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My Poetry and Commentary on Life

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regret’s fear

by

chance, erato, eros, liminal, love, obsessions, poetry, response, trust

“into this image of himself he dives”

–Charles Baudelaire

it was safer to create you

alone hidden in shadows

where only I could find you

when I was tired and tense

and full of fear’s insecurities

safer than your living flesh

smooth beneath my slow hand

slipping like silk across your skin

fear of fulfillment far exceeded

any regret of might have beens

yet I fear now I have lost you

and regret all that went unsaid

(March 16, 2015)

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Structures of Expectations

by

erato, eros, lament, poetry, relationships

two haiku

Where are you tonight?

The stars drop light like gestures;

I am so alone.

There is not remorse,

beyond what never happened:

no kiss, no embrace.

(March 14, 2015)

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the day can wait

by

erato, hope, life, love, poetry, space, traces

in our room

I crawl back

into our empty bed

to nestle within

your warmth

which lingers still

beneath the covers

like a cat

curled and purring

(March 13, 2015)

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escape

by

change, life, metaphor, poetry

at the end of a hall

a screen door waits

a symbol a goal

or only a door

behind him boots echo

across wooden floors

a disembodied metonymy

for a god superfluous
obvious and unnecessary

yet nevertheless there
light emanates
omnipresently
like faces in Goya

it’s dawn or dusk

there are no shadows

crisply dividing

one into nothing

some simplistic duality

time is irrelevant

yet present

a white mold furs

the baseboards and corners

in some conditional metaphor

he lurches from door

to door rattling knobs

looking for keys

for clues

for openings

for a breach

lesions tear

into absence

a way in

a way out

a way through

not there

not here

one step

a way

away

(March 12, 2015)

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The Cold Warmth of Certainty

by

acceptance, control, doubt, existential angst, life, poetry

Swathed in the predictable he desires

what can be said before saying

gives comfort to him in its saying

like an old man’s shawl in early fall

or prayer beads clasped in broken hands

the familiar feel of the strand slowly

sliding between the thumb and finger

provides a succor without redemption’s

assumed final consolation so

he presumes an understanding beyond

reason to settle across the snowy fields

to walk any path as if it were his own

a known amble in which complacence

can grow like moss without rebuke

yet acquiescence’s bow allows

only a momentary grace to fall

as his doubt gives way to despair

(March 11, 2015)

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One Must Separate to Remain Whole

by

change, clarity, hope, poetry, process, silence

“as if listening itself were to become a state of utterance:

in me, it is the ear which speaks.” –Roland Barthes

when the day’s

traumas trouble

your sleep like

pebbles dance

down a stream

hush then wait

for silence to rise

through you

like butterflies

in a dance

hush then wait

for the falderal

to settle

like silt sifts

to the river’s bottom

hush then wait

for the bat’s high

lyric cries

to call out

for something other

than the dark

hush then wait

for our walls

to reflect their
edges back

and whisper

not me not

me again

into the permeable

spaces we share

(March 9, 2015)

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loquela

by

communication, control, erato, language, poetry

“the flux of language through which the subject tirelessly rehashes the effects of a wound.” – – Roland Barthes

he turns and flops and turns again

a well dressed monkey with a cup

dancing to a hurdy gurdy’s chime

the blood dried to scab despite

his fingered rehash and revision

of each word he said and heard

he ate her loquacious dreams

spent hours then days now years

savoring them in their entirety

the words came to lacerate his throat

filling his belly with dire sustenance

a belief his meaning meshed with hers

until he devoured both him and her

in an implosion of sin collapsing

like the last spasms of a dying sun

(March 7, 2015)

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Returning To Silence

by

acceptance, clarity, control, found, identity formation, poetry, ways of knowing

“the death of the image of my own life”

-Roland Barthes

The voices’ cacophony abates slowly

into a hushed whisper between friends;

the frantic caws and suppositions ebb

like the soft susurrations of the sea

rhythmically wash along a darkened shore.

The long list of self recriminations,

snuffing after me like hounds baying

beneath an October moon, have faded,

and I am left waiting upon the dawn

within a fragile calm of my old silences.

