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)
As we arrived,
The blue and and red lights
Flashed across the outside
Of Mamie’s house
Like color wheels
On flocked Christmas trees.
She lay unattended
In the ambulance bay
The back doors swinging wide
As they gathered their gear.
Cool fluorescent light leaked
Into the warm autumn night.
Next to a piece of toast,
In her bright kitchen,
A fried egg grew cold
On a small porcelain plate.
Nearby, the wall phone receiver
Lay askew on the speckled tile floor.
(January 23, 2024)
Do you see the hope, the longing
that waits always unfulfilled
like despair upon a bridge
unwilling to stand balanced
upon the rail, to watch the flow
of the white river through the rocks;
unwilling to decide
which ecstasy to embrace:
the ecstasy of hope—
to fly unimpeded into the sky
as the wax our father shaped
into wings softens with the setting sun;
or the ecstasy of fate—
to accept the freedom the plunge offers
in the froth and blood far below?
(January 20, 2024)
it’s when you believe
you are someone
that the mistake begins
you are not the nail
the crown fell later
far from your loss
what I wanted
never mattered
more than now
and now is too late
to be any more
than a thin fume
a last twirl of smoke
after the ember’s gone
(January 17, 2024)
Outside in the yard,
spring’s green garden grows dormant;
ice holds to the ground.
Petals fall like snow.
As I walk through the garden,
the cold kills the rose.
My son wants something:
I can only be myself.
Winter’s wind is cold.
Ice covers the grass;
Even inside, I am cold.
All my friends have gone.
The low grey clouds hang like shrouds;
the cold grows into the night.
(January 15, 2024)
by
On the concrete bridge
crossing Gilleland creek
near the playscape
in the park, a box
turtle pulls tightly
into its mottled shell
and waits for the dog,
and me, to pass.
(January 12, 2024)
by
“words as residue”
—Gustaf Sobin
Sheared close
to the skin,
we sit waiting
for something
to be said.
What remains
after we speak
are bludgeons
of memory,
a residual gist:
if only words
could be solid
and crystalline.
Instead, dust motes
slip silently
through morning
sunlight.
(January 9, 2024)
the darkness waits
without waiting
as easy as the sun
over lake travis
or whiskey over ice
slowly over decades
roses unfold
then fall upon the floor
the darkness shadows
the light from the window
patience is what is left
a sheen of mist
slicks the lily’s leaf
as light absorbs the dark
back into itself
(January 4, 2024)
another day ends
the night swallows the last light
a new year begins
the old clock rings out
ten minutes behind the time
the night knows no time
fireworks break the light
across the darkest of skies
rain falls to the sea
the morning is cold
leaves have fallen from the trees
for now the wind waits
ring out bells ring in ring out
ring in bells ring out ring in
(January 1, 2024)
by
Each morning,
or late at night,
when difference
thins, I find bits
of cracked mirror
to reflect within:
a book, a memory,
a word, a look.
I cannot believe
this is a mistake,
yet purpose,
like the hope
of redemption,
eludes me.
I am no one;
even before I was
broken, I failed
to cohere. A soft
fear pulses like veins
near the thin surface
of my wrist. I watch
its blue throb into
my ravaged palms
like flash floods
through desert ravines:
the life line, heart line,
love line—as if the blood
can read a divination
past decades and decades
of dust and slow decay;
as if I could discover
a razor sharp enough
to cut the membrane
between night and day.
(December 31, 2023)
I don’t see finishing another book by the end of the year. So here is a list of the books I finished this year. I always add finished because I often stop reading books for various reasons: 1)I forget where I put them, and then when I find them I don’t care anymore; 2) I lose interest; 3) I find the book tiresome, or obvious;4) the book is dreadful; 5) I become distracted and start reading something else. I also add finished as a qualifier, because I sometimes suspect people’s list of books read is more about competition (LOOK, I’ve read a bunch more books than you!) than it is about reading what you want to read. So, here is my list: 2023 books
The Wasteland: a biography of a poem by Matthew Hollis
Black No More by George Schuyler
10 Minutes 38 Seconds in this Strange World by Elif Shafak
The Needle’s Eye by Fanny Howe
Bridge of Sighs by Richard Russo
Less by Andrew Sean Green
When We Were Orphans by Kazaa Ishiguro
Poverty, by America by Matthew Desmond
The writing Life by Annie Dillard
The Dance Most of All by Jack Gilbert
The Overstory by Richard Powers
Forget the Alamo by Burrough, Tomlinson, and Stanford
Demon Copperhead by Barbara Kingsolver
Finalists by Rae Armantrout
Pierre Reverdy Selected Poems translated by Kenneth Rexroth
Gasoline by Gregory Corso.
Breathing the Water by Denise Levertov
Fully Empowered by Pablo Neruda
Flower Wreath Hill, later poems by Kenneth Rexroth
Four Unposted Letters to Catherine by Laura Riding
The Heat Will Kill You First by Jeff Goodell
The Now by Albert Goldbarth
Fathers and Children by Ivan Turgenev
The Fraud by Zadie Smith
Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens
Poetry as Insurgent Art by Laurence Ferlinghetti
An Artist of the Floating World by Kazuo Ishiguro
Good Night, Irene by Luis Alberto Urrea
Diving Into the Wreck by Adrienne Rich
Hermetic Definition by H.D.
Singing at the Gates by Jimmy Santiago Baca
