less than scribbled notes
the lines I woke to write
indecipherable as dreams
(May 22, 2025)
-
As in a Bruegel Painting
As in a Bruegel painting,
all the exquisitely-rendered
details occur unnoticed,
for the most part, lost
in the vast panoramic
rituals of this life.
It doesn’t matter,
so much,
where you look,
but that you see
the bits that are born,
bloom, then die
every moment
all around you,
and that you
are a part
of it all.
(May, 20, 2025)
-
Off Key
by
Each day’s a new opportunity
to fail, to stumble on the way,
skin my knees then rise, dizzy:
the world trembles like glass
in a harmony I cannot sing.
(May 15, 2025)
-
Always Already
by
He sits in a darkened room, oblivious
to the metaphor of time: today
is today he says to himself.
The door shuts; he cannot leave,
any more than live out of context,
a moment without past or future.
A rose buds, blooms, petals fall—
without narrative, without sequence.
(May 14, 2025)
-
The Vole’s Secret
I am broken bits and fragments
of others’ lives I’ll never know
beyond this myopic horizon
smudging the sun into night:
an owl slips through tree branches
to watch the rustle of grass below.
I hear the soft noises scurry
surreptitiously in my darkness.
The vole’s secret, larger than itself,
fits tightly folded into a pocket.
I dare not read what I do not
wish to know, yet it is waiting.
In my darkness, I must move slow;
in my darkness, there’s nowhere to go.
(May 5, 2025)
-
Possible Side Effect of Meds
Some days just walking—
and I lean from the earth’s core
like a falling star.
I stand up quickly,birds, planets, and stars swarm like flies;
I fall to my knees.
Nothing is stable,yet, I expect the sunrise
as I kneel in prayer.
One hand touches a wall,the other reaches into air
for something not there.
The earth spins about the sun,as my fingers lose their grip.
(May 3, 2025)
-
Constellated
a cluster of stars
hundreds, if not
millions of light years
apart, forms a pattern
to our minds, close
enough to serve
as a myth of us
to live inside
(May 2, 2025 )
-
Our Time’s Too Short for Optimism
by
the police break down doors
the wrong doors the wrong people
but in other states other cities
I try to be optimistic
the world has been worsethe terror the killing fields treblinka
just not so close not so near to me
I try to be optimistic
the streets are not slick with bloodskulls are not stacked on skulls
fresh ash does not fill our lungs
I try to be optimistic
the sun rises over stone hengeas it has for millennia
-
Individual Death
To service his designs
the face I know is one
of many you deploy
to hide in the angles
between the reflections
not even a shadow.
This I, this you, this him’s
easier to disguise
within this trifold world.
I cannot see myself
except as I am perceived
in other’s mockery:
the dead narrative I
is a social construct.
(April 29, 2025)
-
Not So Long Ago, Not So Faraway
Two thousand miles away to the East, the Mad King storms about the castle crashing into people and things he doesn’t understand. People are confused, and unsteady, like a boxer on the ropes. A few of the courtiers prefer it this way. They’ve learned what to do, and how to do it: where they can pursue their malevolent obsessions; while at the same time, create vast personal profits at the expense of everyone else in the kingdom. They quickly slither about the castle, staying close to the walls, so that no one pays them that much attention. The Mad King’s daily ravings on the ramparts help them go unnoticed most days. Everyone loves a jester, especially slap-stick. The Mad King provides the chaos, and loves the attention it brings to him. Sometimes the courtiers slip up, illicit money falls from their over stuffed pockets, or the Iron Mask slips from the latest guest to enter the hospitality of the dungeon. We are all shocked when we recognize them. They had seemed so nice. There is the polite kerfuffle which used to entertain the peasants for weeks at a time, but now is only enough to cause us all to look up for a moment or two from our lives, if that. Life has become so hard these days, what with the plagues spreading so rapidly and randomly. Even the chickens have slowed down on their egg production, as if they fear bringing their young into the world. It is all we can do to curse them all under our breath and hope for a better day, knowing, all the while, that there is no heroic knight riding to save us; no magical cure from the King’s madness. There is always another pretender nearby, humming his idiosyncratic song of death.
(April 28, 2025)
-
Just a Regular Day
by
I fear I’m dying,
but that is nothing special—
I still have to shit.
(April 27, 2025)
-
Either/Or
by
“I have committed adultery in my heart..”
—- Jimmy Carter
the moments went unnoticed
until days sometimes years later
when the obvious slid past
like shadows tossed through a window
by a passing car late at night
and he realized what had been offered
when the difference in time between what
almost occurred and what he desired
vanished so regret could have grown
from a surreptitious kiss bestowed
instead of the one that was not
(April 26, 2025)
-
Time’s Relativity
by
another slow day
our grand children are here now
how quickly night falls
(April 25, 2025)
-
Measure
by
“Hold infinity in the palm of your hand
And eternity in an hour.”
—William Blake
The cabinet clock has stopped again.
After following me through the house,
the chihuahua curls in my lap,
This morning, I’ve read some poetry,
talked to Lisa over a breakfast I made,
and folded laundry. Now, I take time
to think, and write this poem
as the dog sleeps contently nearby.
I think about winding the clock, then don’t.
(April 24, 2025)
-
The Future in the Instant
“… craft of culture,
How we go on.”
—Gary Synder
a grandson, eight, who dislikes
my puns and play with words,
intentionally made a spontaneous pun,
smiled mischievously, then ran on
laughing into his future
(April 23, 3025)
subtext 