Her ghost lingers
like smoke
from wet embers,
and whisper lines
I’ve rewritten
then attempted to burn.
(October 25, 2026)
Category: time
-
To be in the moment
Aware and conscious
Of the vibrant air
Is to be in the past
To think is to lag
Behind the words
Arising like starlings
Turn in murmuration
The present is evasive
Becoming lost within
The cards’ shuffled
Reiterations
Until everything said
Can only be said again
(October 22, 2026)
-
fear is always present
like air or dust
caught in the throat
seconds before a cough
I’ve said this beforeit is worth repeating
if nothing matters
everything matters
so find what you loveand who you love
and hold that moment
tighter than ice
until it’s eternaluntil it’s present
(August 18, 2026)
-
details, like mosaics, decades old
around eleven, the adrenaline slowfall from my red Christmas bike,
ripping skin on loose gravel,
catching the pain across my palms
facts of a sortfollowed by conjecture
the sky was winter grey—I was heading home (from where)
hurriedly (was I late, for what
or just the thrill of speed
or both— fear and joy dancing
together like flames)
perhaps, perhaps
what-ifs’ multitudes unravelwith time and causal doubts
as perhaps twist and spin into now’s
singular, tight, and irretrievable knot
I tell myself I know and knewthe bits of broken glass cohere
but I don’t anymore than I did
I fell, I bled, I musthave made it home
for I am here
(July 20, 2026)
-
What can I do
with conjugations
of being— beyond
a fool’s confession?
I’ve been here before.Hours hurry past the window
like soft grey mice
skittering between shadows.
The sun slowly approachesthe eastern horizon
as if a mendicant
with an empty bowl.
My impatience vaultsover the obvious words;
I have difficulties
reading as a result.
I crib lines from bookslifting them out of context,
then go down paths
that refuse to exist.
-
It is three forty-seven in the morning;
my eyes are closed, I am still not asleep.
The old whispered violence collects
like spittle along the corners of my lips.
An anger suppressed by custom
and obedience waits with patience,
its old friend, for others to gather
from their day of quite rage.
The night cannot go on unbroken;
the day will surely return to itself.
Yet there is no reason to assume
the moon will fall or the sun will rise.
My eyes are closed, I am still not asleep;
It is three fifty-one in the morning.
(May 14, 2026)
-
—11:11am, 81 degrees
After an interrupted sleep,
I am slow to wake
into a muggy spring morning.
The dogs were restless
and anxious all night
disturbed by shadows
shifting across the moonlit yard.
Both now curl at my feet,
silently asleep.
I sip my second cup,
stare out the window
at the sycamore’s leaves
slowly stirring the still air,
and try to start the day.
(April 26, 2026)
-
The ground shimmers
beneath my feet;
I reach out to find
a wall to steady
the loss of gravity,
until time gathers
the disparate shapes
back into me.
I’ve heard this before—again, too often.
So much so,
I stop listening:
I know how it ends;
we all know the end.
(April 11, 2026)
-
The dogs sleep in balls
tightly curled next to my chair.
Roses bloom outside.
(April 3, 2026)
-
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)
