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My Poetry and Commentary on Life

  • This Writer’s Beginnings: EarlyYears
  • Bread Loaf Influence
  • Rock and Roll High School
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  • Around the Next Corner

    by

    doubt, life, poetry, sonnets
    He waits watching the grey undulant hills
    to the west.  He waits for a happier
    life, one he imagines others live now
    nearby.  Yet in his waiting and watching,
    he never sees any look to the west
    to see beyond themselves something other
    than the horizon which contains their world.
    He sees slowly over time his vision
    blinds – – blinds even as he looks outward to
    what he thinks will bring him a happier
    way to live:  his desire fooled him with ease.
    No revelation is at hand, no dream
    to come to fruition in salvation,
    no reason to wait beyond the living.

    (June 1, 2016)

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  • Love’s Delusions

    by

    desire, erato, eros, memory, patterns, poetry, sonnets
    Memory lies, using blind desire
    as a straight man before a punch
    line bends time into cold laughter.
    She was there. You know. But when
    you look again, she’s not. Even now
    you sniff about after scraps, like
    an old dog caught in a pattern –
    one more turn about, then again,
    before circling to the ground
    to chase rabbits across dreams.
    Were you even there? Was she?
    Did it matter? So many frayed
    threads, so many trails wandering
    off blind into the night’s bramble.
    (May 31, 2016)

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  • Divisions

    by

    alone, communication, erato, eros, love, poetry, sonnets
    I am a simple degree of difference
    from the next man on the bus, a cough
    from an allergy not yet in season.
    The wind bears in equanimity the change
    from one to the next. I matter only
    as a random number generator,
    an algorithm which beats a time
    faster than we can imagine alone.
    We hold to the nuance to identify
    who we are to ourselves.  I am alone
    in this colony: as if bacteria in a dish
    can differentiate the glass walls;
    as if the language I speak to you
    can convey an understanding of love.

    (May 30, 2016)

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  • could

    by

    communication, erato, poetry, ways of knowing
    “the clot of what I could not understand rising in my throat”
                            –Tristan Tzara
    He spoke with an ontic grace, she
    very rarely heard. Most words fill
    silence like ash drifting from
    a fire; his words expanded catching
    her attention days later as she thought
    of other things. They filled her
    periphery; until claustrophobic,
    she would quickly rise from her desk
    step out into the street and breathe
    in large panicked gasps as if a fish
    desperate to escape the air writhed
    on unfamiliar ground. She knew
    that was not what he said, but she knew,
    too, there was nothing else it could be;
    and if he could speak of what he could
    not, but what she wished he could,
    then what could not have passed
    between them, if only she could
    have understood what he said
    as he spoke, rather than now.
    Memory cynically betrays us.
    Now is all that matters; the then – –
    what could have been, the question
    as to what passes between any of us,
    becomes the soul in its interpretation
    of itself. The minute vision and revision,
    as it were, which echoes into the empty
    room – – such waste – – no one can hear.

    (May 30, 2016)

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  • Change Your Mind?

    by

    assignment, belief, change, chant, life, poetry, ways of knowing
    “the bells ring for no reason and we too”
                            –tristan tzara
    resolve to revolve
    such urgent ardency
    such fervid sincerity
    to change this world
    turn away again
    not you until you
    make us all you
    push the shovel hard
    to turn the compost in
    easier to explain than work
    calluses tear and bleed
    turn back again
    earth becomes earth
    justified in the end
    a counter to what end
    flesh rubbed raw
    sore and bloodied
    falls fresh to the floor
    so hold to your truism
    as I hold my icon close
    un-shattered by the other
    this is who I am
    framed and patterned
    chains upon chains clang
    you too are thus defined
    chains upon chains clang
    our definitions ring true
    at least to each other
    chains upon chains clang
    you are not the other
    the other is not you
    it’s not the other
    who must turn
    it’s not the other
    who must change
    Blake knew this
    Marx knew this
    Buddha and Jesus
    and countless others
    knew this too
    even I know this
    as do you
    resolve to revolve
    change the world
    change the word
    chains upon chains
    change your mind
    chains upon chains
    change your mind
    (May 25, 2016)

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  • garden path

    by

    attention, beauty, desire, erato, eros, happiness, hope, love, lust, poetry, sonnets

    A rose opens
    to a bee’s
    persistent nuzzle.
    Busy, busy bee!
    What do you see
    within the petal’s folds?
    Oh, soft damp petals
    of the newly open rose!
    I have no reason
    to pursue
    beyond this longing
    to caress you – – –
    Such is my life’s desire
    along this garden path.

