subtext

My Poetry and Commentary on Life

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

Designed with WordPress

  • Do You See the Emptiness?

    by

    attention, broken, change, happiness, lost, narrative, poetry, ritual
    Your answer’s sought through
    invocation again tonight.
    I am tired with a headache;
    I forgot to take my meds—
    so, I worry causality’s beads.
    No doubt, that is a symptom—
    one I refuse to, again, look up.
    And even that bit of agency,
    that bit of non-conformity,
    is another sign, another template
    through which to bend a metaphor,
    until what I knew I know again
    like ouroboros devouring the skin
    it sheds across a forest’s floor
    where there are no trees
    to help find one’s way back,
    and I don’t know what to do.

    Share this:

    • Share on Facebook (Opens in new window) Facebook
    • Share on Tumblr (Opens in new window) Tumblr
    • Share on X (Opens in new window) X
    • Share on Bluesky (Opens in new window) Bluesky
    • Share on Threads (Opens in new window) Threads
    Like Loading…
  • worship’s purpose

    by

    alone, belief, death, fate, god, life, poetry, response, ritual, sonnets, ways of knowing
    such genuflections are required
    to appease a darker god than you
    can invoke with millennia of prayer:
    the bent neck and obsequious
    mutters— a mere charade of ritual
    to reinforce submission’s place
    more than attain some god’s grace
    so eat your bread and drink your wine
    tell yourself again and again
    your life has no consequence
    except in questionable service
    to a promissory pact in the end
    you will be free to be as god
    dissolved into non-existence
    (December 31, 2015)

    Share this:

    • Share on Facebook (Opens in new window) Facebook
    • Share on Tumblr (Opens in new window) Tumblr
    • Share on X (Opens in new window) X
    • Share on Bluesky (Opens in new window) Bluesky
    • Share on Threads (Opens in new window) Threads
    Like Loading…
  • petal’s flesh unfolds

    by

    communication, desire, erato, eros, interrelationships, language, muse, poetics, poetry, sonnets
    “These blooms are not seen.”
    –Luce Irigary
    what I seek cannot be said
    it lies beneath soft voices
    a substrate for the spoken
    a scaffold like spider’s threads
    from which to dangle as the words
    work their way past resistances
    returning to your flesh what was given
    adorning it with roses like kisses
    blossoming across untended gardens
    wild effusions unfurling its petals
    withholding nothing in the resonances
    of its deep mournful ululations
    which began to bud in the silences
    of all we could not say so long ago

    (December 26, 2015)

    Share this:

    • Share on Facebook (Opens in new window) Facebook
    • Share on Tumblr (Opens in new window) Tumblr
    • Share on X (Opens in new window) X
    • Share on Bluesky (Opens in new window) Bluesky
    • Share on Threads (Opens in new window) Threads
    Like Loading…
  • Dissonance

    by

    definition, fate, poetry
    Full Cold Moon tonight—
    high today seventy-eight:
    my life in this world.

    (December 24, 2015)

    Share this:

    • Share on Facebook (Opens in new window) Facebook
    • Share on Tumblr (Opens in new window) Tumblr
    • Share on X (Opens in new window) X
    • Share on Bluesky (Opens in new window) Bluesky
    • Share on Threads (Opens in new window) Threads
    Like Loading…
  • topographic maps

    by

    clarity, communication, erato, loss, lost, muse, poetry, time
    like the flat
    relationships
    of these lines
    to the distant
    possibilities
    of our true natures
    your pattern
    I laid upon
    myself remains
    I bend back now
    a switchback
    path snaking up
    a mountain 
    as origami folds
    the timeline’s
    disparate moments
    to trace finger
    tips to lips
    to causality’s kiss
    a brushed cognizance
    like whispers
    much too late
    to know who
    spoke of whom
    if at all through
    the dark lost
    in our ways
    (December 23, 2015)

    Share this:

    • Share on Facebook (Opens in new window) Facebook
    • Share on Tumblr (Opens in new window) Tumblr
    • Share on X (Opens in new window) X
    • Share on Bluesky (Opens in new window) Bluesky
    • Share on Threads (Opens in new window) Threads
    Like Loading…
  • what does the silence mean

    by

    friends, loss, poetry, time, traces
    the widening space between
    each word as if stars
    drifting apart could fix
    the dark in which they
    vanish slowly over time
    like friends I no longer see

    (December 20, 2015)

    Share this:

    • Share on Facebook (Opens in new window) Facebook
    • Share on Tumblr (Opens in new window) Tumblr
    • Share on X (Opens in new window) X
    • Share on Bluesky (Opens in new window) Bluesky
    • Share on Threads (Opens in new window) Threads
    Like Loading…
  • All the Difference

    by

    chance, choice, definition, fate, happiness, poetry, sonnets, ways of knowing
    One has heart.
    One’s heart is death.
    One feeds itself.
    One’s omnivorous.
    One hears music;
    one war’s harsh drum.
    One plays the fool.
    One cannot laugh.
    So one chooses:
    the well-worn,
    the least trodden.
    No difference
    between the two
    beyond the heart.
    (December 18, 2015)

    Share this:

    • Share on Facebook (Opens in new window) Facebook
    • Share on Tumblr (Opens in new window) Tumblr
    • Share on X (Opens in new window) X
    • Share on Bluesky (Opens in new window) Bluesky
    • Share on Threads (Opens in new window) Threads
    Like Loading…
  • Fragmented Awareness

    by

    abstract, attention, poetry, unstable, ways of knowing
    How much of my day is delusion?
    From moment to moment blurs
    between stock mutters brandished
    like shields softly rattling before
    the onslaught of tangential dreams
    as I walk through the halls alone.
    Each step, each side conversation,
    ripples like bells on distant hills
    calling and calling for some other
    to flow down the valley in streams,
    until I drown in possibilities’
    endless pulse and thrust.
    As a glass resonates on the verge
    of shattering, I can feel the first
    harmonic trembles flutter along
    the edges of my skin. My voice
    breaks in waves, then vanishes
    into the howling maelstrom.

