With disdain,
he turns
from the mirror,
leaving
himself
behind
like a cicada’s husk
caught
on a tree’s bark.
(July 29, 2021)
After Image
Category: worn
Alone
I fear silence
for it leaves me
to my words.
Their whispers
mouth
my periphery,
like minnows
tear a worm’s
flesh from
the steel hook
glimmering
in a creek’s
slow eddy.
(May 11, 2021)
side note
indecisive and insecure
I am on an edge
no cliff nor rooftop
from which to leap
more marginal
more like myself
a collection of questions
laced down a ragged page
I take a moment
to pull myself close
to gather myself
into a tighter pile
of misunderstandings
to tie myself to a series
of questionable knots
strung across the night
with a sense of frivolity
like lights at a garden party
or a noose in a lonesome room
swinging beneath a bare bulb
(March 25, 2021)
heal thyself (87)
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)
Day’s End
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)
Repetition
I am tired today,
as I am most days these days.
I’m caught in a loop.
(October 29, 2019)
Tired
Pale in a white sky,
the moon hangs low this morning.
I must go to work.
(October 14, 2019)
Agoraphobia
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)
Exposure
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.
the decay
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)
