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My Poetry and Commentary on Life

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Tends Toward Blindness

by

aging, attention, clarity, life, oblivious, poetry, time, ways of knowing

“next year’s words await another voice”

T.S. Eliot, from Little Gidding

always ongoing

and too close

for reflection’s static

attention to maintain

the moment’s difference

here I am but not then

so far away even when

I stood (again the then)

within that very day

with eyes wide open

missing it all

(January 29, 2015)

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The Problem With Critical Theory

by

control, critical theory, paradigms, poetry, ways of knowing

I wonder at the morality

of pulling you from the crowd

in banal attempts to make you

into something I allowed

each pen stroke a manipulation

an ideological breach

through which to throw a body

another dead thought to teach

let me tell you how to live

as if a jailer to your soul

each idea you have yourself

flayed upon the whipping pole

how is this permissible

this imposition of a dream

homogenizing the others

until they are part of our theme

even this set of questions

troubles my sense of control

as if what I have to say

has any relevance at all

(January 28, 2015)

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absence shapes

by

borders, change, conversation, identity formation, liminal, poetry, reading, traces, ways of knowing

don’t try to read me

into the lines before you

seek clarity in yourself

what resonance still hums

comes from your blood’s

primal pull and pulse

what you see as me

are but bats’ echoes’

understandings

your own utterings

alter upon return

to shift a direction

as a butterfly’s wings

adrift through the air

touch the nothings there

(January 26, 2015)

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Open Borders

by

borders, community, liminal, poetry

For every atom belonging to me as good belongs to you.

–Walt Whitman

there are no margins

no edges

we bleed

into through

ourselves

like slow wisps

of mist drift

through silent

pockets of fog

we weave

back between

becoming parting

trailing bits

of each other

like comet tails

flow away

from the sun

into the stars

(January 24, 2015)

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broken mirror palimpsest

by

definition, erato, family, identity formation, interrelationships, poetry, relationships

erase me

peel away

any trace

like tendon

from bone

until I

no more

exist

than morning

mist

by mid-day

until who

you are

cannot bind

to any part

of me

nor any word

you speak

holds an echo

of my voice

then ask

the face

you see

in the glass

what remains

of who

you have

become

(January 23, 2015)

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together

by

belief, fragments, interrelationships, love, patterns, poetry, relationships, ways of knowing

we are whole

even when shattered

and the shards won’t cohere

the pattern’s presence

drapes like fog

over an open field

we hold the other

head to chest

hand on hip

beneath the covers

together against

night’s approach

(January 22, 2015)

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Two Haiku for the New Moon

by

loss, poetry

The sky grows a hole;

as if torn from a bolt of cloth,

the new moon rises.

#

The new moon’s promise:

darkness reborn into light

like friends long absent.

(January 21, 2015)

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Request

by

communication, erato, eros, obsessions, poetry, response

Are you listening?

The tap on the wall,

the pen nib’s scratch

on the paper here now,

anything I’ve said at all.

I long for you here:

deprived of nuance,

the surface stripped bare,

blood pools on my tongue;

your ache pulses near.

So with careful charm

each syllable descends

along its tensile thread

to drop these whispers

seductively in your ear:

come to me again;

join my life again.

Let me hear your voice

float like my fingers

across your skin.

(January 19, 2015)

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a lover’s quick note

by

audacity, erato, eros, interrelationships, love, obsessions, poetry, relationships

hidden deep

in a broken cage

insecurity flutters

like baby birds

upon the ground

stirring cats

with the sound

all our pushing

back and forth

away away

might justly

mean for now

not until

you have gone

so come back

talk again

around my life

like butterflies

dancing about

an open field

of butter cups

and I will share

my vagaries

for you to hear

and laugh at

as if a stick

poking the tired

sleepy bear

(January 17, 2015)

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Dream Journal #18: Lost Without You, part 2

by

borders, control, dream, erato, lost, perspective, poetry, traces

he was there too

intermingled and askew

to the narrative arc

sicker more damaged

grabbing the wheel

on the rain slick streets

approaching the edge

of a bridge over darker

industrial districts

the desk clerk kept asking

his name but he couldn’t

remember his words

but I could but wouldn’t

remember the details

to support his broken steps

through the muddy fields

we both waited on you

until he disappeared

for some reason

I felt responsible

(January 15, 2015)

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Dream Journal #18: Lost Without You

by

desire, dream, erato, hope, interpretation, lost, love, poetry

“No one feels another’s grief, no one understands another’s joy. People imagine they can reach one another. In reality, they only pass each other by.”

— Franz Schubert

in this dream I was ill

some kind of reaction

as if I were drunk or

on drugs but ill

I let slip as I fell

from the hotel ledge

the orb I carried

a symbol no doubt

for some reason

it lost its integrity

loosening its blue

across the ground

and was absorbed

slowly into the field

the dark windows

and glass doors

glimmered

with rain slipping

along the roads

and through the air

I couldn’t cohere

I wanted to talk

to you like now

I knew I could

only speak

honestly because

all fear had fallen

away like butterflies

lifting from a mass

planting of lantana

you were nearby

but I could not find

your room nor

remember

my name

everyone was pleasant

and helpful

except the businessmen

who needed help

from no one

unlike me

I needed you

but I was lost

alone

in the lobby

waiting without hope

for you to hear

these words

(January 15, 2015)

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Declaration

by

audacity, clarity, communication, erato, eros, love, poetry

Know this –

I am transformed

by you

speechless

at a loss

as to what to do

knowing I am

a fool

helpless

hopeless

hapless

in love

(January 14, 2015)

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presence

by

community, interrelationships, poetry

wisps

of people

I love

trace
their patterns

invisibly

ineffably

like the hint

of a rose’s

scent

curls

from a hidden

garden

about me

briefly

then vanishes

into air

(January 14, 2015)

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After the Reading

by

borders, communication, erato, eros, interpretation, obsessions, poetry, ways of knowing

“Eros is an issue of boundaries. He exists because certain boundaries do.”

–Anne Carson, Eros the Bittersweet

as they drove home

she spoke of love

he abstracted

her words with books

oblivious

or perhaps not

to her intent

she could not say

the words before

they came that night

she told him that

out of the blue

as they both danced

about the truth

afraid of what

all this might mean

he shifted gears

and changed the song

spoke of discourse

instead of her

or his desire

eros giggled

along the edge

of what they said

he dropped her off

without a kiss

quite inchoate

like this delayed

analysis

(January 13, 2015)

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the problem with imagination

by

definition, meaning, poetry, traces

“You know the failing of the sign is in itself a sign.”

–Anne Carson, translating Sophocles

too soon one starts to believe

that what one has imagined

has manifested into truth,

while the delusional armor

one has donned to protect

against the daily onslaught

of the mundane and trivial

becomes one’s living tomb

the measure of failure is not

the measure of failure’s success

not to be measured, but what

it attempted to be: the risk

evaporates into absence

without love’s completion

(January 13, 2015)

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