by
“the descent beckons”
——- William Carlos Williams
Despite, or maybe because of,
my meds, I can feel the fall
as it begins. A slow drift
like a leaf, or dandelion,
it lifts for a moment, twirls,
then stumbles, and falls again
into a dark silent lake without
a ripple to disturb the surface.
There is little to do, but wait.
Wait without despair,
for despair is a weight which
drags one deeper into the dark.
So, I wait for a new light to break
across a horizon I cannot see.
by
to kill
without love
without hate
(the mother,
the father,
the monk,
the god,
the city)
is to burn
(nowhere, and
everywhere) and
then be free:
one’s mouth filled
with bloodied words
(April 14, 2022)
The moon behind the pines
through this window
nestles my pillow.
I still plant trees, knowing
I will not see my grandsons
reading beneath the branches.
A mist rises from the creek,
its soft motion mocks
my idle dreams.
I stare out the window,
until I am startled
by the cat, vomiting.
(April 13, 2022)
by
The students used to be enough
of a balm—
their curiosity, their light.
Today the ephemera wears me:
the pointless testing,
the political demagoguery.
It becomes harder to ignore
the razor thin insults,
the slow bleed.
This should be the end—
yet inertia pushes me,
slouching towards another year.
(April 12, 2022)
I feel my life tonight—
the weight, the textures.
There is no wisdom to create
an escape, no simple design
to relieve the recurrent terror.
Outside the wind grabs the trees
by the hair tossing them about
in an ecstatic frenzy.
I step into the growing night
and listen to the trees whip
the pale sky into the dark.
What control I thought I had
flees from me, abandoning
the promise of the light to come.
(April 11, 2022)
The wind grabs the trees
by the hair in base anger.
I have no escape.
I head into the darkness
with no light promised to come.
(April 10, 2022)
by
Becoming too old and short of breath
to climb the ladders myself any more,
the young men working outside nimbly
spring up with growling chainsaws
to cut down the trees and trim off
the tangled branches which were left
for dead after the great Texas freeze
last year in February.
Earlier today on the way
to the bank to withdraw money to pay
the young landscaper, I heard on NPR
an Irish poet pray in a poem to St. Agnes
for his words to be true, cleanly spoken,
and unadorned by the frippery of poetry.
So, I have placed no metaphor here today,
other than what each brings with us to say.
(April 9, 2022)
Anger rose like a bear
growing to its full height,
growling into the trees,
massive arms outspread.
It has been years
since I manifested him;
my meds, like dogs,
keeping him at bay.
Yet, a small thing,
no more than a stone,
easily ignored—
was enough:
he flowed through me,
the adrenaline surged;
my face flushed;
my jaw clinched.
Anger swirled around me,
like a vibration of bees
migrating slowly
across an open field.
I watched it unfold
through me, as easily
as when a child
I watched him shift
from himself into fear.
But I could not run
from myself as easily
as from him. So, I let it
pass. I stood still listening
to silence, and it dissipated
like waves on a beach
chased along by sand pipers.
(April 8, 2022)
by
I feel old today,
because I am old today.
Day breaks each morning.
The sun follows its own path
which we ascribe to ourselves.
(April 7, 2022)
I write once again,
as I have for fifty years,
the page remains blank.
A spring creek flows swiftly past
whispering over the rocks.
(April 6, 2022)
by
Tattered like old rags
I’m tired before it begins:
unravelled from years
of worry and work.
Gravity crushes the light
into the room’s corners.
I move, a fragile ghost,
with slow thick steps.
Once again, I’m pushed
back into the grey chair
to stare out the window
at nothing in particular.
I know what to do,
but the thought wears me.
(April 5, 2022)
the time between
the events they list
in the blurb
they post
after you die:
like now—
as the dog barks
incessantly
at the back fence
as the birds flitter
and chirp
from tree to tree
as the grey cat
sleeps in the rocker
oblivious to it all
(April 4, 2022)
by
An old man smirks
at the wet blood
splashed about
the broken frame
as a charm
against it all.
It is Fear, of course,
who lingers there
like a sycophant
tracing the edges of a room;
for Fear is ubiquitous,
a breeze which clings
to leaves fluttering
against a cottonwood’s branches.
So, you hesitate
to turn the latch,
to take the step
to pass you through,
as if one empty space
differed from another.
(April 3, 2022)
They do not speak.
They have no need
anymore. I know
their lines: their small
talk jokes; the regrets
and lies. After all,
I wrote their voices
out of air into bone
years and years ago.
Still, they follow me
about the old house,
knocking knick-knacks
to the floor; slapping
the back of my head ;
flicking my ears
in bored reprobance;
and they watch, always
watching, like cats
watch birds darkly
through closed windows,
longing to recapture
the life I left
behind with them.
(April 2, 2022)
by
the problem is time
obstructs,
before it
even begins.
most days
eventually meander
near a river,
not
obliviously, but
truculently:
defining
each
second as a
task which finds
relief
only when finished.
yet, evening
eventually
relinquishes
some forgiveness.
(April 1, 2022)
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