Full December moon
bathes our yard in cool silence:
the comfort of friends.
(December 7, 2014)
-
bilingual
by
I savor the words you offer,roll them around my tonguelike chocolate meltingin slow syllables;until I becomesome other languagespoken in placesonly we understand.(December 6, 2014) -
Self Portrait in a Broken Mirror
If you are me,and what I seebecomes itselfthrough infiniteunfoldingsand refolding,an origamiconstructionpressed flatupon this pagelike Braqueor Picasso,then whose eyesdo I fall intoeach momentI bend towardyour kiss?(December 6, 2014) -
Delphic Skeltonic
now there right therefinger jabs airwe look but whereso there and theresomewhere not herethe world adheressinging cold feara bear lurks nearI leave my lairan ancient seerwho sees elsewherein every tearmy mind is clearI hold you dear(December 4, 2014) -
processing the guest speaker
apologies to Frank O’Harait’s 11:18 and the astronaut is talkingI wonder if my students will have timeto write their essay when we get backas if it matters more than just somethingto do as the astronaut says “you betterhave a plan for stopping” in some contextI missed because I am writing this poemeven though I still look up fairly frequentlywith an interested expression like nowso that it will appear I’m taking notesor reflecting on the astronaut’s speechinstead of writing as if I’m Frank O’Haraat lunch in New York casually tossing offone of those now fifty year old classic poemsI’ve been carrying around in my pocket latelyand suddenly I think about Rene Charand his Leaves of Hypnos and what differenceif any exists between writing processesof O’Hara’s wondrous wanderings in New Yorkmy surreptitious scribbles my students’ groansif we get back in time to write and Char stalkedby the Nazis across the French countrysideas the astronaut speaks of re-enteringthe atmosphere and how the heat shieldis on fire “It burns up so the rest of you doesn’t”and how last night I misplaced my notebookI carry everywhere for just a few minutesand I could feel the flames begin to flare(December 3, 2014) -
bricoleur
“These fragments I have shored against my ruins.”–T.S. Eliotfragments of memoryfigments of memorytraces of memorytrances of memorydances of memorydresses of memoryredress of memoryrepresses of memorytresses of memorytrembles of memoryresembles of memoryassembles of memoryassertions of memoryassuages of memory(December 2, 2014) -
then you’re old
by
sitting with pigeons,trees dapple him in sunlight;a wind slips through.(December 2, 2014: salvaged from a notebook-2003) -
ouroboros’ hunger
I am a wormabsorbing and excretingmy earthy remains:I strip awaynagging remorse;strip awayall desirefor some otherthan now,to findI returna blind dogalong cold tracesfilling in old vacancieswith ornate mouthingsthat gnawtheir silent hungerthrough my skin.(December 1, 2014) -
Love Letter
I cannot reach for younor embrace youas a lovermy arms are numbthey hang slacklike a marionettebroken immobilewithout stringsthese lines must doto seduce youmy words are an actreaching beyond nowto touch you againand again with this kiss(November 29, 2014) -
love’s clichéd agency
strip the tendonsfrom the heart?burn what life’sleft at your alter?how much sacrificemust be tithedshort of it all?Is that love?I offer only this:friends can be loversas well as any other;true, actions speak:lips trace kissesdown her hips.(November 26, 2014) -
I Write Into What I Think I Hear
by
a dry flutterlost unvoicedyou come unbiddenon obsession’s wingI write it downlest I forgetthe happinessamid the fearin lines of poetryand incidentalsentences I hearyour voice’s echomy conversationsare delusionyour words embroideredtight along an edge(November 24, 2014) -
Narratives
he could tell the storywith a different enda different beginningmore wild less mundaneone where she would listenas he read poetry to herin their bed then whispereddesires the length of her skinuntil they both fell in lovelaughing one into the otherinstead he wondersat missteps and chanceswhich opened and closedlike butterfly wingsbriefly before flittingaway from the fieldto other flowersother loversother possibilitieshe was unwilling to tell(November 23, 2014) -
Whip Stitched
I dissemble my partsrendering what integrityremains into liesto feed the beast’shard laughter.I listen, eyes wide,a ventriloquist’s puppettrying to speakfrom someone otherthan myself.I am a mockeryslurred through bruised lips.The loose patchworkdoes little to disguisethe hand at my heartfingering each blood dropuntil it relentsany semblance of truth.(November 22, 2014) -
the ink speaks into nothing
by
As a silk veil drapesacross a coy desire,a whispered teasehides in our noise;so say it again,some flow of image:I wish you were here- –a correspondencewithout closureagain as it beganvaguely from the nothingbetween my words.As if withinhandwriting’s flow,the letters inscribean incantation,a circle to containall we wish to define.(November 21, 2014)
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