There is always an excuse,
some rationale; but nothing
that’s not infested with fear:
just follow a line across an abyss;
just follow a tale which is not mine;
just follow the next man into time.
But there is never a reason
to surrender one’s life;
never a reason to ramble;
never a reason to leave home;
never a reason to lift my voice
and follow an unheard song.
(November 6, 2023)
by
An early November sun sets slowly
over the neighbor’s house, as I nurse
a tumbler of scotch on the front porch.
The tattered tie-dyed peace flag, I bought
as a counter to the MAGA flags down
the street, flutters in the soft evening breeze.
In her hijab, the Muslim mother across
the street marshals her children on their
regular evening walk. I faintly hear
the suburban high school band jauntily
play their fight song at the stadium
across the way. It’s Friday Night! Israeli
jets in Gaza pummel yet another refugee
camp with righteous indignation, and
none of these complicit ironies escape me.
(November 3, 2023)
by
Over time my doubts
determine the desolation
my regrets and dreams
have brought to me.
It is not a stark moon rising
over dead mountains,
but fetid rot crumbling,
wet grain by wet grain,
into a tangled swamp
from which memory
rises unbidden
like will o’ the wisps.
Foolishly, I pursue them
lashing myself
with shame and horror
at what I did or said
in the smallest instance.
Until I am tied so tightly
to the past that I am,
that I am no longer
able to do more
than lie prostrate
across the ground,
afraid and unforgiven.
(October 31 2023)
by
From a distance
across green fields,
our house appears
idyllic and pastoral.
While unseen beneath
twined ivy vines,
the loose mortar
and ancient beams
await repair.
Crowned with roses
and scented bay,
we face each other,
seeing different paths
of the world we are.
I offer what I have,
as do you, not knowing
if there is enough
in our worn cups
to sustain us
through another year—
trusting love
continually heals
the wounds it creates.
(October 23, 2023)
People mill about
with purpose.
The talk is white, sterile
like casual chatter
at a distance,
yet nearby.
One can discern words,
disconnected from sentences,
like free radicals:
isolated,
but not pristine—
muddy with clarity.
The talk is incessant,
and full of darkness.
(October 17, 2023)
Personal Fitness Program
What if it were God who was the Original Sin,
and he’s been desperate to fix it ever since?
(October 14, 2023)
Parent and Child
We rewrite their lives
to more closely fit our own;
whisper to ourselves
what we had wished to hear
(October 14, 2023)
Chop Wood, Carry Water
“what if poetry isn’t enuf?
watcha gonna do then?
—Ntozake Shange
write the next line,
float along the edge
form thought to thought
without fear of being lost
(October 14, 2023)
by
If you can
If you must
Drink from this cup
Without dying
Without speaking
With a different accent
Without speaking
Of other things
Other lives
Your life for instance
Then you can
Then you must
Walk among us
Without fear
Of the apostate
That nod of the head
That short suppressed laugh
That quick glance of recognition
In some other’s shaded eye
Before looking again at the ground
Lest you expose some other
Thought some other
Older deeper truth
That is yours alone
(October 10, 2023)
by
(8 of pentacles-reversed, rider-white)
I’m not sure
why i continue
to write,
to stack thirty years
of notebooks neatly
upon the shelf
like dead flowers
from old lovers—
But I do write,
cutting lines of memory
like a stonewright
with a chisel,
exacting
bits of my vanity
with each stroke
of the pen until
what is left
is, perhaps,
made more
by what has been
taken away.
(October 8, 2023)
by
(nine of pentacles, rider-whaite)
I wander the garden,
pruning dead branches,
pulling weeds—
Vines grow fat with grapes,
soon to be crushed into wine.
Is this all there is?
The falcon’s claws bite
into this leather glove;
there is nothing to fear.
I’ve stopped worrying
about the day’s trivia.
I know better now.
Another full moon
begins to wane in the west.
Inside, candles burn low.
(October 6, 2023)
by
In the dream
I was Bugs Bunny;
but not as smart,
nor as funny.
(September 30, 2023)
by
(the world reversed— Rider-Waite)
A broken dance is still
the dance. Where I finished
is where I am, without motion.
I arrived at a misunderstanding
of my misunderstandings late:
the promised ecstatic secrets fell
into a heap of exhausted rags,
no chain of roses to hold me close.
Everyone I know have already left.
There is no divinity in this vision;
I am at least that cognizant.
Silence is only silence. I am
intoxicated with joy, and dread
the stagnant pain of morning.
(September 28, 2023)
by
(ten of pentacles, reversed, Rider-Waite)
We face each other. You look
into the house, I to the outside.
Beneath an unrelenting sun,
the streets are hot and bright.
Inside, the house is cool and dark;
the dogs spread across the tiles.
Local lords flash knives like smiles,
while risking other people’s lives.
We stand here at the threshold;
the door is open. With one step,
we enter the square, or the warmth
and comfort of the house.
In the air between us, a coin spins,
and we wait, without moving.
(September 26, 2023)
The sun appears to rise
or fall, which is which
depends, as so much else
with our world, upon one’s
metaphorical point of view.
The earth, like us, just rolls
along its elliptical pulling
away from the sun while
simultaneously falling back,
into a stronger gravitational
field— an easy enough image,
if one desires, for a parent
and child, except that is not
what this poem is about.
Any more than it is about
Ben Franklin’s apocryphal
chair, or Dr. Williams’ red wheel
barrow, which were, as you noticed
no doubt, alluded to in the first
few broken lines at the beginning
of of this poem, before being
relegated to an empty trail
that somehow lead toward
this cave covered in mist
that we cannot enter.
(September 25, 2023)
by
(three of wands reversed, Rider Waite)
the morning opens
clear and calm after a night’s
long thunderous storm
(September 22, 2023)
by
(four of swords, Rider-Waite)
The trees, exhausted and crisp,
drop leaves into summer heat
as perfunctory offerings
to unforgiving gods. A red mist
rises from fresh flesh in the bowl,
leaving a dry remorse to feed upon
as I grow old and frail, and any
residual laughter left falters.
Unlike an old bear hibernating
through a slow winter’s thaw;
nor dormant grass growing
green again after summer’s heat,
I fall into language knowing,
even now, it is not enough.
(September 12, 2023)
