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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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  • finding my self

    by

    attention, control, identity formation, loss, poetry, time, ways of knowing
    as I wait in the dark
    a slow calm unfolds
    like new roots reach
    their tendrils
    toward earth
    searching
    for stability
    in the Vermont woods
    no moon if there were
    a moon that night
    could penetrate the dark
    it was an old trick
    take the rube
    into the woods at night
    then leave him
    no way home
    without a light
    the forest vanished
    and night’s sounds
    pulled tight like skin
    no difference existed
    between me and the dark
    black upon black upon
    black as I sat down
    on solid ground
    to wait for dawn

    (July 15, 2015)

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  • abnegation

    by

    broken, despair, dissatisfaction, humility, identity formation, perspective, poetry, unstable

    it’s easier to tear down
    to niggle all my faults
    until my muscles writhe
    twisting bones like rags
    wrung dry with anger
    when did humility bend
    into self-deprecation
    caustic and snide
    why do I silence my voice
    with a bitter analysis
    even now doubt’s evident
    questions come with knives
    not confidence to create solutions
    unfolding within an easy smile

    (July 15, 2015)

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  • Cynic

    by

    broken, despair, fate, poetry
    I should spit out the bitterness,
    instead of savoring as if
    an unfolding flower;
    but I don’t, and I do
    until bile rises to coat
    those I love with a patina
    breathing death into the earth.
    Yet, how does one decide
    what’s bitter, what’s not needed
    to carry the day forward?
    We all cleave to what should be
    cleaved away, out of habit,
    out of nostalgia for memory
    we are unsure occurred,
    out of hope for a significance
    sweeter than the life we live.

    (July 14, 2015)

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  • Dream Journal #23: Fluid

    by

    abstract, desire, interrelationships, narrative, poetry, surrealism, transition

    today’s zodiac will not tell me what to do
    at dinner she would not tell me her name
    we are in a truck not mine making love
    our bodies slick cramped ecstatic
    the people at the party are drinking heavily
    I don’t know where I am and want a drink
    there are several bottles of champagne
    but only one unbroken glass on the table
    Richard is cleaning up something slimy
    a man I don’t know pours a drink
    he spills it then sings apologetically
    about something disconnected and green
    I’m lost and wander through European streets
    bent back upon themselves and crowded
    an artist has welded my truck to another
    fused like Dr. Doolittle’s push me-pull you
    the city tangles within itself like snakes fucking
    the phone keeps ringing but it’s not mine
    the fax machine will not work but still noisy
    I start to wake as a nude woman approaches
    she smiles falling into my arms laughing
    her breasts soft and warm on my skin
    laughter constellates throughout us

    (July 11, 2015)

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  • Everything’s Metaphor

    by

    abstract, borders, change, metaphor, poetry, transition
    I crack an egg,
    like a world translated.
    It’s rough outside;
    are interiors always different?
    Divisions do create
    a space; then again,
    the curve of words,
    like the tongue’s horizon,
    licks a new-fleshed flower
    toward an ecstatic sun.
    Another day comes on hot,
    the morning damp and oppressive.
    I’m hungry and wonder
    what to eat for breakfast,
    as if ritual can compensate
    for unrealized desire,
    or change create difference.

    (July 10, 2015)

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  • Humpty Dumpty

    by

    broken, erato, fragments, life, poetry, relationships, sonnets
    Within shadow’s ubiquitous longings,
    my life’s mosaic shards rattle
    like bones in a leather cup.
    Each move’s coupled to regret,
    a chain forged in doubt’s certainty
    fixed tight to all my corners.
    I lie broken in a crevasse,
    a fissure torn through my heart,
    like love letters casually discarded,
    or the dust of dried flowers
    that tremble from the pages
    of a book I gave her years ago.
    Nothing remains of the nothing there;
    there were no pieces to go missing.

