to assuage the beast
i toss my heart into the fire
smoke billows angrily
against the oblivious sky
(January 26, 2021)
-
-
as in fields of broken stone (109)
by
all the ropes and chains
and puppet strings
knotted about
our brittle bones
like love turn us
toward a hell
we’ve compensated for
for years and years
where we coo and flutter
like lonesome doves
*
this is where i am thisis where you are this
is where i need to be
no where else but here
where i followed
continuity’s remains
like snails’ wet traces
through damp vegetal rot
where i find the eyes of the dead
laid on a cold plate
watching the mendicants
offer olives and oil
to a god
who cannot be bothered
to laugh
(January 25, 2021)
-
Permissable Topics (108)
by
we cannot talk about some things
because that causes them to happen
We cannot talk about sexor death or injustice
because they do not exist
we cannot talkof our experience
because it contradicts others
we cannot speak to each otherbecause that could build bonds
we cannot speak of the voicesthat await us at school
at home and in our heads
we cannot speakwe cannot talk
we are not allowed(January 21, 2021)
-
Drowning(107)
by
he walked along the quay and listened
to the waves shush each other
as they lay down on the shore
the moon wove between cloudslacing the waves in white
before they sank beneath the sand
he wanted the wavesto wash it all away
what he wrote what she said
(January 20, 2021)
-
there lies the rub (106)
by
she said you said he said but shouldn’t have
said what you said she said quiet angrily
because what he said dared to disagree
with what she said you said were simply lies
(January 19, 2021)
-
ephemera’s viscous nature (105)
cast off like rubble
from the melodrama’s troubles
the constant clack and tumble
the rush and rumble
swallows my voice with a gurgle
(January 16, 2021)
-
which simple metaphor shapes my day (104)
by
a different time with new shadows
wraps the light in different patterns
more random more abstract less fragile
less likely to crack like a beetle’s
carapace beneath my careless boots
I roam between my vacant daysthen disappear easier than I thought
between quick ire and old resentments
like broken branches slip easily
with the river’s froth across smooth rocks
despite all the engrained justificationsdespite the comprised and contradictory
narratives despite the feral rage
I am who I am stripped of language
laid down since birth like shrouds
(January 15, 2021)
-
A Few Days Past New Year’s
by
A honey bee dances around my head,
searching for something else.
Once, I would have jumped up
waving him away; now,
I shake my head,
and he floats away,
as I will eventually. Now
with less time than I’ve had,
there are no new beginnings
just a slow unraveling.
(January 3, 2020)
-
Slow Read
A few days ago I read about a thing called a Slow Read. You choose a book of poetry by a single author (I added in not a collected works), then each day you read one poem out of that book several times during the day. The next day you do the same with the next poem in the book, and continue until the book is finished. ( I also added in the further restrictions that it had to be a book I had not read yet, and it had to be by a woman). I am starting today. I am going to slow read the 2010 Pulitzer Prize winner in poetry: Versed by Rae Armantrout.
-
shadows near shadows far away (103)
by
as if trapped in a net of shadow
afternoon light through the window
struggles on the opposite wall
to form a coherent pattern where
a difference may be discerned
between shadows near and far away
outside the oak and elm stand muteallowing the air to whisper for them
allowing easy cliches to answer
decades of hardened blood
to answer questions never asked
to form opinions from shadow
as old palimpsests below the scars
re-inscribe the day hour by hour
-
Reflection’s Projections
“the other is the figure of my truth, and cannot be imprisoned in any stereotype (which is the truth of others).”
–Roland Barthes
He is no more this, than she
Permits outside the walls
He hides behind. No trope
To be conjured within, she
Vaguely files her nails,
And thinks of him less
Than what to have done
At the spa. He knows
Her as he imagines,
Not as she is told. She
Believes she does not
Change outside herself,
As much as he desires
Her to be more than both.
(June 15, 2017)
-
what silence waits to give voice
by
how much must be
etched across the glass
like ice across the lake
before I can hear
the ravens in the wood
caw out their hunger
before the dark wings’
fluttered descent disguises
the sharp peck and pull
that is my final vision
what silence waits
as an echo’s first reflection
before it wraps itself again
around the trees like snow
(December 24, 2020)
-
to divine the past (102)
by
from any chance moment
wherever you happen to be
like light and dark dancing
across the forest floor
memory without warning
will step out from a phrase
to raise the ancient dead
the way dust devils
on cool autumn afternoons
will twirl lifeless leaves into the air
like moon-pale bacchants
arms twisting above their heads
then within your next thought
let fall still trembling to the ground
leaving you ashamed for some act
of cowardice or petty remorse
at best remembered less if at all
and then only as a trace of flame
flickering shadows upon a wall
(December 21, 2020)
-
Why I Carry Multiple Pens
by
I went to get a pen
which I normally have nearby,
and forgot by the time I found one
what I was to write.
(December 17, 2020)
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