All day a thick rain
thunders from the darkened sky;
the dogs hide inside.
Pigeons coo, “What’s up with you?”
as the rain begins to wane.
(April 30, 2026)
-
Trying to Look Casual
by
He stopped forgetting,
and began again to see
the shadows in the trees.
No longer willingto hide in oblivion’s
darker eddies,
his questions turnedto soft acceptance,
and he felt free.
Memory shiftedand reshaped itself
to a looser fit,
more comfortableto the details
he wished to deny.
(April 30, 2026)
-
Political Song
by
my resistances arise
through the day
in the wayI see
the trees leafthe roses bud
and bloom onlyto let go
their petalsto the ground
and hereas well as there
in the streetsfilled with anger
is a beautyand a love
which must be heldwith all our arms
and namedwith all our voices
no matter how smallor fleeting
we feel our heartsto be
no matter the terrorslithering nearby
laugh as wellas mourn
sing as wellas scream
see morethan is allowed
see what we weresee what we are
and see whatwe can become
(April 29, 2026)
-
The Difference Between Hope and Desire
by
Both long for some other than exists now,
and then vanish when consummated.
Both, in their hearts, contain a tarnished shardof pessimism which gives them a meaning.
Both are wrapped in a spongey optimismto protect them from dark life’s toxic barbs.
Both are twin aspects of an endless hell:one leads you there, one absconds at the gate.
(April 26, 2026)
-
Forever – is composed of Nows –
by
—11:11am, 81 degrees
After an interrupted sleep,
I am slow to wake
into a muggy spring morning.
The dogs were restless
and anxious all night
disturbed by shadows
shifting across the moonlit yard.
Both now curl at my feet,
silently asleep.
I sip my second cup,
stare out the window
at the sycamore’s leaves
slowly stirring the still air,
and try to start the day.
(April 26, 2026)
-
But Now I’m Found
by
If I understand
correctly, then
I have stumbled
on a rule,
a pratfall,in my case,
accidentally
into a truth.
Not that rulesor truths must
ever exist
necessarily:
here, where I am lost, iswhere the first word falls.
(April 24, 2026)
-
If Truth Be Told
by
The snow, the road,
the woods, the town,
the wild geese, the sleepy cat
are not the snow, the
road, the woods, the
town, the wild geese, the
sleepy cat; the words I use
are not what I am saying.
Like lovers’ conversationslate at night after many years
and a second bottle of wine
are never about what they say:
a metaphor is what is left;
a metaphor is what you fear.
(April 22, 2026)
-
Offering
“Oh, God said to Abraham, ‘Kill me a son.’
—Bob Dylan
I want to write
something other
than this poem;
this trifle;
this moment,
but this is all
I have to give
after another
eventless day.
Another day
which was enough
for what I had
to accomplish,
as this poem
is enough for
it is all
that I have
left to offer.
(April 20, 2026)
-
Pandora
I box them up—
one as flat
as another,
as only our
equivocations
can be believed.
I box them up—pack each tight
into darker,
smaller boxes,
until I can
no longer move.
I box them up—so they cannot fly
deeper and deeper
into a stranger hell
where all we fear
festers with hope.
(April 20, 2016)
-
Waiting on a Null Point
From lackadaisical shadows
beneath a deep summer shade,
Long afternoons stretch slowly
into the lengthening night;
and old conversations drift
into comfortable silences.
Bits begin to fall away.
One idea contradicts
another until only a shape
of what’s not there remains
like ash, from a low fire,
maintains the shape of the wood
before collapsing upon itself,
and all that was there is not
but shadows cast by the moon.
(April 13, 2026)
-
REM’s Stand
A few days ago, I heard Stand by R.E.M. It came out in 1988. It gave me a center-point to hold on to in a stupidly difficult year.