    (July 10, 2015)

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  • Again Still

    by

    erato, eros, happiness, love, poetry, romance
    Some nights I wake
    and look toward
    your soft breathing.
    A patch of moonlight
    on your bare shoulder
    beckons to be kissed.
    I lean in, skin
    brushing skin,
    beneath the covers.
    Morning finds us again,
    entangled within
    the comfort of the other.

    (July 9, 2015)

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  • Anti-depressant

    by

    aging, despair, doubt, existential angst, fate, life, lists, lost, poetry, process

    “It’s a hard thing to leave any deeply routine life, even if you hate it.”
    –John Steinbeck
    as I wait on the slow drip
    of the coffee in the urn
    each morning lest I forget
    I slip one finger inside
    each bottle one by one
    as if searching for a hold
    along a cliff’s edge
    so I can maintain my grip
    on the day to day trivia
    I follow this routine
    one pill for cholesterol
    one baby aspirin because
    the stroke ten years ago
    one for allergies
    yet still I can’t breathe
    and one because I tend
    to come upon parts
    of my life as they end
    like growing up
    I suddenly was
    and I remember
    I forgot somewhere
    like a book I left
    unfinished on a train
    how to be happy

    (July 3, 2015)

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  • Forms of Desire

    by

    abstract, dissatisfaction, poetry, rumor, ways of knowing
    I long to sing again:
    night falls,
    and the cicada trembles
    from its skin.
    An implied intimacy
    entangles where such
    wisps rise from prudish smiles,
    and rumor assumes tropes
    exist within the writhing
    of the wind in the dark.

    (July 2, 2015)

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  • losing my religion

    by

    abstract, borders, god, loss, paradigm shifts, poetry
    no choice when gods leave
    one fades into a silence
    that sustains no prayer
    as the emptiness of doors
    defy existence within
    their simple frames

    (July 2, 2015)

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  • peripheral listening

    by

    conversation, erato, eros, liminal, poetry
    I live in shadows
    mine yours
    and metaphor’s
    always the darkest
    laced loosely
    in conversation
    like wisps of hair
    across your clavicle
    easy enough to relax
    into it to play
    the illiterate fool
    unable to read
    the resonance
    while every bone
    vibrates to the song
     I hear in you

    (June 29, 2015)

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  • a simple charm

    by

    charm, communication, desire, erato, eros, interrelationships, poetry
    to bring you
    to fruition
    watch my hands
    as I talk
    watch their travels
    stolid and clever
    slip across your skin
    along your spine
    the nape of your neck
    enrapt and enwrap  
    you like the air
    I breathe
    in soft whispers
    to your ear

    (June 29, 2015)

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  • Future Self-Portrait in a Concave Mirror

    by

    abstract, attention, change, existential angst, poetry, transition

    held at arm’s length
    I try to see myself
    in a concave mirror
    an abstract confession
    of an image I pretend is me
    in order to come to some
    clichéd absolution
    but I become bored so
    I stand arms flail
    the air I lose balance
    against the nothing
    such a plodding gait
    there’s not so much left
    but a stumble to an end

    (June 27, 2015)

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  • Hoarding

    by

    erato, loss, poetry
    The bolt, the screw
    left over could find
    a use somewhere,
    someday. Who can
    predict a future?
    Near the end,
    I said I feared
    to lose a friend
    (one I never had);
    I did not lose,
    but rather watched
    her fade from my
    inconsequence.
    (June 26, 2015)

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  • become absence

    by

    aging, change, poetry, transition
    “I had to get rid of everything unnecessary… in order to save myself.
    –Arvo Part
    Fade, my darkness,
    blend into shadow’s
    camouflage another
    metaphor for love.
    I rarely know what’s
    to know, what’s hidden:
    my language is bare
    to bear bone’s nuance.
    Each word unwinds
    a trail into night
    creating only flickers
    to dance a shadow.
    I begin to fade
    to find myself.
    (June 26, 2012)

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