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My Poetry and Commentary on Life

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Abstract 2

by

chance, control, existential angst, interrelationships, poetry, relationships, traces, ways of knowing

In this photograph, if it were

a photograph, I am a half-formed

smudge in the lower left hand

corner. The room encompassed

moves askew toward a darkened

point of view despite the flash

reflected in a mirror vaguely

fixed in the background blurring

most of the center right with light

splayed like a stock knife thrust

toward the heart. You are there

as well, somewhere, laughing

against the onslaught of it all.

(May 19, 2015)

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Abstract 1

by

attention, change, life, liminal, poetry, transition

as broken teeth dripping blood

against the curb become another

cliché bending doubt’s shackles

tightly around the difference

between belief and word

desire in its primal motion

carves a patterned grace

like morning frost etches glass

defining beneath lace work lines

the distance between us all

(May 19, 2015)

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undone

by

erato, interrelationships, poetry, sonnets

She asks questions

to show a concern

she does not feel:

from each word

she speaks to him,

threads trail

like frayed silk

dissembling

through to skin.

He shivers bone deep

as shadows pulse

through his heart.

Despite her complicity,

he cannot let her go.

(May 18, 2015)

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the psychology of superstition

by

acceptance, life, poetry

Where does it go?

this thought;

this recrimination?

The need to believe;

to absolve oneself;

is that enough?

In the vast maw,

the devouring night,

I am erased.

Nothing is mine,

Nothing my cause.

Nothing believes in me.

As so should I.

As so should I.

As so should I.

(May 13, 2015)

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a silent space

by

acceptance, clarity, fragments, poetry, silence, ways of knowing

I exist within

an ellipsis

three stepping stones

across a pond

a path a pause an emptiness

a last unaspirated breath

(May 12, 2015)

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into the unknown

by

acceptance, clarity, life, poetry, process, sonnets, ways of knowing

what we take for wisdom

as wisdom becomes chains

lost in memory as need

a desire for the other

opened like a wound

the stigmata of the lotus

a corollary caution

to cause a pause

at the consummation

unwanted and unfulfilled

too often unremarked

yet we still must wake

wondering what we know

if we even do or can

(May 10, 2015)

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Totemic Ravens and Rabbits

by

change, definition, fear, identity formation, meaning, poetry, ritual, storytelling, time, ways of knowing

1.

a bent black head cocked

to turn a blacker eye sharply

curious toward a quick interest

what could this be could this be

a bit of torn flesh or a shiny

sparkle of a bauble to fly home

and tuck safely away away today

or to eat now regurgitate later

to feed the clamoring young

and all this must be absorbed

and cogitated within a pause

of a flutter then leap aloft

collecting armfuls of air

to make one’s way back

alas back from this lack

2.

to sit so still and silent

one can hear the twitch

of ruffled fur over skin

so alive to fear of death

each moment reduces time

to a blue translucence like

this cold moment between

the wispy grass as one waits

on passing dogs with laughing

masters to make their way far

enough to leap in tangential arcs

away away away until the dark

briar grows thick and one becomes

lost in anonymity’s thorny charms

(May 6, 2015)

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No Response

by

change, life, poetry, response, silence, sonnets, traces

My words return as wisps,

            partial and inchoate,

                        unnoticed as leaves’

                                    quick laughter

            leaping lightly in the wind

                        from branch to branch

                                    above young lovers’ heads.

I am an echo

            of myself,

a last aspirated syllable

            to falter without flourish

like my father’s final words:

short of breath,

            longing to be heard.

(May 3, 2015)

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Anthropological Perspectives

by

anger, control, critical theory, happiness, interrelationships, meaning, poetry, ways of knowing

“…excavated our mouths.)”

–Rene Char

What we said differs

from their fragmented

and curated reduction:

they heard only themselves

in what we said, never

the complexity of the song,

the harmony of the whole.

There is no discussion

without trust; we cannot

extract from the common

tongue of our understandings

a meaning which translates

the transcendent life

in the cauterized eyes,

the erasures, and shattered

lives. What words remain

embed in jaws clinched

tight with genetic anger;

our lacerated tongues

draped across broken teeth.

(May 2, 2015)

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Lately,

by

change, poetry, process, writing

all my poems remain

unfinished: they begin,

then not so much end

as fade, like dawn’s erasures

of night’s deeper pulse,

or youth’s slow denouement.

(May 2, 2015)

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paradigm shift

by

breach, change, life, paradigm shifts, poetry, transition

then

some time

opens some

where

a lesion

in stasis

a slow ooze

into a world

turning now

beneath tired

broken feet

without

a transition

to quickened dust

like the last

blood drips

from a slit

throat into

the sand

(April 30, 2015)

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this modern age

by

death, fate, lament, life, paradigms, poetry, sonnets, ways of knowing

“corpses set to banquet”

–Ezra Pound

bloated heads mouths agape

tongues loll silently free

some lie face down spitting

blood across the table

others slouch faces bent

toward a dark sky in prayer

we wait our turn to eat

with a trepidation

that aches into our bone

the insult of living

inculcates each moment

until we come to know

the feast set before us

will melt away like snow

(April 29, 2015)

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After the Storm

by

memory, poetry, thinking, ways of knowing

“Did he ever hear his own deafness?”

–Roland Barthes

His thoughts’ clutter

enjambed, like a

flood’s detritus

caught in a sluice

clots the flow of

the creek’s slow

meander, stirs

strange connections

between what he

imagines, what he

remembers, and

what happened; until,

no differences blur

the dark horizon

of his silences’

numbing wash.

(April 26, 2015)

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We Remember What We Will

by

fate, fragments, identity formation, memory, narrative, poetry, ways of knowing

“And what

Men desire

With such love

Nothing can

Remove

From their minds”

-Louis Zukofsky

memory’s a fickle master

revising as one wills

one imagines the past

as easily as the future

the death of a friend

reforms a narrative

as a river bed shifts

moving time across

borders of now and then

as easily as closing a door

behind you upon entering

a room full of strangers

reshapes the current’s flow

of what we will remember

(April 21, 2015)

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Spelunking

by

clarity, dissatisfaction, poetry, traces, unstable

Which folds of shadow

do I pull tightly around

my tired flesh when alone

and frightened of being alone?

I desire to disappear, to fade

into an insignificance,

to look away from life

to find some place other,

to whisper a newer space.

Patience atrophies, a dull

ache, deep in a center

I cannot extract with ease.

My secrets exist within

my bone’s striations;

they cling like bats to cave

walls awaiting their portion

of darkness to slip free.

(April 20, 2015)

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