In 1988, Beeville ISD hired me to teach 7th grade English at Thomas Jefferson Junior High School. They had recently changed the mascot from the Devils to the Jets because of the “satanic” overtones of the Devils. It was my first teaching job. I had been unable to find an English position in the Austin area, despite multiple interviews. I figure now that I was a crappy interviewer due to my tendency to mumble, talk fast when nervous, over-intellectualize simple questions and to look everywhere but at the person asking the questions. Or maybe something completely different: I didn’t know then which was all that mattered. Beeville needed an English teacher and I got hired. We moved to Beeville, Texas and I had my first classroom. It was a mistake from the start. Within the first few weeks, I had lost control, even if I had not realized it yet then. Although I figured it out pretty fast, but by the time I did it was too late. The seventh graders ate me alive. For the rest of the year I felt completely lost and unbalanced. It was sad. REM’s Stand (as well as David Wagoneer’s poem Lost, which I had taped to my desk) helped by reminding me to think about where I was amidst the chaos of my life that year. We moved back to Austin at the end of the school year.
This post has its origins in a “prompt” from a friend who asked that we write to memories elicited by various songs.
-
again, too often
The ground shimmers
beneath my feet;
I reach out to find
a wall to steady
the loss of gravity,
until time gathers
the disparate shapes
back into me.
I’ve heard this before—again, too often.
So much so,
I stop listening:
I know how it ends;
we all know the end.
(April 11, 2026)
-
Process
by
I do not sing these songs
as much as mutter
over what I notice
like an itinerant priestparsing last rites randomly
to people passing outside
nevertheless I trust what I saymatters yet to whom or how
I do not pretend to know
there is a truth to poetryI will never understand
for it occurs without my help
I have become resigned to itas with much of my life
things happen as they happen
(April 7, 2026)
-
The Problems With Love
by
He is in a chair in an empty room. It is dark outside.
He is in the same room, in the same chair. Light comes through a window.
He has questions, but is hesitant to ask. Unsure of the answer he seeks.
His uncertainty is his fear. He sits still for hours at a time.
The room never changes. The furniture is static and old.
The room is not the same, depending on where you look. Depending on where you sit.
The room was new once. The room is always empty.
The room filled with furniture slowly over time.
There are windows. They are shut, without curtains.
When the lights are on you can see in the room from the street.
There is nothing to see, but white walls without art.
There are windows, one cannot see much outside.
He holds his breath for minutes at a time.
When he feints, he quickly recovers.
(April 6, 2026)
-
Note on Writing
by
I wrote this a couple of years ago…
“to combat the resistances of language you must keep talking”–Anne Carson
I write most everyday. Since the end of last August, I have filled up two 150-page notebooks, completed close to 80 short poems. I have written, if not so obsessively as now, since I was 15. I write poetry, with the occasional venture into essays like this one. I have trouble with narrative, one event leading into another befuddles me, as does conversation between people. So I do not write fiction. Yet, I do have an interior running commentary on the narrative I am living, snipes and admonitions on my life as it unfolds. To push back against this cruel eviscerating voice, which adheres tightly within my skin, I write. I write to explain the world to myself, to explain myself to myself, to resist the world, which is lain upon me by the world. I write to resist the temptation to settle into myself without a thought. I am uncomfortable in most social situations. It’s discomforting when others try to define me, or attempt to interpret me from my writing. Yes, I am aware that all writer’s expose their minds in their writing. Even writers of fiction expose themselves through their fictional characters. Nietzsche wrote that in the end we only experience ourselves. Yet, I believe there is also a separation from oneself, a leap into the universal other, which occurs when one writes: a transubstantiation of individuality into a larger third person narrator, who watches and observes with more objective, more just, eye. Of course, I also know this is pure bullshit. I am as clotted with my biases and situation as anyone. But it is through writing, through the transformative nature of writing, where a third space can open, and one can enter along with whomever can follow into a changed world, a different, perhaps better place, if only for the time it takes to read the poem. And to keep from being defined, trapped even in these new spaces, I continue to write, to find a way to exist with myself.
(February 28, 2017)
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