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My Poetry and Commentary on Life

  • This Writer’s Beginnings: EarlyYears
  • Bread Loaf Influence
  • Rock and Roll High School
  • About

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  • Be Aware, Beware

    by

    attention, existential angst, poetry, ways of knowing
    a sand grain blake displayed
    as if a seer and discerned
    amid the silica’s glisten
    this from that and now in then
    you too can be as he
    and look up and out
    next to some exited sea
    to watch with horror
    clawing from deep within
    the beast shed its skin
    then see all that we be
    swallowed in infinity
    yes you too can hold still
    each grain’s initial fall
    to see away from here
    and the everything in all

    (February 2, 2017)

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  • that begat the troubles today

    by

    abstract, change, definition, erasure, life, obsessions, paradigms, poetry, transition

    he thinks what he thinks
    as he walks his walk
    through hallways out doors
    into rooms as if space
    could be contained separate
    from himself in thought on
    thought of something other
    than the next step the next
    possibility’s assumption
    that’s then parsed thin
    like prosciutto melting salty
    across his ravaged tongue
    there the world wavers anew
    into another and another
    as each singular event perishes
    into itself and the other trailing
    ahead like snail’s antennae’s
    pulse and stretch toward some
    sense until it  too’s devoured
    in obliteration’s wet maw
    (February 1, 2017)

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  • the rattled bones of the spirit

    by

    anger, broken, community, death, despair, fear, poetry, politics, power, response, worry

    days since I wrote
    too tumultuous with worry
    and fear to think much
    news filled with doubt
    as chains are dragged about
    so blatant and quick
    I say there is no god
    yet evil secretes bile
    across fallow fields
    panic clots my throat
    I cannot breathe
    enough to speak
    I am lost
    and cannot scream

    (January 30, 2017)

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  • projection’s shapes

    by

    change, love, nature, patterns, perspective, poetry, sonnets

    his face turns from his crucified body
    to a swimmer leaping arms outstretched
    through a sentient sky. What we become
    is reflected in the dry ground we strive
    to transcend like smoke’s ecstatic dance
    or the murmur of  starling’s pulsing
    across a morning’s autumnal sky.
    If I say George Washington’s face manifests
    in the sky, diaphanous white clouds
    woven in deepest blue, shall I mistake
    your laughter for delight more than derision?
    Could I turn the clouds outside my window
    into the countless things they are not,
    like the words I wish I had said to you?
    (January 26, 2017)

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  • Field Trip

    by

    attention, beauty, change, memory, poetry, revision, sonnets, time
    I leapt up the mountain river
    rock to rock each turn and leap
    a new revelation oh look
    then look again to see anew
    an inlaid distraction explode
    the laughing froth splashing
    about my dancing feet then
    almost thirty years later
    on a bus filled with students
    that moment on that rock
    in that river ecstatically opens
    like her initial kiss almost
    as if time’s inevitable
    profundity ceased to exist

    (January 26, 2017)

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  • Eruption

    by

    anger, interrelationships, poetry
    Rending the calm silence,
    Rage thrashes about the house;
    a bear slashing the air,
    leaving us all in tatters.

    (January 24, 2017)

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  • recluse

    by

    alone, control, courage, doubt, poetry
    uncertainty cloaks most
    encounters with a glazed
    misunderstanding enough so
    he rarely ventures out confident
    he’s safe within his decisions

    (January 24, 2017)

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  • hunger hurts like desire

    by

    assignment, erato, eros, love, lust, poetry, response, sappho

    after sappho

    it’s easy to pick up an apple
    from the ground and be sated;
    you were always out of reach.

