seeing old pictures of yourself
long after the camera’s cold click. You
have a sense of familiarity,
a recognition that you were once there
in that moment, but not of the moment
before, or after. The lines have taken
on depth as their specificity blurred,
the colors clarity fading through time
into generalized gestures, and
you stop short, stunned at your oblivious youth,
the clear lack of fear, the unacknowledged
audacity that spoke with more wisdom
then, than you ever knew you had, and have
since lost like someone waking from a dream.
(October 21, 2021)
There was always a way; a way he knew
to map an idea out of the landscape
lying before him like an unfinished
puzzle; some way to reshape creation
with a simple jig. His mind danced about
the problem, as he rose and sat, sat and
rose to walk across the yard cursing his
thoughts for not seeing it: so simple, so
obvious. He’d lumber back to the bench,
pick up the pieces of wood and begin
to cast the abstract into the concrete.
Beneath his broken hands, he would divine
a new pattern from the pattern inscribed
in the broken palimpsest of the wood.
(September 26, 2021)
from a work in progress: “process, not a journey” (74)
It is hard to hear
what must be said
easy to fall
into cliche
a pair of shoes
softly worn old
they know the way
to take you home
as cows wear down
a simple path
between one place
and another
no difference
really matters
our thoughts carve out
the same channels
and run like rats
trapped in a maze
never pausing
to look for more
than what was there
the last time here
repetition
a common thread
comforts us all
with old ideas
and traps us too
with such fools as I
(July 11, 2020)
from a work in progress: “process, not a journey” (15)
from the upstairs window
the grey cat waits
and watches shadows
shift like dark flowers
dance in morning light
(January 21, 2020)
from a work in progress: “process, not a journey” (10)
we fear
what we most
desire
(January 14, 2020)
from a work in progress: “process, not a journey” (9)
silence creates the context
for what’s said
caught up in desires
he listened casually
only hearing
what he heard
she spoke thinking
her voice was clear
easily understood
along her margins
(January 13, 2020)
subtext 