    (May 24, 2016)

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  • photography

    by

    death, fear, poetry, sonnets
    nuclear flash
    leaves shadows
    stunned by light
    in stone’s crevices
    as if the soul
    too was too slow
    to escape thought’s
    annihilation
    we too wait here
    with a death’s head grin
    to be transfixed
    in the moment
    as it shatters
    into primal light
    (May 23, 2016)

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  • transitory

    by

    communication, erato, liminal, love, poetry, relationships, sonnets, ways of knowing
    we met once awhile ago
    I talked you listened
    in a way after a fashion
    you talked I listened
    deeper than you could know
    then you left and I remained
    still I obsess as I obsess
    turning each phrase into a symbol
    each symbol into an icon
    then tear them down once again
    to reshape my words from rubble
    as if what I said could matter
    the I and you I thought we knew
    met at a crossroad and parted

    (May 21, 2016)

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  • Mother Moon

    by

    interrelationships, moon series, mythic, poetry
    night flowers suckle
    the milk moon’s reflected light
    we are the other

    (May 21, 2016)

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  • one motion

    by

    abstract, borders, change, definition, liminal, poetry, sonnets, transition
    a door is a void
    an open space
    a defined space
    step out of the room
    step into the hall
    a single step
    everywhere
    nothing’s there
    other than here
    I am a door
    an opening
    a void
    a step out
    a step in

    (May 21, 2016)

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  • Presence

    by

    attention, erato, eros, interrelationships, life, poetry, sonnets
    “Each time you happen to me all over again.”
                            –Edith Wharton
    here always
    time and place
    unchanging
    always here
    the setting
    holds us still
    always near
    skin to skin
    we each speak
    such voices
    always distant
    I cannot hear
    here near distant
    always this instant

    (May 20, 2016)

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  • before

    by

    alone, breach, broken, interrelationships, poetry, relationships, sonnets

    not the glass
    shattered on the floor
    not the silence after the shots
    not the incongruity of blood
    expanding around you
    like red scarves unraveling
    in a soft wind
    none of the phone calls
    none of the tears
    none of our friends
    with their warm hugs
    arriving through the night
    none of the moments after
    matter before

    (May 18, 2016)

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  • a tuesday night

    by

    broken, control, existential angst, poetry
    and I’m drunk
    at least for a bit
    before sleep and
    the two bourbons
    lead me to bed early
    exhausted from work
    from twenty-seven years
    of slicing off bits of flesh
    close to my heart
    to keep myself fed
    and hobbled
    so as not to wander
    too far astray
    from it all

    (May 18, 2016)

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  • three haiku: port aransas, wetland education center

    by

    change, critical theory, poetry
    morning’s pond ripples
    as gulls squabble like children
    time does not exist
    *
    pockets of nature
    to store bits of this life
    away before death
    *
    safe along a path
    nature’s just an exhibit – –
    look! we’ve saved the world!

    (May 14, 2016)

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  • reconciliations

    by

    erato, fragments, poetry, relationships
    broken-toothed clocks’
    sprockets grind and
    stutter through their hours
    as you draw near
    mispronunciations
    become borders
    abstract and armed
    with misunderstanding’s
    bitter truculence
    with thick black swaths
    your understanding’s clichés
    inscribe these tropes
    between our vague edges
    I ask forgiveness
    for sins
    not quite committed
    for possibilities
    not enacted
    as doubt’s consequence
    and oblivious indecision
    bloomed virtue’s flower
    through omission
    here is my undoing
    there my failure
    this trust in what I say
    as replicable in you
    as a rose to a rose
    within the same bush
    echoes one to the other
    as if time is enough to grow
    from these broken thorns
    scattered across the ground
    a reconciliation which is whole
    (May 15, 2016)

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