I would like to say
I was just visiting
that I had somewhere else
to be where I belonged
a secret place other
than this constant vigil
I would like to say
this was a pleasant trip
that it is time to go
back home again
but none of that is true
I have no where to go
and loneliness is all
that happiness is not
(June 21, 2024)
by
Long vindictive waves
pummel everything
before them like tears.
There is no shelter
from the storm’s dark surge
swallowing the shore.
Like dead jellyfish
pulsing on the sand,
anger’s sting remains.
(June 21, 2024)
I say something.
You hear a window
a smudged image,
vague with familiarity,
despite the angles
of the frames,
or the broken glass
in the dead grass.
We wear our wounds
like overstuffed chairs,
or hermit crabs their shells—
alone and voiceless,
despite what was said,
despite what was heard.
(June 20, 2024)
by
Too many old ghosts walk about today,
leaning against the walls, blocking doorways.
They lounge around the house, reading sad books
they’ve read before, never leaving their chairs.
I wave my hands in the air, futilely
trying to chase them away. Like house flys,
They vanish along the periphery,
only to reappear within seconds.
They are in no hurry to return home,
where their versions of the story can’t change.
They like the nebulous nature of life.
I’m tired of talking to their shapelessness;
I want to slough off their soft vaguery,
and cast them into the unanswered night.
(June 18, 2024)
like the stone drapes
of roman statues
he assumes what
he assumes so do
the others in the room
that what is at the core
is different than what
he presents to our world
what we see is stone
shaped to fool the mind
with polite nods
and sly innuendo
until stone is not stone
but a polite bigotry
(June 13, 2024)
by
Through others we become ourselves.
— Lev S. Vygotsky
We think we are
what we think we are,
because we believe
we think ourselves
into awareness,
that it is us
who is thought
when we think.
I am unsure,
which part of me
is me, and which
part is part
of who I am
supposed to be.
(June 12, 2024)
by
People are always asking ‘what’s the use of poetry?’ The mystery of language, the poetic imagination, and the mind of compassion are roughly one and the same, and through poetry perhaps they can keep guiding the world toward occasional moments of peace, gratitude, and delight.
—Gary Synder
A hammer lying next to a book
of poetry on a table is not a hammer.
The book of poetry is not a book of poetry.
I open the book and read a poem.
I close the book and place it
once again on the table:
Once again into nothing.
I pick up the hammer
some nails,
then go again to work.
What use am I?
(June 10, 2024)
by
false starts
with tired thoughts
begin
in faltered steps
then end
off trail
vaguely muttering
lost
alone
in the dark
like Gretel
without crumbs
to follow home
or a Hansel
to hold on to
(June 7 2024)
by
Summer’s heat hangs thick.
Doves coo through a slow afternoon,
hotter earlier each day.
Beyond shade’s cooler edge,
lizards hunt their prey.
Doves coo through a slow afternoon—
the long heat’s mourning.
(June 8, 2024)
i fear i’ve used time
as an excuse to fail
telling myself for years
if i only had time
then i would be enough
yet now that i have time
i fear it is too late
to take time to write
today for example
instead i took a nap
read watched tv
then finally felt guilty
because i had failed
to walk the dogs
(June 3, 2024)
by
Clearing to a light blue sky,
an early morning wind storm
blows away the humidity
that has hung thick
and foreboding in the air
these last few days of May.
Nearby, a humming bird hovers
quickly about the red canna lilies,
then flits away on a new mission
across the Indian Paintbrushes
and Bee Balm swaying casually
in the meadow out back.
Oblivious, the dogs sleep in the sun.
While softly above their heads,
honey bees and bumble bees
float along the pinkish white
flowers of the Chaste tree
which bloomed overnight.
(May 28, 2024)
Paul Celan—glottal stop, translated by Nikolai Popov and Heather McHugh
I finished re-reading glottal stop, 101 poems by Paul Celan this morning. I cannot say with any honesty that I understand the majority of the poems. At most I see a handful as a totality, and then hints and short glimpses inside the others. (Despite the thirty pages of notes at the end of the volume). I have been reading at Celan for years now. There is always something there that intrigues me and causes me to return again and again, reading multiple translations and volumes of his work over the decades. I first came in contact with him through his poem “Death Fugue.” A horrifying and tragic poem coming out of his experience in the Nazi death camps. A poem I understand he refuted later in his life. But then, how much control does an artist have over their work’s reception once it is released into the world? I will, no doubt, return to him again. He is worth the effort.
by
“Skoal! with the dregs if the clear be gone.
“wineing the ghosts of yester year.”
—Ezra Pound
Last night conversation flowed
freely between wit and wisdom
as easily as comfortable privilege
protects the occasional faux pas.
What wisdom lacks is the bitterness
left with the dregs at the bottle’s end.
Alone this morning, I slowly collect
the mostly empty bottles scattered
about the house like an archeologist
sifting for hints of a civilization
in the shards of broken pottery.
I wash the dishes, slipping my hand
over the soapy crystal, careful not
to shatter the glass against the sink.
Last night’s Malbec has turned slightly.
I pour a glass, and sip a bit anyway.
Skoal! I am the only one still here.
I swirl the glass ruefully, as ghosts rise
from memory to confirm my sour mood.
Memory, after all, can only reflect
the present. Like the glass, it distorts
any clarity dispersed, any veritas
the wine might once have whispered
like a former lover years after the affair:
a version of reality dependent on what
had been said, and how much confirms
what was suspected, and how much must
be forgotten as a form of forgiveness.
(May 26, 2024)
by
I arrive early at nothing, no door,
no prison wall to climb, a vast unknown.
Like time standing still in an open field
with an infinite empty perspective,
all direction the same grey hollowness,
the same vacant stare into cold distance.
There’s no point in looking back for a road;
it too slowly vanished into nothing.
The foreground is without prior context
and smudges vaguely into the background,
as if a charcoal sketch had been erased
haphazardly and without proper care
leaving bits of paper and eraser
debris scattered across an empty page.
(May 21, 2024)
after Fanny Howe
Lisa’s voice and laughter
Lisa singing by herself
The dogs sleeping nearby
Music playing while I cook
Food with friends’ conversation
Wine whiskey and poetry
Reading and writing
Books where sentences shimmer
Fields of flowers
A single rose in a vase
My children grown into their lives
Autumn and Spring blue skies
Slow walks in art museums
My grandchildren’s laughter
(May 9, 2024)
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