In these next darker days,
Shadows walk in laughter
upright and self-righteous,
and we have no where to hide.
Ash floods the bitter sky
filling the streets, the rooftops,
our lungs with thick death.
With no time to cast bones,
our glazed eyes watch
the portents unfold into heaven.
Panicked, we rage in the street,
or cower next to a wall,
a silent witness to the fall.
(September 17, 2020)
by
there is no life outside of this
this body holds no answers
other than its own
I listen to its stories
all the iterations
the looped variations
as if razors inscribe each word
labyrinths within labyrinths
a slow-cut scratch through skin
to bleed heal and cut again
until what is true
what is believed
what is said
intermingle
their incestuous scars
like runes carved
across cave walls
and I have have nowhere to go
and nothing left to say
(September 9, 2020)
by
today is today;
only, today’s different:
today, I am here.
(September 11, 2020)
this body holds no answers
other than its own
I listen to its stories
all the iterations
the looped variations
as if razors inscribe each word
labyrinths within labyrinths
a slow-cut scratch through skin
to bleed heal and cut again
until what is true
what is believed
what is said
intermingle
their incestuous scars
like runes carved
across cave walls
and I have nowhere to go
and nothing left to say
(September 9, 2020)
He stands on a small rock
in the middle of a river;
the water rushes past
an obvious metaphor.
He ignores the danger,
and leaps the gap to land
on the next wet stone
barely within his compass;
And there, as he teeters,
searching for his balance,
he hears the falls hunger,
then is neither here, nor there,
but lost in the churning froth
of some other’s creation.
(September 6, 2020)
by
As the last bits of sun brush
the sporadic clouds in pink.
late August heat flows slowly
across your skin like whispers.
Cicadas, nearby, hum desire to others
who hum along in the distance.
Even the trees are tired, dropping
their leaves like an old man’s regrets.
The moon, of course, rises once more
from the dark, alone and unnoticed.
(August 28, 2020)
by
The words I have
are enough
to tear
my flesh from bone,
to feed
the ravenous voices,
the hundred mouths
which peck,
and gnaw, and savor
my base
foundations
as if blood.
They are enough
for this—
(August 21, 2020)
by
Briefly light lays lace
across the crepe myrtle’s leaves,
then whisks it away again,
before this sentence ends.
(August 18, 2020)
by
whose story
your story
my story
some other
someone speaks
some listen
some believe
some obey
here the page turns
hear the page turn
slow whispers
form a deaf ear
control’s the word’s
darkest destiny
(August 13, 2020)
by
His problem has nothing to do with the train which travels steadily through the night. Everyone is content, if not happy, on the train, reading opinions they already agree with, drinking champagne, eating delicacies imported from foreign countries. They pretend they do not like the food, but wish they could eat as well at home. All of the people on the train are facing the same direction, which gives them all a strange comfort. A few of them look out the windows, but it is too dark to see the trees in the forest. It all follows along so logically, like a math problem in high school where rats scuttle east over well-polished wing-tips at a variable rate of three feet per second. They stop randomly to nibble on discarded bread crumbs dropped with nonchalance by the passengers on the train. Meanwhile the train travels south at a consistent seventy-three miles per hour directly toward the crumbled bridge which once traversed a chasm one thousand feet deep and a mile wide. There is no question at the end that one must answer. However, there is an answer; there is always an answer. No one watches the train fall from the broken bridge. No one hears the explosions as it crashes into the rocks below, or the last cries for help of those who are momentarily still alive.
On a trail nearby the train tracks, a monk moves through the dark as if he has been here before, thinking vaguely of other things. He pauses, peers into the dark, then wanders off along his way. The monk’s tangentially wandering mind is not enough to mark the train’s passing beyond the silence which lingers in the mountains for several hours after the sun has risen again.
(July 6, 2018)
from a work in progress: “Memory and Silence” (83)
without chatter
without books
without the day’s noise
with only gossipy mouthings
within my head
with nothing to shore against
I drown in the slurry
gasping for air
(August 2, 2020)
from a work in progress: Memory and Silence (81)
he spoke to silence
the remnants the shadows
gathered into the ghosts
he played across the wall
they were his shadows
his ghosts his play
like dark French caves
the walls distorted
the shadows bent away
from him into a dark
into his larger fears
into his silence
(July 29, 2020)
by
I started a serial poem back at the beginning of January. The plan was to write 140 poems, each poem’s length pre-determined by a random number generator, ranging from 3-140 syllables. It was to follow vaguely the rules of a renga, where each poem grew out of the one before it somehow, whether through theme, pun, image, or a reply. The number of poems was determined by the number of syllables in a sonnet.
I have reached 80 poems in this series. I hit 40 back at the end of March. I have 60 more to go. I would like to finish this by the end of December, which means I should speed up a bit. LOL. I have never really written under a deadline except for required essays in grad school. However, 80 poems in 7 months is a fairly phenomenal pace for me.
I will now begin to move forward with the third ‘stanza’ while collecting and tightening sections 1 and 2, in hopes that as I reread and work over the first two sections, the third stanza will continue the conversations, if you will, that began in the first two “stanzas,” and the themes and images will continue to echo and grow organically in section three.
A little obsessive, but then what about life is not.
(July 27, 2020)
from a work in progress: “process, not a journey” (81)
summer bears down
without any ambiguity
of phrase
a crucible burns away
the last impurities
without regard
what remains is ash
which with one puff
vanishes
(July 23, 2020)
subtext 