subtext

“What is this joy? That no animal

Falters, but knows what it must do?”

—Denise Levertov 

Then without traction, Masie and Ziggy

Skitter across the tile floor to greet me.

When after a frustrating day

Of fruitless errands,

I return home empty-handed.

(September 5, 2024)

I should go, but I don’t.

The silence is too loud

to mask my good-byes.

I pour more whisky,

swirl the ice idly,

then swallow it.

Of course, you arrive late,

in a flurry of hugs.

“I’m surprised you’re here.

I’m surprised as well.

We should talk, I think.

But, of course, we don’t.

I leave the party soon after—

uncertain, why I am here.

(August 31, 2024)

it is difficult enough to speak

while living, to say what we must

and still be honest and true;

the compromises and small capitulations

that allow us to breathe, too often

overwhelm, rendering us speechless.

at best, we blandly whisper behind

set smiles, conditioned over decades

to say only what is expected to be said.

to use the last words left to us,

without vague shades of nuance,

and shape them to our heart

becomes the imperative

which silently devours us all.

(August 26, 2024)

And the day begins again—

I feed the dogs, then let them out

to patrol the back fence line.

With everything in order,

they tumble into the house,

obliviously happy.

They settle about me

as I read the day’s news

full of deceit and death.

(August 24, 2024)

Despite what I say

I am happy mostly,

but lack permission

to be so.

I cloak the day

in jaded irony

to mask contentment

against doubt.

Too often fear niggles truth

into a lie incongruent

with the line I follow. 

Here is where the metaphor goes

awry, like a compass near a lodestone:

I know where I am going,

but am offered other models

best suited to other’s destinations.

A purpose to my wanderings

is defined along the way,

like butterflies descending 

momentarily from their migrations

to alight with a random grace

upon the blue flowers 

blooming in our backyard.

(August 20, 2024)

there should have been flies

but there were none—her mouth 

open in perpetual shock

even now sixteen years later

I can hear her whispered

tongue form words from guilt

to be inlaid on my skin like mahogany 

and rosewood carpentry designs 

embedded across her casket’s closed lid

my life has become my response 

exhausted with little left to say

I wait, finally silent, unvoiced

I should have been surprised

how even the flies stopped 

(August 17, 2024)

it’s enough now

in the late evening heat

to watch the trees sway

in an exhausted breeze

like two drunks in a cowboy bar

as they shuffle desperately

around the dance floor

to a final slow song

longing for some kind of love

before the night falls away

into another morning

where routine smiles

and office chit-chat

mark the passing of time

and no one hears

the chains dragging

slowly through the dust

or the grackles caw

as they settle into the night

(August 12, 2024)

I wait on nothing

as if it were more—

patience is required

for nothing demands

an attention beyond

life’s mundane chores

which interrupt nothing

that exists within

the forgotten moments

when the mind’s silence

turns away from itself

an old man who left the room

only to forget why he left

or where he was going next

(August 4, 2024)

a wet heat hovers

in the morning air

while a slow breeze

curls through the shade

of the live oaks out back

where cicadas chitter

through out the day

and on into the night

cumulus clouds hang

without motion

horizon to horizon

without rain

the earth dries and cracks

days blur into months

(July 30, 2024)

I’m distracted by a book on the shelf

I read twenty years ago, round about.

I tell myself, “No!”— as if I’m a dog

being trained to the leash. What can I say?

I have no discipline, no set system

to help disaggregate my library.

I follow the lead of my obsessions,

finding patterns in the wind driven sands.

Much of my time is spent in delusion,

the remainder lost in the day to day.

If I could only find that one passage

that one line in that poem I read once—

What with so many paths to wander down,
I’m stunned I make any progress at all.

(July 29, 2024)