
Stop talking. Listen:
eventually someone will speak
to fill the irredeemable silence.
(July 29, 2026)
by

I have a tendency, I’ve noticed, to rush
the ends of my poems, to hurry home,
as if I’m bored with myself as well.
I don’t question any more the days
I don’t write. I know I will write,
because I always, eventually, do.
I know someday it will all end.
My heart will stop; I’ll take a last breath;
I‘ll say one last word. But that’s okay.
Life does not have to be an adventure
full of subtle profundity, and radical awe.
It is more often the slow morning after
sunrise, or mid-afternoon’s summer heat
when nothing moves more than a sigh.
(July 28, 2026)
by
Memory and Imagination are One
details, like mosaics, decades old
around eleven, the adrenaline slow
fall from my red Christmas bike,
ripping skin on loose gravel,
catching the pain across my palms
facts of a sort
followed by conjecture
the sky was winter grey—
I was heading home (from where)
hurriedly (was I late, for what
or just the thrill of speed
or both— fear and joy dancing
together like flames)
perhaps, perhaps
what-ifs’ multitudes unravel
with time and causal doubts
as perhaps twist and spin into now’s
singular, tight, and irretrievable knot
I tell myself I know and knew
the bits of broken glass cohere
but I don’t anymore than I did
I fell, I bled, I must
have made it home
for I am here
(July 20, 2026)

On the other side of the sliding door,
the dogs have not noticed
the rabbit sitting on the patio.
They are, however, immensely interested
in what I am having for breakfast,
eyeing each forkful to my mouth.
Later as I wash plates at the sink,
the rabbit squeezes under the fence,
and the dogs hunt for places to sleep.
(July 21, 2026)

An old man sneezes;
startled, tattered butterflies
flutter to the sky.
Nearby, two bluejays argue
their displeasures with the world.
(July 20, 2026)
by

details, like mosaics, decades old
around eleven, the adrenaline slow
fall from my red Christmas bike,
ripping skin on loose gravel,
catching the pain across my palms
facts of a sort
followed by conjecture
the sky was winter grey—
I was heading home (from where)
hurriedly (was I late, for what
or just the thrill of speed
or both— fear and joy dancing
together like flames)
perhaps, perhaps
what-ifs’ multitudes unravel
with time and causal doubts
as perhaps twist and spin into now’s
singular, tight, and irretrievable knot
I tell myself I know and knew
the bits of broken glass cohere
but I don’t anymore than I did
I fell, I bled, I must
have made it home
for I am here
(July 20, 2026)