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My Poetry and Commentary on Life

  • This Writer’s Beginnings: EarlyYears
  • Bread Loaf Influence
  • Rock and Roll High School
  • About

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  • Pebble

    by

    love, paradigm shifts, poetry

    a quick side arm flick
    sends it skipping
    across the lake’s surface
    one two three times it lands
    each touch along the way
    like her hand upon his arm
    becomes a center
    of an expanding circle
    a heart opening to love
    a universe changing into itself
    (June 2012)

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  • Fatherly Advice

    by

    children, family, hope, life, love, poetry

                   for E, Q and L
                            Beauty is truth, truth beauty,—that is all
                            Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know.
                                                                –John Keats
    This is it.
    This is where you are now, always.
    Acceptance is not acquiescence.
    It is not easier, a rabbit warren
    of complexity awaits.
    It is fun;
    create the life you want.
    Make Love
    the priority,
    with others and yourself.
    Never fear, for there lies chains.
    There will always be doubt;
    listen, but not controlled.
    Life is not to wait for;
    it is now.
    Be:  that is All.
    (June 2012)

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  • Ontology

    by

    god, irony, life, paradigms, poetry, ways of knowing

    what is here now
    and only this
    anything else
    sheer conjecture
    a blind pretence
    granting solace
    (June 2012)

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  • Party Talk

    by

    communication, conversation, irony, meaning, poetry, social construction, sonnets, storytelling

    stories hack out spaces about the room
    complaints about traffic work and spouses
    some show she saw or daily news horror
    forms a skin across the conversations
    holds momentarily the life we live
    in recognizable if repellant
    shapes through which we can all negotiate
    with each other for at least one more day
    an impromptu performance of stock roles
    which flower and play out within moments
    the gadfly Falstaff the aging jejune
    the parent and child the cold jaded eye
    we all mouth our lines on cue and no one
    notices we have forgotten the words

    (June 2012)

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  • Envoi

    by

    conversation, language, life, literacy, meaning, poetry, social construction

    and it’s as if they are talking to me
    directly without intercession of the page
    or the intervening interval of centuries
    their voices sharp snide and happy
    inviting me into their conversation
    like hosts at an ongoing dinner party
    here have a drink one of those canapés
    with the soused shrimp quite delightful
    I assure you come meet this person
    and I do and then another and another
    quickly as if I’m absorbed in a book
    which I am as are you who have read
    these words I scribbled down tonight
    as if I were talking directly to you
    (May 2012)

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  • Silence Creates Consensus

    by

    existential angst, irony, life, poetry, thinking

    “Hush, little baby, don’t say a word.”
    so you speak
                as if
    what I say
    to you
    does not
    exist
    as if
    I
    do not
    exist
    as if
    I have nothing
    to say
    because you
    do not
    want to hear
    what
    I say
    so you say
                shhhh
                silence
                shhhh
                no more
                shhhh
                who are you
                anyway
    thus I am silenced
    are we in agreement
    (May 2012)

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  • Rags

    by

    communication, conversation, education, existential angst, irony, language, poetry, ways of knowing


    scraps of language
                residual remains
                            like soap film
    or
    ashy skin
          something still
                to slough off
    my students talk the words
                the words
         weave about them
                like rope
    looped lazily
                across a tree branch
    (May 2012, from Wisp, work in progress)

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  • from Wisps

    by

    irony, life, liminal, meaning, obsessions, poetry

    4.




    it takes so little
    so little to disturb
    my day so little
    to fall down and die
    I take my troubles
    shuffle forward
    step back a bit
    slip side to side
    such indecision
    such quandary
    again repeated
    becomes my dance
    a pebble slaps
    into the dust
    becomes enough
    to shape my lust

    (May 2012, work in progess)

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  • Wisps

    by

    communication, identity formation, liminal, love, meaning, metaphor, obsessions, paradigms, poetry, romance, social construction, thinking, ways of knowing

