If I understand
correctly, then
I have stumbled
on a rule,
a pratfall,
in my case,
accidentally
into a truth.
Not that rules
or truths must
ever exist
necessarily:
here, where I am lost, is
where the first word falls.
(April 24, 2026)
-
-
If Truth Be Told
by
The snow, the road,
the woods, the town,
the wild geese, the sleepy cat
are not the snow, the
road, the woods, the
town, the wild geese, the
sleepy cat; the words I use
are not what I am saying.
Like lovers’ conversationslate at night after many years
and a second bottle of wine
are never about what they say:
a metaphor is what is left;
a metaphor is what you fear.
(April 22, 2026)
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Offering
“Oh, God said to Abraham, ‘Kill me a son.’
—Bob Dylan
I want to write
something other
than this poem;
this trifle;
this moment,
but this is all
I have to give
after another
eventless day.
Another day
which was enough
for what I had
to accomplish,
as this poem
is enough for
it is all
that I have
left to offer.
(April 20, 2026)
-
Pandora
I box them up—
one as flat
as another,
as only our
equivocations
can be believed.
I box them up—pack each tight
into darker,
smaller boxes,
until I can
no longer move.
I box them up—so they cannot fly
deeper and deeper
into a stranger hell
where all we fear
festers with hope.
(April 20, 2016)
-
Waiting on a Null Point
From lackadaisical shadows
beneath a deep summer shade,
Long afternoons stretch slowly
into the lengthening night;
and old conversations drift
into comfortable silences.
Bits begin to fall away.
One idea contradicts
another until only a shape
of what’s not there remains
like ash, from a low fire,
maintains the shape of the wood
before collapsing upon itself,
and all that was there is not
but shadows cast by the moon.
(April 13, 2026)
-
REM’s Stand
A few days ago, I heard Stand by R.E.M. It came out in 1988. It gave me a center-point to hold on to in a stupidly difficult year.
In 1988, Beeville ISD hired me to teach 7th grade English at Thomas Jefferson Junior High School. They had recently changed the mascot from the Devils to the Jets because of the “satanic” overtones of the Devils. It was my first teaching job. I had been unable to find an English position in the Austin area, despite multiple interviews. I figure now that I was a crappy interviewer due to my tendency to mumble, talk fast when nervous, over-intellectualize simple questions and to look everywhere but at the person asking the questions. Or maybe something completely different: I didn’t know then which was all that mattered. Beeville needed an English teacher and I got hired. We moved to Beeville, Texas and I had my first classroom. It was a mistake from the start. Within the first few weeks, I had lost control, even if I had not realized it yet then. Although I figured it out pretty fast, but by the time I did it was too late. The seventh graders ate me alive. For the rest of the year I felt completely lost and unbalanced. It was sad. REM’s Stand (as well as David Wagoneer’s poem Lost, which I had taped to my desk) helped by reminding me to think about where I was amidst the chaos of my life that year. We moved back to Austin at the end of the school year.
This post has its origins in a “prompt” from a friend who asked that we write to memories elicited by various songs.
-
again, too often
The ground shimmers
beneath my feet;
I reach out to find
a wall to steady
the loss of gravity,
until time gathers
the disparate shapes
back into me.
I’ve heard this before—again, too often.
So much so,
I stop listening:
I know how it ends;
we all know the end.
(April 11, 2026)
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Process
by
I do not sing these songs
as much as mutter
over what I notice
like an itinerant priestparsing last rites randomly
to people passing outside
nevertheless I trust what I saymatters yet to whom or how
I do not pretend to know
there is a truth to poetryI will never understand
for it occurs without my help
I have become resigned to itas with much of my life
things happen as they happen
(April 7, 2026)
-
The Problems With Love
by
He is in a chair in an empty room. It is dark outside.
He is in the same room, in the same chair. Light comes through a window.
He has questions, but is hesitant to ask. Unsure of the answer he seeks.
His uncertainty is his fear. He sits still for hours at a time.
The room never changes. The furniture is static and old.
The room is not the same, depending on where you look. Depending on where you sit.
The room was new once. The room is always empty.
The room filled with furniture slowly over time.
There are windows. They are shut, without curtains.
When the lights are on you can see in the room from the street.
There is nothing to see, but white walls without art.
There are windows, one cannot see much outside.
He holds his breath for minutes at a time.
When he feints, he quickly recovers.
(April 6, 2026)
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Note on Writing
by
I wrote this a couple of years ago…
“to combat the resistances of language you must keep talking”–Anne Carson
I write most everyday. Since the end of last August, I have filled up two 150-page notebooks, completed close to 80 short poems. I have written, if not so obsessively as now, since I was 15. I write poetry, with the occasional venture into essays like this one. I have trouble with narrative, one event leading into another befuddles me, as does conversation between people. So I do not write fiction. Yet, I do have an interior running commentary on the narrative I am living, snipes and admonitions on my life as it unfolds. To push back against this cruel eviscerating voice, which adheres tightly within my skin, I write. I write to explain the world to myself, to explain myself to myself, to resist the world, which is lain upon me by the world. I write to resist the temptation to settle into myself without a thought. I am uncomfortable in most social situations. It’s discomforting when others try to define me, or attempt to interpret me from my writing. Yes, I am aware that all writer’s expose their minds in their writing. Even writers of fiction expose themselves through their fictional characters. Nietzsche wrote that in the end we only experience ourselves. Yet, I believe there is also a separation from oneself, a leap into the universal other, which occurs when one writes: a transubstantiation of individuality into a larger third person narrator, who watches and observes with more objective, more just, eye. Of course, I also know this is pure bullshit. I am as clotted with my biases and situation as anyone. But it is through writing, through the transformative nature of writing, where a third space can open, and one can enter along with whomever can follow into a changed world, a different, perhaps better place, if only for the time it takes to read the poem. And to keep from being defined, trapped even in these new spaces, I continue to write, to find a way to exist with myself.
(February 28, 2017)
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Blind Faith
I try to see
what’s in front of me—
but most of the time,
it’s hard to pay attention.
Too often, I’m blinded
just stepping toward a door
which then causes the day
to shimmer inside a memory
like sunlight on the surface
of a creek as it meanders
through the trees. So, I stop
mid-way on my path
to regather myself,
and wait for the moment
to arrive fully formed.
Much as a poem folds
the pretense of meaning
within images which echo
across each other like bats
swerving through the night
searching for food.
(April 4, 2026)
-
Time Enough for Now
by
The dogs sleep in balls
tightly curled next to my chair.
Roses bloom outside.
(April 3, 2026)
-
The Boredom of Fate
I’m bored
as I write
this poem—
Not too much here
that is not mine
to ruminate:
the mistakes,
and broken desires
left behind
in memory
clot the way
with the pretense
of fate. Only fate
is just the past:
I’m here reading
what I write,
because I’m here,
not somewhere else
reading something
else I wrote today.
Somedays are destined
to be something else
which could have
happened somehow
on a warm afternoon
after a yawn or two,
but then didn’t.
(April 2, 2026)
-
No Time at the Present
The dogs are disturbed;
their morning routine
has changed. They know it.
They follow closely
as I do not follow
their daily pattern.
They are anxious
for the future
to be the past,
for their bowls to be
filled with kibble
on time, now.
They know the past
is not prologue; the past
is the future; the past is
now. They know it.
Their dark eyes full
of soul follow me
through the house
wondering why
I do not know anything,
so simple,
about time.
(April 1, 2026)
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