The dogs sleep in balls
tightly curled next to my chair.
Roses bloom outside.
(April 3, 2026)
Category: time
-
I’m bored
as I write
this poem—
Not too much here
that is not mine
to ruminate:
the mistakes,
and broken desires
left behind
in memory
clot the way
with the pretense
of fate. Only fate
is just the past:
I’m here reading
what I write,
because I’m here,
not somewhere else
reading something
else I wrote today.
Somedays are destined
to be something else
which could have
happened somehow
on a warm afternoon
after a yawn or two,
but then didn’t.
(April 2, 2026)
-
The dogs are disturbed;
their morning routine
has changed. They know it.
They follow closely
as I do not follow
their daily pattern.
They are anxious
for the future
to be the past,
for their bowls to be
filled with kibble
on time, now.
They know the past
is not prologue; the past
is the future; the past is
now. They know it.
Their dark eyes full
of soul follow me
through the house
wondering why
I do not know anything,
so simple,
about time.
(April 1, 2026)
-
I’m Okay Now
by
aging, change, gratitude, happiness, life, perspective, poetry, present, retirement, teaching, time, transition, writing
three years ago
at sixty-three
after thirty-four years
I stopped teaching
I stopped takinganti-depressants
stopped drinking
as much
the night terrorsthough not stopped
are less frequent
and less frantic
I am not somebodyout of a capra film
nor a famous nobody
listening to frogs sing
I am me— an old manwho still loves lisa
and writes little poems
few people will read
(March 16, 2026)
-
days arise and fall
as time flows
without direction
and I don’t know
what season has come
or if there is a beginning
or an end this time round
(February 26, 2026)
-
no one is home
no one sits in the dark
alone
no one waits for the keyto slip in the lock
and turn with a click
no door openswith a repressed
creak
no one is leftto ask for explanations
but you
no one but youand it is late
and the house is dark
(January 23, 2026)
-
inevitable
by
I make our dinner—
noodles with snow peas and shrimp.
She is not hungry.
We have forgottenhow many times we’ve been here.
Decades of hope lost.
Another year ends—Our pensions are still enough;
the night darkly falls.
We drink to forget—Tonight we dance a circle;
again, we are here.
Again, day falls into night.Life is inevitable.
(New Year’s Eve, 2025)
-
New Year’s Eve (2020)
All day the rain fell
Soaking the cold winter ground
The year ends tonight
(December 31, 2020)
New Year’s Eve
It’s all too simple—
to watch the clock strike midnight:
Dust settles to earth.
Nothing much ever changes:we laugh, we sing, then we don’t.
(December 31, 2021)
another year
the dogs bark out back
again the wind ignores them
each to their nature
a warm new year’s eveends the hottest year ever
our world is burning
we live deludedwithout trust in what we see
shadows form our wall
of course old leaves fallas easy as the sun sets—
another new year
the wind is only the windthe sun will rise without us
(December 31, 2024)
The Mundane Patterns Along the Way
another day ends
the night swallows the last light
a new year begins
the old clock rings outten minutes behind the time
the night knows no time
fireworks break the lightacross the darkest of skies
rain falls to the sea
the morning is coldleaves have fallen from the trees
for now the wind waits
ring out bells ring in ring outring in bells ring out ring in
(January 1, 2024)
New Year’s Day
Day breaks once again;
its unrelenting hunger
devours us all.
My end is my beginning;my beginning is my end.
(January 1, 2022)A Few Days Past New Year’s
Searching for something else,
a honey bee dances around my head,
Once, I would have jumped up
waving him away; now,
I shake my head,
and he floats away,
as I will eventually. Now
with less time than I’ve had,
there are no new beginnings
just a slow unraveling.
(January 3, 2020)
-
then there are the dreams
you do remember
not just wispswhich vanish forgotten
at fingertips’ ends
but the ones that clingtheir razor tipped claws
toying with your heart
late into the afternoonat the end of winter
(December 6, 2025)
-
another bleak day
what autumn color there was
has returned to brown
(December 2, 2025)
-
memento mori
by
and soon enough
your last tomorrow
will arrive
you will ask afterthe time, then shrug,
“that can’t be right”
but it isand it has
and you’re not
(November 7, 2025)
-
Night continues to fall, dark upon dark,
unrelenting, cold as eternity.
Yet, tonight a half-moon hangs in the stars.
I try to ignore the fear on the wind,
but it eats its way in, splintering bone.
Ice, like a steel knife rusting at our throat,
parses words to an elemental degree.
What can be said contains but small nuance.
So I write pinching syllables like rice
to keep starvation one more day away,
hoping without hope that what I can say
is enough to carry hope through this dark,
that whatever bit of love which remains
is enough to hold our world together.
(October 3, 2025)
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