(March 2, 2015)

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xenophobic structures of love

by

borders, change, erato, liminal, love, poetry

” nuance is the last shade of color which can be named; the nuance is the Intractable.”
—Roland Barthes

writing from desire

for another place

for another you

another set scene

without resonance

from one to the other

then not the one

but the other

as red shifts

to ultra-violet

in an artifact of vision

skewed to itself

differentiates itself

into something necessarily

absorbed or defined

along non-existent lines

separating

you from me

(March 1, 2015)

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appeal

by

communication, desire, erato, eros, hope, love, offering, poetry, romance

I have nothing

within my hands

nothing to offer

beyond my trust

that I am

who I claim

that what I hold

within me

my heart

my love

for you

will be enough

that what I say

will find

its truer echo

within you

that you will hear

this secret song

then take my hands

for what they are

and hold them close

within yours

safe from all

the calloused troubles

outside ourselves

(February 28, 2015)

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prometheus tired

by

aging, dissatisfaction, existential angst, life, mythic, poetry, ways of knowing

“We live in the flicker.”

-Joseph Conrad

what stories I tell don’t matter

wisdom always arrives too late

I sit here now out of the way

dismissed into inconsequence

profundity’s simplicity smacks

like a brick upside my head

pay attention

begin at the beginning

one shuffling step at a time

each day chop wood carry water

all so focused on each moment

ignore what’s next

no time for dreams

It’s painful to watch them

the children all so grown

so hungry for their lives

their struggles always dire

their accolades so dear

so unaware of each iron link

curling back ‘til anchored tight

to the rock at the titan’s feet

(February 26, 2015)

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pathway

by

aging, attention, control, life, liminal, lost, poetry, traces, ways of knowing

the lines I live between tighten and stretch

a fine steel mesh filters my heart’s discontent

the thickened blood’s oozings onto this page

like the stubby swirls of a child’s finger paint

a labyrinthine turn into return

where the slow plod from hedgerow to hedgerow

transforms the mundane to normality

a fine white gruel ground thin by blackened teeth

the word’s grit spit like broken pecan shells

into the thick ash about the dead fire

clings between tongue and gum clotting

the flow of what thought I have remaining

as I squeeze and tease another brief pulse

from the flaccid miasma of this life

(February 25, 2015)

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Vanishing Point

by

acceptance, aging, courage, life, paradigm shifts, poetry

“It takes courage to enjoy it”

-Bjork

He leaves through the mist.

The air, interlaced in thin rain,

shimmers like beaded curtains,

or green smoke billowing

between the dancers

around a lunar fire.

With a quick shuffled step,

he sifts through the night

lifting his eyes to the sky.

Each star glistens along

its pin point of light

in wavelengths of desire,

until they drop to the grass

and gather like constellated

thoughts around us all.

We each are a breach

in air, a doorway

from here to there;

we must enter, cross

through, then vanish

into laughter and tears.

(February 24, 2015)

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Dream Journal # 19: The House of Cats

by

control, dissatisfaction, dream, lost, poetry, traces

he was in another room quiet but present

children appeared then disappeared hungry

she brought us into the house quickly

the cats for sale were scattered everywhere

we were to find them and decide ourselves

they were all older cats and unkempt

they purred when picked up charming

bed sheets lay tangled across the floor

except for the bedrooms the house was empty

the house was gold with dark green trim

outside a new spring well flowed

two lots over a grocer’s screen door slammed

it advertised cold Schlitz beer for sale

I had been there before somewhere

he watched from a window nearby

my wife couldn’t decide as if it were required

I wanted to leave she resisted stubbornly

I couldn’t make it up the stairs again

the children roamed through the kitchen

one surreptitiously gnawed on a sausage

the others followed her from room to room

he sat in the front room angry at us all

I tried to engage him with small talk

the house the well the town itself

I threatened to leave it was late

she couldn’t decide but had decided

we could wait we had to wait

relatives talked in nearby rooms

his anger seethed beneath the door

I wanted to leave but couldn’t leave

I woke she slept the room was still

one of our cats purred nearby

I dressed silently then went to work

(February 23, 2015)

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mood swing

by

acceptance, poetry, writing

some times in better times

I write something down

and giggle

(February 21, 2015)

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