The Earth is not dying,
we are—
Life’s conveniences ease
us quickly toward our death.
(October 4, 2022)
-
-
eventually we fall
Somedays I am here
more than most:
Thin flesh over fragile bones,
unable to hold a thought
from dream, I wander
from room to room
metaphorically lost
in a house I once knew.
My hand on a window,I feel the winter sun
briefly at my fingertips,
before the shadow falls
between the bare branches
lightly laced in ice.
(September 30, 2022)
-
for days then years
the sadness grew
its tendrils
through the rooms
of their house
casually
laconically
until
it touched
and troubled
their lives
staining all
in a yellowish
brown smudge
as if an old
mattress
tossed to the side
of an abandoned
dirt road
(September 27, 2022)
-
Inertia
by
What can I say?
After years
of writing,
I am tired
of my life
as it is;
and yet,
I’m too tired
to change,
or stop.
So, I go on
writing toward night
as if I had
somewhere to go.
(September 22, 2022)
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Hand on the Gate
Here we are
at last, lost,
wondering what’s next?
Desperate for a redemption
to justify
our petty striving,
we sacrifice our souls
for a future
we will never see.
While the present vanishes,
a silent effect
to an unvoiced cause,
the gate clicks
closed
on its own.
(September 19, 2022)
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Masonry
by
The rough stones, I stack
in a circle around me,
slowly wear the skin from
my fingers until they bleed.
Nearby, but far enough,you too build your circle
mixing traces of blood
into the wet mortar.
This is how we live:each day we wait—
for a new excuse
to slowly bleed out,
then lay the last stoneof our sarcophagus.
(September 19, 2022)
-
dissect each moment in memory
to eviscerate
all that could have been
and all that there was
each day since birth’s cry
to worry the woundprobing the center
as a bee a rose
deeper then deeper
to pin the skin backexposing the flesh
as if broken dreams
to prurient eyes
to recoil in fearuntil a last breath
rises from dry lips
as a final kiss
(September8, 2022)
-
Revising a Poem I Lost 40 Years Ago From Memory
by
Each day that summer as I walked home from concentrated classes at the University (Early Modern Philosophy: Descartes, Kant, Hegel, Hume, Berkeley all in six weeks), I would wave to an old woman who sat on the porch of her disheveled house drinking coffee, I assumed. Each day for a couple of seconds, we would affirm each other’s existence in the other’s life. One day she called out to me, she wanted my help with something. I hesitated — for I had places to go, people to meet all afternoon. I was afraid she would take more time than I had to give. After I negotiated her neglected front lawn, she held out an old alarm clock, “It’s broken,” she said, “I don’t know what the time is anymore.” I took the clock from her crumpled hands, turned the key a few times, and it started to tick loudly. She thanked me, and I went on my way. The next day and the day after that for the rest of the summer, I never saw her again. Although, now and then, for the last forty years, I think of her, her clock, and the time she took that day.
(September 5, 2022)
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Origin’s Layers
by
Pattern’s traces, worn through
repetition, call from dance’s edge;
where shadows pulse like breath,
and flicker leaves against the sky.
I hear only the sharper echoes,
of the little dog at my heals,
whose yips and growls cut past
the surf’s surge far below, but not
the curved contours cloistered
closer to my heart. I am a fool
to trust so blindly in a god,
who allows me to languish
in faith’s certainty, as if
cowardice could protect me
from the final fragile shattering.
The bits and shards scattered
along the broken grounds are
difficult to winnow. I become lost
in a melodramatic reverie
where each memory excavates
a self-abnegation usually reserved
for saints confessing their silent sins.
(September 4, 2022)
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Ikkyu Reiteration: Centered
#CamerasandDancers by Jacob Jonas The Company. Dancer: Jill Wilson. “there the dance is”
—T.S.Eliot
to move from this mountain,
I am nothing;
to return to the temple,still, nothing;
to remain—nothing.
(August 26, 2022) -
Ikkyu Reiterations: Put Asunder
by
The roses you planted decades ago
still bloom despite their age.
A slight breeze dances the trees,
and I remember I must leave soon.
We rest our heads on each other
as rain clouds deepen our night.
(August 25, 2022)
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Ikkyu Reiteration: An Unvoiced Vow
by
For years within years,
I return like an animal.
The withered tree bare of leaves
blossoms again in Spring.
Each moment I have loved you,
for years within years.
(August 23, 2022)
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Ikkyu Reiterations: After a Few Days Alone
Dew upon the grass,
the moon open to the sky,
for years we sing our song together.
Rain and tears flow through my heart
only to vanish in the river’s flow.
Outside the tree’s branches
reach into the dark night.
(August 23, 2022)
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Sunday Afternoon With Friends
by
We drank beer, and
talked about music,
and art, and poetry,
and all the other
inconsequential
moments of life
which make us
more than we are
when on our own.
(August 15, 2022)
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Ikkyu Reiterations: The River Vanishes at the Sea
by
acceptance, aging, change, delusion, desire, despair, ikkyu, life, lonely, meditation, poetry, regret, samsara, time, transition, ways of knowing
All the moans of pain,
all the sickness,
he should have left
lifetimes ago.
All these delays,and distractions
have left him
alone in the world.
In all his wandershis only regret:
he waited too long
to see her again.
(August 14, 2022)
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