all I have are dull words
to bludgeon my tongue
into submission
but if i strop the blade
the leather’s length
until the edge gleams
as with sliced ribbons of light
then I might excise
the shadows from my heart
without a trace of blood
to mark my disillusions
(October 27, 2020)
If I could peel these veins
from my arms and fashion
them into a noose,
then I’d find a dead tree
to swing upon
like a tattered paper lantern
dancing in an empty breeze.
(August 30, 2020)
I am tired today,
as I am most days these days.
I’m caught in a loop.
(October 29, 2019)
Pale in a white sky,
the moon hangs low this morning.
I must go to work.
(October 14, 2019)
Outside,
the trees and bushes seem
to vibrate in the bright heat;
as if any moment, they’ll collapse
into their own shade, exhausted.
*
Inside,
they are framed in the window.
I watch them from across the room
from the chair I’m sitting in.
I am cold in the conditioned air.
*
August
has begun. Soon, I’ll be back
at work, teaching my students
to find meaning in the mundane
details which often overwhelm us.
(August 3, 2019)
Another layer’s stripped
away, as through attrition,
until the grain of my skin
bleeds through, a botched tattoo.
Randomly, I pick a book
off the shelf and read notes
from decades ago I left
in the margins, and wonder:
who was I then to write
myself into a text so poorly;
while knowing, I am
no different now.
I am nude on a stair,
descending into myself.
Bit by bit,
he felt it:
his belief,
his life–
fall away.
He was worn,
frayed, but
no longer just
along his edges;
Like mouths
tangled in
unvoiced lies,
large rifts
opened,
and he was
devoured.
No one was
left to watch
for the last
wet-blooded thud
in the dirt.
(July 31, 2019)
“Desire is a moment with no way out”
–Anne Carson
I parse each moment’s possibility
Pretending the past can be reconciled
With present desires. Memory wears me
Like a palm stone smoothed from idle handling,
Until no difference exists between
Me and what I have perceived to be me.
The unstable threads interlace with all
The lies, the truth, the last dry sip of gin.
The metaphor for myself unravels:
The little that was left unsaid is said,
And the air sparkles with embarrassment.
I have built constructs out of Tinker Toys,
Vast whirligigs of simplistic ideas
To clack and flail in an ignorant wind.
(December 6, 2018)
After the teacher conference
spent listening to others
speak of techniques
to hold their students
locked around an idea
of reading and writing
with little actual reading
or writing of consequence,
I am reminded of a Greek
statue of a wrestler,
who stands silent
scraping sweat and
filth from his arm,
his day done.
(November 11, 2018)
He picks up a rock,
He puts it down.
He picks up a rock,
He puts it down.
He tells himself:
Don’t pick it up;
He picks up the rock,
He puts it down.
He tells himself
He is stupid—
He tells himself
Not to say such things.
He tells himself
He is stupid
For saying such things,
Then says them again.
He tells himself
Don’t pick it up.
He picks up the rock,
And puts it down.
(October 15, 2018)