    1.
    Wisps
    like smoke from a cigarette tip
                            his hand on the bar
    ice settles in the glass
                he coughs
                            clears his throat
                                        and starts to speak
    2.
    my clichés clot
                across the veins
                            of my life
    my clichés clot
                like spilled blood
                            in the snow
    my clichés clot
                my speech
                            with a swollen tongue
    my clichés clot
                all with whom I interact
                            everyday every day
    my clichés clot
                until my heart
                            thickens in disgust
    3. Just Saying
    Not that what I have to say is urgent,
    or even all that amusing;
    but it is what I have to say,
    and that becomes my reason to speak,
    and that becomes my urgency:
    for what I long to say to you
    is, amusing enough, all that I can
    do to show how much I love you.
    (May 2012, work in progress)

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  • Truth Table: as, if, then

    by

    meaning, poetry, ways of knowing

    an ongoing possibility
    a similar proposition
    a difference instead
    to reinforce our now
    as we go along here
    a way opens away
    close by this time
    but still askew to here
    if a compliment
    lies across the table
    as an either/or
    or as a truth
    to be distracted
    then seen as an art
    by what’s reflected
    tangentially to our heart

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  • A Question of Ritual

    by

    communication, conversation, hope, love, metaphor, obsessions, poetry, romance, sonnets

    she lights candles in hope
    she may ignite a passion
    a belief in form fulfilling
    a desired denouement
    yet her solitary act fails
    to come to a conclusion
    he listens to her confession
    her questioned complaint
    he wants to take her
    in his hand offer his help
    yet what succor can he give
    what disavowal of his faith
    together they play their prescribed part
    separate each comes to their own heart

    (May 2012)

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  • Three Attempts at Speaking in Tongues

    by

    communication, liminal, love, meaning, metaphor, obsessions, poetry, reader response, romance, ways of knowing

    “… in order to translate one must cease to be.”
    –Mark Strand           
    1.
    a metaphor is
    a translation
    this open hand
    a form of words
    fossil poems
    emerson said
    diatoms
    to abrade
    my soul
    a metaphor
    for the voice
    I translate
    me to
    you
    2.
    a figure moves
    across a square
    head down
    troubled by all
    the day to
    day travails
    to a sound
    or a thought
    his head rises
    with the sun
    and he’s translated
    into himself
    3.
    he vanished into a story
    he told about himself
    to others when nervous
    or in awkward situations
    or when despite his caution
    he realized he was in love
    for he knew whatever he said
    she would only hear what she heard
    and he could slip safely between
    his simple plot and darker intent
    (May 2012)

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  • Prepositional Spaces

    by

    communication, life, love, meaning, metaphor, poetry, romance, ways of knowing



    “I think you are confusing subject and object, she said
    Very likely, said Geryon“–Anne Carson, Autobiography of Red


    love flows like air
    about you
    the way a cat
    chases bits of light
    about the room
    unlike
    the sentence marching
    from margin to margin
    privileging
    what comes first
    subject predicate object
    lined up like roman soldiers
    instead of air
    about leaves
    as it becomes the tree
    I hear at night
    or
    how the cat moves
    about
    outside
    the house
    between
    the shadows
    of the moon
    (May 2012)

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  • Ontic Grace

    by

    dream, god, life, liminal, love, meaning, poetry, romance

    Sleep’s languor, always already there, 
    embraces us as we lie together,
    warm skin against skin, our limbs
    entangled like roots beneath the ground.
    (April 2012)

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  • Hints and Echoes

    by

    dream, hope, language, life, love, meaning, metaphor, obsessions, poetry, romance

    what if there is rhyme and no reason
    I hear the words I say
    I hear the words you say
    a familiarity without relations
    shadows interlaced in nearby shadows
    despite a pattern no sunrise tomorrow
    an image arises with the promise of a kiss
    a wet exhumation of half-buried desires
    anomalies enact a breach in the dream of now
    an errant moon pulls away from the embracing earth
    a glass trembles a resonance into destruction
    our language shatters like waves over rocks
    (April 2012)

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