    (January 17, 2017)

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  • enough

    by

    attention, context, creativity, dance, desire, erato, poetics, poetry, process, sonnets, ways of knowing

    “The point is not to find a reader, the point is the telling itself.”
                            –Anne Carson
    thought arises like sacrifice
    burning flesh and ash to heaven
    within the word before the word
    and then gone at the last
    I struggle inside and desire
    response without prerequisite
    outside ventures to initiate
    myself into fire’s circling dance
    darkness gathers on the edge
    and whispers to the flames
    let me in let me through
    let me sing this night to you
    no other hears the flutter
    of soft footsteps in the dust
    (January 17, 2017)

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  • tattoos

    by

    broken, definition, despair, fate, fragments, identity formation, lament, life, poetry, sonnets, tired
    I am inscribed,
    the words scratched
    into my skin like sin.
    I have forgotten
    where I stopped
    being whole, when
    the fragments fell
    like icebergs
    calving into the sea.
    Incremental moments
    of unremarked cowardice
    chipped bits away,
    until the lies I’ve told
    became the life I led.

    (January 15, 2017)

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  • The Oblivious Now

    by

    broken, control, fate, life, patience, poetry, time, Uncategorized
    what are you waiting for?
    the end of the world
    retirement
    the weekend, lunch
    someone to save you
    from the boredom
    a story to believe
    to attach a purpose
    to your wandering
    a meaning, or perhaps
    your mouth to gape
    around a last gasp
    what comes next – –
    with or without you
    (January 13, 2017)

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  • Incremental

    by

    erasure, life, poetry
    “Everyone wants to know where we leave our futures.”
    –Mathew Schnirman
    each day we slice off a bit more
    as collateral to our dream
    tomorrow al will turn towards us
    if we can only make it home
    today’s another day to today
    no trauma no joy just today
    the winds are still the ocean calm
    no ship’s sail breaks the horizon

    (January 13, 2017)

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  • Dream Journal # 31: objects in motion and at rest

    by

    desire, dream, erato, eros, interpretation, love, poetry, ways of knowing

    we (L. and I) arrived at a bend in the river
    the river rose swallowing the ground
    we stood upon and we were trapped
    in the wash of a cold syllogism
    a lost friend- a physicist- lived nearby
    the friend had two children now
    the physicist and her daughter spoke
    French (although they were Spanish)
    to one another as the baby slept
    we were admonished to keep quiet
    the door opened with a startled clatter
    You walked in with one of your dogs
    you touched my arm and said hello
    some guy I did not know was with you
    briefly before vanishing like friendship
    We all went outside and sat on the lawn
    near the river L. swam up kissed me
    then swam away without saying anything
    R. pontificated on the meaning of broad daylight
    you sat down next to me laughing brightly
    your bare leg warm against my skin
    I was no longer able to move or speak
    (January 12, 2017)

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  • a pretence at autonomy

    by

    abstract, control, poetry, sonnets, unstable, ways of knowing
    “listen, listen, listen,”
    he mouths beneath his breath
    a  mantra for his life,
    a tattoo to his heart.
    so goes the pulse and pull
    of the day: listen to him,
    to her, to the pattern
    dancing like mice beneath
    straw stalks jutting still
    from the thick black earth,
    the moon hovering low
    like cows in summer’s shade.
    listen through the nonsense
    to the heart’s slow eviscerations.
    (January 9, 2017)

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  • meaning’s origin

    by

    attention, borders, exercise, memory, patience, poetry, renga, ways of knowing
    a leaf on the water
    is a leaf on the water
    he reaches through his reflection
    for a leaf at the bottom
    of a puddle
    what one values
    determines its worth
    in his notebook
    an old man finds a flower
    she gave him years ago
    the past holds regret
    the present’s perfect
    he hears Dr. Williams sigh
    like rain water glazed
    across his memory
    a last aspirated gasp
    rose like a dove falling
    death slips quickly
    into place alive
    then not like that
    each day the pattern persists
    yet still we act surprised
    lost in thought
    during his long commute
    he suddenly arrives home
    the sun rises the sun sets
    noticed or unnoticed
    he bundles up
    as the temperature drops
    a mockingbird sings nearby
    “You don’t know what you’re missing now
    any little song that you know”
    –Jimmy Page and Robert Plant, The Song Remains the Same
    (January 6, 2017)

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