I think of something else,
and become lost in the time
it takes to exhale
like entering a different room
then forgetting why
you left.
(August 8, 2026)
Category: transition
-
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.
-
He stopped forgetting,
and began again to see
the shadows in the trees.
No longer willingto hide in oblivion’s
darker eddies,
his questions turnedto soft acceptance,
and he felt free.
Memory shiftedand reshaped itself
to a looser fit,
more comfortableto the details
he wished to deny.
(April 30, 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)
-
memory agitates into vision media res: the precise moment of peak self-revulsion, the inaction, the cowardice, the lie inherent in regret— when nothing more could have been done, nor anything now retroactively applied which can act as balm to the shame carried for decades through the day in those quiet moments on the way to work, waiting for the light to turn green, or some phrase, or song on the radio which tumbles memory’s cascade through the spongey canyons to again reconfigure itself into this contiguous present as some other story without static cause
(December 25, 2025)
-
another bleak day
what autumn color there was
has returned to brown
(December 2, 2025)
-
The wind gusts in bursts
rushing leaves down the street
in a spasm of seasonal ritual,
as if a pattern’s repetition
creates a meaning separate
from our own simple noticing.
I have a hard time hearing
these voices of the world
through the constant clatter,
through the daily dazzle
and flash of the spectacle
playing in the wind’s
petulant laughter.
My screams are too loud.
To maintain my illusion
of safety, of purpose,
I whisper stories to myself.
I know stories are stories
and how they move through
each other like incestuous ghosts,
or confluent rivers, shaping
one another as they change.
I know change is incremental,
so I listen closely to my heart.
I notice a difference, but
am unsure what is different—
my notice, or the angle
of the wind through the trees.
(November 13, 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)
-
to fill the soft holes
the auspices
have left behind
for our memory
like tattered tarot cards
to make sense of
for our past to exist
in this present
dénouement
which of course
our future will
ignore as blasé
as conventional wisdom
bangs out a beat
on a tattered drum
we must insist
like the birds
how this story goes
(October 16, 2025)
-
earth turns towards the sun
trees abandon their crisp leaves
the kidney wood blooms
the heat in texashangs heavily in the air
summer will not leave
lizards sprint sprightlyacross the back patio
no rain for weeks now
they warn it will endeven now summer lingers
like a slow sickness
everything unfolds slowlywe are here then we are not
(September 22, 2025)
-
“We must ask grace from ourselves.
Our memories.
Let them
release us from the past.”
—Diane Wakoski
I call them forth
to excuse the present:
the responsibility lies
somewhere else,
in someone else
no longer me.
I don’t want to bethat, so I change,
take a step to the side,
and feel them slip past,
like ghosts, or smoke,
unmolested by time.
Then finally, so much,which does not matter,
falls away quietly
like a cicada’s
dry carapace
at summer’s end.
(July 4, 2025)
-
Against an indifferent blue,
the clouds are brighter,
a harder white,
than even a few years back.
The air’s seared earlierin the mornings now;
one can taste it, raw,
at the back of the throat.
Before midnight,sunset brings small relief;
and even then, morning’s
heat breaks early.
Lizards, not here before,skitter across the rocks.
(June 6, 2025)
-
we pour this wine for the earth
that gives us a place to stand
we pour this wine for the airthat gives us breath to speak
we pour this wine for waterwhich gives us life on the planet
we pour this wine for the firewhich purifies our failings
we pour this wine for the etherwhich connects us to the world
we pour this wine as an offeringthat we may survive the dark
that the madness will spare us
and we will return to the light
(February 25, 2025)
-
transition
by
an afternoon is enough:
an hour, or so, with the sun
as shadows slip across
the walls and ceiling
he was there,and now he’s not
(December 27, 2024)
-
Crows fly overhead
with raucous caws.
With less than an hour
before the long night begins,
I start a fire in the back yard.
Inside where candles burn,
guests gather bearing wine and gifts.
Spilling some wine, I turn
from the fire and wave
to my friends inside.
Tonight we share food,
and laughter. Fear of the dark
hangs on the edge of the fire.
Of this, we are all aware.
Tonight, we smile, hug,
and toast the coming year:
there is always hope.
Tomorrow, the light,
in daily increments, begins
to slowly turn from the night.
(December 22, 2024)
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