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)
-
Resurgent Storm
-
Pruning
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 wayto 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)
-
I Felt Myself Become My Father
Anger rose like a bear
growing to its full height,
growling into the trees,
massive arms outspread.
It has been yearssince 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 unfoldthrough 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 listeningto silence, and it dissipated
like waves on a beach
chased along by sand pipers.
(April 8, 2022)
-
Self Determination
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)
-
Upon my 62nd Birthday
I write once again,
as I have for fifty years,
the page remains blank.
A spring creek flows swiftly pastwhispering over the rocks.
(April 6, 2022) -
Worn Thin
by
Tattered like old rags
I’m tired before it begins:
unravelled from years
of worry and work.
Gravity crushes the lightinto the room’s corners.
I move, a fragile ghost,
with slow thick steps.
Once again, I’m pushedback 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)
-
this is life
the time between
the events they list
in the blurb
they post
after you die:
like now—
as the dog barksincessantly
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) -
The Difference Between Here and There
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)
-
My Ghosts
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 meabout 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)
-
(the problem is time)
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)
-
A Facsimile of a Smile
“hope would be hope for the wrong thing”
T.S. Eliot
I wait to be reborn
in this fallow ground.
Beneath my skin,
my bones hang heavy.
They ache for release.
The muscles tighten
like wire at my neck,
etching a tense smile
across dried flesh.
My lungs grow thick
in earth’s dark blood.
I cannot breathe.
(March 22, 2022) -
A Futile Hope Still
by
The eye is the first circle; the horizon which it forms is the second; and throughout nature this primary figure is repeated without end.
-Emerson, Circles
I cannot focus
enough to see
the edges; nor trace
the slow bend in
the periphery,
horizon’s
vanishing point.
I step forward,
then back ; turn circles,
almost a dance;
it comes no nearer
still.
-
Disembodied Voices
by
Each night
the story lies
in the embers
burning low
through our skin.
One hears more,
as in sleep,
than the tale
crackling
on the grate.
By morning,
we wake
to a stranger
world where
difference echoes
in our whispers
like curls of smoke
across ash.
(March 16, 2022)
-
Ikkyu Reiteration: Epistemology
by
“In the end one experiences only oneself.”
― Friedrich Nietzsche, Thus Spoke Zarathustra
the old sage asks as he dies:
who has my vision—my essential mysteries—
this blind donkey braying
my words off-key?
or the old drunk poetwho renamed himself—
the dream bordello—
then night after night
thirsted for more than water?
(March 6, 2022)
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