a dark figure in a black hooded-cloak
moves restlessly near the far bedroom door
who’s there I shout out in a nascent fear
as I sit up in the pre-morning gloom
one dog tilts her quizzical head at me
before slipping quietly back to sleep
(October 4, 2024)
by
no one talks about the moth
after the flame’s attraction:
the charred bits of wing, and thorax,
which sink into melted wax
(September 29, 2024)
by
describe something
in terms of something else
say what it is
by saying what it is not
see the world
by looking away
it is
as if it were
like this
nothing
more
(September 29, 2024)
1)
too often,
too eager
to exist,
I interrupt
to take part
outside myself
2)
too often
too impatient
to follow convention,
I stutter,
or stay, too often,
silent
(September 29, 2024)
by
I finished the RFB selection for October just now. My wife has been telling me that I would probably like “Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead” by Olga Tokarczuk for months now. So, I picked it for my selection for RFB (my book group). Tokarczuk is a Nobel Laureate. The book is a murder mystery by genre, although it was fairly obvious fairly quickly (at least to me) who did it, and why for the most part. When the why was finally made clear, I made the obvious connection to John Wick (although I doubt the novelist was thinking about Wick). I found the constant talk of names —— real and ones given by the protagonist— to be an interesting theme. Who are we really? What do our names say about ourselves? What do the names we call others have to do with how we perceive them/treat them? Etc. Other ideas which could be explored if one was of that bent: what constitutes reality (William Blake quotes), agism, patriarchal power, what country you are from, as well as fate (astrology), and language and how it translates into our life through use and custom. I’m not sure about the meaning of the title, other than it was one of the many William Blake quotes laced throughout the novel. I could probably come up with something if I wanted to spend the time to do so, but I don’t. “Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead” was okay overall, I would not be hesitant to read one of her other books.
by
After wandering lost,
circling familiar trails,
I brought us here again:
a reflection in a mirror
of a mirror’s reflection.
If I turned to you now,
my face in your eyes,
your face in my eyes,
and supposed
a vision of love,
would much change
from what it was,
or what we have become?
(September 26, 2024)
by
Still Life: Trust as a Form of Truth
In the wooden chair
we use on occasion,
next to a house plant
I forget to water;
yet has lived for years,
sits an old guitar
I cannot play.
It’s out of tune,
I’ve been told;
which could be true—
but how would I know
any more than this?
(September 21, 2024)
The chihuahua pup desires in again.
He curtly scratches the sliding door glass,
then stares impatiently into the house.
His alert ears twitch and turn like radar
testing the distant reaches of the house
for his dull-witted human’s slow approach.
Then there I am. He wags his approval
then prances past to quickly patrol the house.
My slow days consist of subtle patterns,
mostly woven through the minutiae of
the dog’s daily routines. He calmly herds
me about as I move from room to room,
sitting patiently nearby as I read,
or attempt to write about happiness.
(September 19, 2024)
by
“We are blind and live our blind lives out in blindness. Poets are damned but they are not blind, they see with the eyes of angels.”
–William Carlos Williams
As the fires slip to embers,
the cave walls grow close.
Only the oldest visions glow
with clarity enough to divine.
Fear was ever the chain
which bound us to the floor,
eyes fixed upon the shadows
eager for tranfiguration.
Outside, the sun has set. It’s dark,
too dark to see our haggard faces.
The new moon has yet to rise,
and heavy clouds obscure the stars.
We huddle closer together, afraid,
whispering our secrets through the night.
(September 17, 2024)
all the meanings, values, irrefutable
definitions we’d/ given ourselves
peel away into broken abstractions.
We have assumed most of who we are,
little of which is true, though believable
within the confines of childhood stories.
After the particulars parade past
with their horrors and delight lost in flames,
we seek solace within our curtained rooms.
Our pets peevishly crawl from the corners
to protect us from the expectations
which cling like the aftermath of a fire.
The shapes and textures of these words matter
for there is little which cannot be burned.
(September 14, 2024)
by
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)
by
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)
by
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)
by
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)
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