Scooping stars into piles
of constellations, I flatten
the sky to better disguise
the slavering fear nearby.
I place a convenient pattern
like a map upon my wall
where it becomes a window
through which to see my world.
These visions I inscribe
past the depth of my skin,
until my haggard bones
echo the story within.
(March 4, 2024)
“to think is essentially to err”
—Fernando Pessoa
The pattern changes as the weather:
flights directly overhead, if clear;
or off to the right banking in low,
if the clouds hang close to the ground.
Each afternoon from the northwest,
private jets slide diagonally across
my circle’s diameter heading home.
While I am alone with nowhere to go.
I should know better, but I don’t.
Each day, the hours become obstacles,
and the waiting becomes what is left.
The days are filled with possibility,
only to be poured out like mop water
emptying into an infinite night.
(February 29, 2024)
the daily maintenance is neglected
until it is forgotten and the hinge
rusts upon the gate no one uses
the yard’s overgrown with winter grass
and must be mowed for the wild flowers
to grow into their spring explosions
the future’s distance vanishes
quickly replaced with another
like tangled weeds in a garden
while close by yesterdays cling tightly
like ill-fitting clothes and what is forgotten
is never enough for forgiveness
(February 27, 2024)
by
A quaver like an old man’s stammer,
I descend like motes of dust for decades
into my final voice; until now, as
I stumble down the hall into the night.
Like my father the year before he died,
I grope my way through the thickening dark.
I do not believe in an inscribed fate;
yet, I am still here now, nowhere else.
A result of fractal mathematics—
one tangential thought into another?
Misdirection became the direction
reaching out like feathers testing the wind
lifting the hawk along a dry thermal
which rises above a desolated plain.
(February 26, 2024)
desperate to play
the young dog
still a pup
at eight months
yips and leaps
about the old dog
who sits
in the morning sun
and watches
a squirrel’s shadow
play across the cypress
(February 23, 2024)
by
the moments
I knew what I was saying
were lies
but spoke none the less
the moments
I should have spoken
but said nothing—
a coward’s act of self-surrender
these embarrassments
I carry with me
like sacks of dead cats
tracking blood down a hall
I regret what I have done
not what I have not
(February 22, 2024)
by
Perhaps, happiness is an aggregate;
moments of bliss embedded in moments
like bits of chocolate in fresh baked cookies,
and all we lack is a cold glass of milk.
Perhaps, the promise religion provides
is but venal desire disguised as hope;
the apple is always just out of reach,
it’s dewy flesh untouched by morning light.
Our jumbled happenstance is rewoven
each day into a more palatable
tale, where the hero becomes a fool
to the children gathered around him
on the days he works in the garden
pruning bits of his life as if roses.
(February 16, 2024)
“There are times all the time the same”
—Robert Creeley
for who is left to pick up
the conversation from the night
before in the park over chess
or years perhaps decades ago
that Sunday spring afternoon
over a beer and a whisky shot
when does the laughter stop
and the slow shambling walk
back to the children’s table begin
where the great nephews seen
only at holidays fear the silent
creature I have left to live within
what do I know of fear
this low-intensity anxiety
which even now gnaws at me
when I have nothing to fear
except a long life with its slow
descent into a lonely trifle
(February 11, 2024)
by
When lost it’s best
to stop and ask
where you are—
but no one knows
beyond our places,
our beliefs.
Even so, we arrive;
our mouths filled
with fresh-turned earth.
Mostly people
we know attend,
chatting quietly.
Then a few more leave,
while others do not.
(February 8, 2024)
by
between grandchildren’s fingers
and the dogs’ happy tongues
my glasses are often smudged
leaving little difference
in wearing them or lying
forgotten on the bedside table
(February 6, 2024)
by
I am not a mirror,
a reflection formed
in images I walk within.
I am lost in the projections
along my surfaces, vague
and inchoate like smoke.
I am not a window
where a stranger
in the street may watch
the pedestrian drama
of my life’s denouement.
I am a sack-cloth bag
stuffed with cliches.
I slip my hand in
to find tattered masks
which fall to dust
as I drape them solemnly
across my skin.
(February 2, 2024)
by
Outside in a bare tree,
the wind chime rings softly
in the cool northern breeze.
The old mantle clock chimes
the approximate hour
slowing a tad each day
if left to its own wiles.
I forget what day it is
and must remind myself
in order to keep up—
since friends and family
grow concerned when I fall
out of sync with their world.
The new puppy runs wild
across the back yard
patrolling the fence line
for oblivious squirrels
while the older dog basks
in the afternoon sun.
(January 31, 2024)
by
I live within walls,
neither inside nor out.
I place my hand as on skin,
softly pushing in.
The resistance is mine,
pliant and divisive:
less a protection
than a prison.
There is no key,
nor knife to slice
the callused flesh,
the polished walls–
only silence to absorb
the incessant whispers.
(January 29, 2024)
by
bare branches lace the grey sky to the ground
as the rain continues into the day
again I wait in a doctor’s office
an event more often than not these days
but what can I say I’m no longer young
outside people drive to work through the rain
I still rise long before the sun rises
as I did for the last thirty-four years
I take naps now instead of commuting
I like that I have nothing much to do
that must be done on someone else’s time
my day’s filled with dogs and poetry
both of which provide a steady rhythm
more suited to the beating of my heart
(January 26, 2024)
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