there is no time now
I no longer need to be
somewhere else but here
(September 5, 2023)
-
Doors Open and Shut
by
(four haiku with a tanka couplet)
She knocks on the door,
a simple gentle tapping:
Why am I afraid?
Again, she arrives.Her cup is never empty.
Dare I take a sip?
Fish swim in this lake.Do they know they’re in water?
Do I know I’m here?
Would I understandif the fish started to speak?
They don’t, so I don’t.
I take a deep breath, then sigh:Happiness is not a verb.
(August 30, 2023)
-
Time Enough
by
(the page of cups, rider-white)
Since I retired, I am asked what it is
I will do, where I will be traveling,
as if I must have an itemized list
which must quickly be dispatched each morning.
This morning after walking with Maisiebefore the heat became unbearable,
I made breakfast for Lisa and myself,
ate, then drank a leisurely second cup—
Time’s no longer a leather whip and chain:the tight drive to work down I-35,
while mapping out the duties for the day,
the constant need for needless minutia.
There is time enough to read, and to write.There is time enough to be happy—
(August 24, 2023)
-
Life’s Rich Pageant
(nine of cups—aquarian)
This morning’s light
flits shadows,
like a tongue along skin,
over the orchid
on the side table.
Outside the window,
a breeze lightly
ruffles the ivy
on the walls
like cat’s fur.
Today on our walk
around the park,
the dog stopped
frequently
to smell the earth
for rich scents.
Upon our return,
I pour a second cup
of dark roasted coffee,
then sit out on the porch—
to watch the trees
pulse beneath
the cloudless sky
free from metaphor’s
constant desire
for translation.
(August 17, 2023)
-
Barefoot and Profligate
(five of pentacles, reversed—Rider-Waite)
I stand outside a frozen circle;
the sun shatters the air here.
I still use crutches to lean upon;yet soon, they too will collapse.
My walls have fallen to ruins,no need anymore for exits.
The world is a door locked inside.There is no way back.
(August 15, 2023)
-
Self-Inflicted
by
(page of cups, reversed—Aquarian)
Someone knocks. I go.
No one is there,
except for a mirror.
As a form of seduction,I lie to myself
again, then again.
I dress the woundwith doubts and desires;
it opens wider.
Like a fish on shoregasping for breath,
unable to move,
I tell myselfeverything’s okay;
knowing, it is not.
(August 13, 2023) -
Happiness is a Myth
(ten of cups, reversed— Marseilles)
Each morning now,
the heat rises
like an angry bear
savaging
the humid air,
as the earth cracks
beneath wisps
of dry grass.
Last night’s
wine glass
lies broken
melodramatically
near her chair.
Beneath the table,
bits of feathers
languidly
blow past
the sleeping cat.
(August 8, 2023)
-
In My Beginning
(the magician, Aquarian)
to Isaac, age 6a wind chime hangs
in anticipation
beneath an arbora workbench arrayed
almost casuallywith a circular motion
he scoops balls of airinto the swirling clouds
like galaxies fleeingfrom each other
he flutters aboutafter each sparkly bit
all of the elementsall of the senses
all the myriad disciplinesswarm within and without
in an ever-expanding horizonwhich binds him in time
between the bluest skyand the spinning earth
(August 5, 2023)
-
Learning to Write
by
(Page of Cups, reversed, Rider-Waite)
as a boy I believed
my self-deceptions
and hid within them
I wrote, seducingmyself with lies
of happiness
like thin snakesmy doubts curled
within each cup
each what-if cuta new line
through old flesh
until I stooda lacework of blood
upon a silent shore
(August 2, 2023)
-
the rain it raineth
by
(three of swords: reversed , rider-white)
As I started to leave work last spring,
storm clouds darkened the afternoon.
Then the rain and hail hit.
I couldn’t see the lanes,
nor where the exits were.
Traffic slowed, but did not stop.
Lightening flashed, trees fell.
I tried to see beyond the rain.
This morning, the summer sunleaches any remnant of water
from the cracked black clay.
There are no clouds on the horizon,
only the relentless sun. Soon enough
ice will spread over the dying fields.
(July 27, 2023)
-
confirmation bias
I mistrust my poems
when people say
they understand—-
as if I failedto open a space
for an emergent
thought— the sentence
extends like a hand
to help an old man stand
why say what could gounsaid, easier to stay silent,
to allow them to stay
within their thoughts
without my re-inscriptionof a belief they had forgotten
(July 25, 2023)
-
I am a Mirror
(seven of cups, Rider-Waite)
As when one steps suddenly
from a darkened room into
the mid-summer sun, I wake into
the dream, stunned that I forgot.
My cup overflows into this day,
and I drown beneath its visions
of desire and fear. Not my dreams,
but the ones which are allowed.
Do we forget our self each night
when we fall asleep the way
we forget our dreams when we wake?
Or do we linger within each?
I see myself shuffled upon a table,
waiting for an easy interpretation.
(July 24, 2023)
-
Not Unclouded Joy
by
—(Ace of Wands, reversed, Rider-Waite)
Even in spring, leaves fall without
being symbols of death or decay.
As I began to write today,
my pen ran out of ink.
I found another, and began again.
I have floated mostly on a slow rivermeandering through a tended forest.
This acceptance is a form of agency,
like being a teacher or a suicide.
I determine the shapes of the clouds.
On a hill in the distance sits a castle.From here, it’s hard to tell if it’s in ruins.
I don’t know what I’m going to do,
other than not what I have been.
Happiness doesn’t come with clarity.
(July 18, 2023)
-
Signs Within Signs
by
Figs grown fat with flesh
split open offering up
themselves like ripe lips.
Words quickly notedhint toward more than a meaning
that memory can know.
Hunger drives us onto speak, to savor the fruit,
to trust the mythos:
a date, an applea fig just beyond our grasp
which we cannot name.
Seeds cling to the sticky flesh;a warm undulant silence.
(July 16, 2023)
-
To Then Turn
by
acceptance, agency, aging, borders, change, happiness, hope, meditation, pause, poetry, tarot, time, transition
–seven of pentacles, reversed—rider-waite
The ground you stand upon
shimmers like leaves
at an approaching storm.
In this moment fruit hangs
ripe before you. It took years,
decades, to be happy
at your work; to then turn
away. Did you ever know
where you were going?
Does anyone?
(July 14, 2023)
