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My Poetry and Commentary on Life

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A Slow Erosion

by

aging, despair, poetry, sonnets, unstable

turn on the way to work

and another ten years pass

each day ground into meal

for a bread as dry as chaff

such sustenance to feed

a bitterness into a beast

gnawing with dull teeth

on the tidbits of my heart

until little remains for love

to do except stand stunned

at the bored horror of it all

like vacant eyed refugees

waiting for dust of a passing

army to settle to the earth

(April 15, 2015)

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Memory Sift

by

clarity, interpretation, memory, poetics, poetry, traces

I winnow my words

searching to glean

from the random bits

I’ve said and done

some sense of hope

that what I remember

was the way it was

instead of what it seems

(April 11, 2015)

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a meeting

by

existential angst, fear, metaphor, poetry

a spider descends

along a line

connecting branch

to branch;

and like harpist’s

fingers play across

the colored strings,

she knows the way

across the sky,

which strands cloy,

which stands clear.

He waits

In a soft cocoon

to be dismantled.

Black mandibles

scissor the air,

slice through

taut tendon.

Then with a quick pop,

he is dismembered.

(April 10, 2015)

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algorithm

by

change, definition, identity formation, poetry

the time it takes to slough off

the chaff of my personality

to separate who I am from traces

used by others to guide my soul

toward hell is infinitely small

when measured by any device

the mechanics of normality

can devise to compress me

into an unforgiving formula

where any variables are tightly

defined within predetermined

parameters to keep everyone

safe inside the possibility to be

a perfectly balanced equation

which cannot derive into me

(April 9, 2012)

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Ecstasy and Fear

by

erato, eros, fear, life, memory, obsessions, poetry

I think I am finally free,

and then, there you are,

as if you were never gone,

a presence returned,

pervasive, yet just

out of sight, always

shifting, like wolves

near the wood’s edge,

before I can flinch.

Memory’s mosaics

maintain integrity only

within my silent life:

speak to me, and I shatter

with the fragility of glass

searing a moonlit sky;

as once, long before we met,

fireflies rose in a mountain field

shimmering a cool Vermont night.

(April 8, 2015)

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cutting the umbilical

by

aging, change, control, family, identity formation, poetry, storytelling

what comes before us

sends multiple strands

through the warp and weft

of the time allotted us

I try to trim away the false

bits frayed through retelling

but the whole cloth’s tattered

rent beyond redemption

what matters what holds import

after years of listening to stories

is the silence to hear myself

my story told by me to me

free of other’s impositions

and the lies of the dead

(April 6, 2015)

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Love’s Location

by

communication, erato, eros, happiness, love, offering, poetry, relationships, sonnets

where you are matters

less and less over time

if one attends closely

to the unfolding rose

I hold out a hand

open unassuming

a gesture as simple

as the words I write

we read too much

into momentary phrases

veiling our complexities

from joy’s simplicity

truth lives within you

open your heart to me

(April 5, 2015)

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Prison House

by

control, definition, identity formation, poetry, power, response

Shutdown in belief made from brick,

I scratch upon the walls like skin.

My face is clear, but bloodied from constant

self-abuse; the scars pulse like veins

of silver traced throughout the rock.

I could escape, but want for fear

to justify my roiling discontent.

Each word becomes a condemnation,

a sentence written along my bones,

defining in tight lines the boundaries

of what I cannot be, more than

what dust remains arrayed in crevices.

This much certainty I hold close,

I do not believe I believe as you do.

(April 2, 2015)

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mea culpa

by

blame, existential angst, fear, lost, poetry

I was lost

alone afraid

afraid I’d fail

fail you and I

could not say

any of this

to you

because

I had failed

to listen

to you

and I was

afraid

I would lose

you

and be alone

and lost

without you

my love

(March 30, 2015)

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Standing Still

by

aging, change, dissatisfaction, fate, life, poetry, transition

“If I had wings and I could fly

I know where I would go”

–Bob Dylan

I tend to move along an edge watching

the river’s slow meander to the sea.

Before, I liked to float while pondering,

in my plodding fashion, deeper matters.

But now as I wander along these banks,

my thoughts tangled like the trees’ exposed roots,

not sure of the beginnings nor the ends

of one or the other as they all grasp

for a small bit of ground to hold on to,

I wonder at the leaves, like some people,

caught in an eddy’s backwash until it

becomes impossible to continue,

and I simply hang back watching the flow

of my life as it drifts slowly away.

(March 29, 2015)

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Circuitous

by

change, life, poetry

1.

As my paranoia grows,

like moss

across a forest floor,

I return again

to this flagging vision.

2.

Blood flows,

unlike a river,

back into itself,

no exhausted push

through silt

as it filters

into the sea.

3.

I fear I am lost

between a crab-like

exchange of shells

of who and where

I am now and before;

just a quick rattle

of bones in a cup

before clattering

into air.

4.

Oh, Absence,

do not deny

love’s collapse

into the dark.

5.

I take a step

away from who

I am, a step

back to find

who I just was;

and then again,

another turn

finds me gone.

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Justify

by

communication, conversation, identity formation, life, poetry

“by my words

will I be Justified”

–Susan Howe

It matters, though

it shouldn’t, what

words people use;

we define ourselves

multitudinous,

against each other,

mouth to hand,

hand to mouth,

quietly whispering.

The tales told

echo in our own

like bat’s soundings,

finding the edges

of something other

than ourselves;

each life expands

our darkness

like a newborn’s cry.

(March 24, 2015)

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While Erato Muses

by

erato, hope, lament, mythic, poetics, poetry

We wait on words

which will never

be said to us,

soft affirmations

dropped, like rose

petals, in passing.

(March 25, 2015)

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An Absence

by

change, erato, loss, poetry, process

Too tired to scream,

my voice lies open

to a hollow wind.

Where did you go?

Where did I go?

Each moment claws

the crevices, searching

for a last flesh

to render from bone.

As a simple charm,

I hoarsely whisper

your name to the dark.

I can no longer translate

these words into love.

Nothing remains:

a lie I tell myself,

as comfort against

an immanent rain.

(March 23, 2015)

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Dream Journal #21: Past’s Possibilities Linger

by

dream, erato, eros, fate, love, poetry, traces

It was all a jumble of hotel rooms

and fragmented conversations:

large leather chairs near open windows,

late night walks along a river.

But I was there,

and you were there,

and something

passed between us.

Such scraps I cannot patch

as I wake into this night.

Unable to return again

to sleep, I watch the street

lights flicker like fireflies

outside these curtained

windows; and I listen

to her quietly breathing

here in this bed, instead.

(March 23, 2015)

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