subtext

My Poetry and Commentary on Life

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wake into the dark

by

dream, erato, eros, happiness, poetry, sonnets

within an open window

a lily holds

moonlight

within its petals

like a flame cupped

within my hands

our bed sheet slips

from your shoulder

as you turn

toward me in the dark

unaware in your dreams

how such simplicities

keep me whole

within

(November 13, 2014)

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Confluence

by

attention, communication, erato, love, poetry, sonnets

he too sits

nearby listening

for her

slightest move

some word

to confirm

what they want

is still there

within their silent

misunderstandings

almost touching

the next word hangs

between their lips

waiting to be heard

(November 12, 2014)

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I Reach for You Through the Dark

by

audacity, chance, communication, erato, eros, hope, love, poetry, relationships, traces

I over think most except for myself

I tend to skip along humming past there

for those places I turn away at least

glancing above or to the side afraid

if eye contact is made I’ll fail to be

true or I will be me which is worse

either way I’ll be telling lies to pass

through the rest of my troubled day

so when she writes or touches my arm

I question each nuance except my own

desire which provides the multiple veils

to occlude all sense I see hiding there

because I so want to need it to be

within close reach of my consummation

(November 10, 2014)

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a mandala

by

acceptance, attention, poetry

A heart unfolds

bending through anger,

foolish lust, and tears:

a kaleidoscopic twirl

like ravens rising

as one from a dead field,

swirling above bare trees

before settling again

across the ground

like dust falling

upon a corpse’s lips.

(November 9, 2014)

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and again

by

clarity, desire, love, poetry

light coats the wet grass

the full moon leans into me

your bare skin glistens

(November 8, 2014)

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love

by

erato, eros, poetry, traces

“that thing not shadowed”

–Susan Howe, That This

any one

any where

adrift

on air

a feather

hangs

as on

a thread

with less

time

than thought

then twirls

away

on wind

like laughter

or remorse

(November 7, 2014)

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enclosure

by

fate, lost, poetry

I write into my emptiness

No motion

no light

no choice

simple

acquiescence

close the door

fill my silence

the woods rattle closer

(November 7, 2014)

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Listen Close

by

attention, poetry, silence, ways of knowing

“Can a thought hear itself see?”

–Susan Howe, Preface to ‘The Gorgeous Nothings’

To speak of someone

is to speak of myself

in the dark, yet still

turning, find no echo.

I am no more myself

than I am some other.

I think I hear footsteps

following, roughly

pulled and pushed

through my hesitant

misunderstandings;

what I see is shaped raw

like blooded words

upon a tattered tongue.

(November 3, 2014)

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Gratitude

by

clarity, erato, gratitude, life, poetry, response, time, traces

Within the unfolding

flowers, I breathe

a resonant scent

which rises to me

like an unexpected kiss.

Yesterday, I found,

tucked in a volume

of Akhmatova,

a note you wrote

to me years ago.

As most of life,

the matter was trivial,

an acknowledgment

of something I did

which mattered to you.

Your words opened to me

as a final fall flower

opens into the frost,

a last flourish of hope

at winter’s charred door.

We rarely know

how we are touched,

or how much time

will pass us by

before we even notice:

beauty pulses about us

nearby like butterflies;

and within these spaces

of love, we grow into

our truer hearts.

(November 2, 2014)

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Constellated

by

hope, poetry

hope waits

along my edges

almost visible

like a bird flitting

from branch tip

to branch beneath

moon-mottled leaves

I used to know stars

by sight sagittarius draco

orion the bears

of course

but the sky’s darker now

I’m unsure about most

of my life’s smudges

unsure of the connections

between what remains

still I sift patterns

like tattered lace

threading stars

or bees dancing

between flowers

(October 30, 2014)

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Patience is Without Time

by

poetry, time

When one’s flesh is on fire,

one does not pretend

truth waits outside

a clock’s cold compass.

I wait through

the last minute,

watching

the length

it takes

to die in snow.

As if life ends

when one stops

thinking,

or turns upon

a definition.

(October 28, 2014)

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of course

by

conversation, loss, memory, metaphor, poetry, traces

“If some longing goes unmet, don’t be astonished, we call that life.”

–Anna Freud

bits of matter

and they do matter

alive and tucked

into the lines

traced now

by soft fingertips

like a child

learning to read

follows the letter’s

sound which once

echoed the claw’s

scratch across

rough cave walls

or whispered

conversation’s

viscous flow

about a fire

grow

unremarked

from metaphor

used to explain

how we run

along different

routes the same

course like streamlets

slipping along

estranged paths

about the same

rocks until

they circumscribe

our hearts

with new words

for love’s tattered

remnants

of memory’s

more stable day

(October 28, 2014)

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Write Into Myself

by

definition, paradigms, poetics, poetry, unstable

Can I separate the strands between us

as easily as one unwinds the marred

tapestry’s pattern, a simple unraveling

of time, until all that led us here is

but a heap of thread upon the floor?

Can such questions approach an answer,

without putting, once again, pen to paper?

What if I could write the correct phrase,

the right words to square all my edges,

or compose a flowing sentence to justify

all that others demand of me, would I then

be free of all the measured space defined

within some other’s cramped, palsied hand?

(October 26, 2014)

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a constant low-level anxiety

by

existential angst, fear, irony, poetry, unstable

at the window

the persistent clack

of a harpy’s claws

wakes me

into a brighter sun

my shoulders tense

anticipating

before the feathered

shadow forewarns

the sudden

shriek and strike

and I’m lifted

into air

my hands grasp

into nothing

as I’m dropped

trailing my intestines

like red ribbons

across the tattered

sky

(October 26, 2014)

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stasis

by

acceptance, dissatisfaction, fate, poetry, unstable

he

hoards

bits

of repose

found

tucked between

distraction’s

bullying laughter

and his cowardice

which accepts

it all

(October 25, 2014)

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