    (December 16, 2015)

    Share this:

    • Share on Facebook (Opens in new window) Facebook
    • Share on Tumblr (Opens in new window) Tumblr
    • Share on X (Opens in new window) X
    • Share on Bluesky (Opens in new window) Bluesky
    • Share on Threads (Opens in new window) Threads
    Like Loading…
  • World View

    by

    abstract, broken, poetry
    All is truth;
    I am the lie.

    (December 16, 2015)

    Share this:

    • Share on Facebook (Opens in new window) Facebook
    • Share on Tumblr (Opens in new window) Tumblr
    • Share on X (Opens in new window) X
    • Share on Bluesky (Opens in new window) Bluesky
    • Share on Threads (Opens in new window) Threads
    Like Loading…
  • Then When?

    by

    haiku, loss, poetry, relationships
    Distance is rhetorical:
    I’ve sat next to you,
    wondering. Where have we gone?

    (December 16, 2015)

    Share this:

    • Share on Facebook (Opens in new window) Facebook
    • Share on Tumblr (Opens in new window) Tumblr
    • Share on X (Opens in new window) X
    • Share on Bluesky (Opens in new window) Bluesky
    • Share on Threads (Opens in new window) Threads
    Like Loading…
  • one explains

    by

    belief, definition, poetry, process, sonnets, ways of knowing
    one explains the past to present desire
    as if nothing were not enough to cry
    into a mere transcendent belief
    each word trails more than itself
    coughing and hacking like an old man
    lost in his promise full of dreams
    until it becomes dizzy with sense
    and echoes beyond what is said
    to pull and shape us to our selves
    like a leaf resonate with the world
    begins to tremble in the still air
    before answering the earth’s cold call
    knowing nothing has to stay this way

    one falls toward the known pattern

    Share this:

    • Share on Facebook (Opens in new window) Facebook
    • Share on Tumblr (Opens in new window) Tumblr
    • Share on X (Opens in new window) X
    • Share on Bluesky (Opens in new window) Bluesky
    • Share on Threads (Opens in new window) Threads
    Like Loading…
  • rhyme

    by

    desire, oblivious, poetry, sonnets
    he wanted up the stairs
    the polished marble stairs
    though nothing was there
    except strands of golden hair
    which cried beware beware
    there is nothing here
    go back now do not stare
    for your desires no one cares
    still he asks are you there
    were you there are you there
    then listens to the silent air
    to melodies vaguely clear
    no doubt’s cast too sincere
    to catch his tone deaf ear

    (December 11, 2015)

    Share this:

    • Share on Facebook (Opens in new window) Facebook
    • Share on Tumblr (Opens in new window) Tumblr
    • Share on X (Opens in new window) X
    • Share on Bluesky (Opens in new window) Bluesky
    • Share on Threads (Opens in new window) Threads
    Like Loading…
  • memory & desire

    by

    conversation, desire, erato, interpretation, language, memory, poetry

    Desire bred misconception
    in longing’s golden aura.
    He half-heard in innuendo
    what he wanted to be said,
    but always so much later
    within memory’s gilded lies.
    Her endless chatter fed
    fodder for his ponders
    to chew like sullen cattle,
    waiting for their slaughter.

    (December 11, 2015)

    Share this:

    • Share on Facebook (Opens in new window) Facebook
    • Share on Tumblr (Opens in new window) Tumblr
    • Share on X (Opens in new window) X
    • Share on Bluesky (Opens in new window) Bluesky
    • Share on Threads (Opens in new window) Threads
    Like Loading…
  • fade

    by

    lonely, loss, poetry, solitude
    as if with evaporation
    he vanishes from her thoughts
    an incremental erasure
    more subtle than a ghost
    no fissure fraught with guilt
    no tumultuous breach in faith
    not even the hiss of steam
    to mark his disappearance
    (December 9, 2015)

    Share this:

    • Share on Facebook (Opens in new window) Facebook
    • Share on Tumblr (Opens in new window) Tumblr
    • Share on X (Opens in new window) X
    • Share on Bluesky (Opens in new window) Bluesky
    • Share on Threads (Opens in new window) Threads
    Like Loading…
  • mouthings

    by

    abstract, language, poetics, poetry, sonnets
    the slow tongue along
    a fold before the call
    and shout of an evangelical
    visions a pattern to confine
    the pulse and stutter
    in a mendicant’s response
    what are we within
    these folds but a fleshy
    wad of nerve ends
    reaching desperately across
    a micro-chasm like rope
    bridges above a fall
    where the froth and tumult
    swallows our voice’s whole

    (December 7, 2015)

    Share this:

    • Share on Facebook (Opens in new window) Facebook
    • Share on Tumblr (Opens in new window) Tumblr
    • Share on X (Opens in new window) X
    • Share on Bluesky (Opens in new window) Bluesky
    • Share on Threads (Opens in new window) Threads
    Like Loading…




«Previous Poem Next Poem»
  • Subscribe Subscribed
    • subtext
    • Join 407 other subscribers
    • Already have a WordPress.com account? Log in now.
    • subtext
    • Subscribe Subscribed
    • Sign up
    • Log in
    • Report this content
    • View site in Reader
    • Manage subscriptions
    • Collapse this bar
%d