If I could peel these veins
from my arms and fashion
them into a noose,
then I’d find a dead tree
to swing upon
like a tattered paper lantern
dancing in an empty breeze.
(August 30, 2020)
-
Moments that Do Not Need to be Accounted
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)
-
self-flagellation
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 enoughfor this—
(August 21, 2020)
-
Afternoon Transience
by
Briefly light lays lace
across the crepe myrtle’s leaves,
then whisks it away again,
before this sentence ends.
(August 18, 2020)
-
Narrative’s Default
by
whose story
your story
my story
some other
someone speakssome listen
some believe
some obey
here the page turnshear the page turn
slow whispers
form a deaf ear
control’s the word’sdarkest destiny
(August 13, 2020)
-
No One Watches the Train Fall From the Broken Bridge (a reading)
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)
-
alone
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 slurrygasping for air
(August 2, 2020)
-
mise en scene
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 shadowshis ghosts his play
like dark French caves
the walls distorted
the shadows bent awayfrom him into a dark
into his larger fears
into his silence
(July 29, 2020)
-
Structures and Forms
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)
-
revision
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)
-
iteration’s torment
from a work in progress: “process, not a journey” (80)
so he thought if
as if she said
what he heard
he thought she
said more
he wanted her
to say more
yet her metaphor
slanted in then
out like a kite
testing the wind
with her string
(July 22, 2020)
-
Fear Lies
by
“Why aren’t you bold and free of all your fear?”
-Dante Alighieri, Inferno, Canto III
as smoke
infuses itself
throughout the house
long after the fire’s extinguished
so fear
circulates in silent eddies
flowing like ravenous minnows
nibbling sharply at our toes
.
my fear lies
within doubt
it breeds
in the crevices
in the misunderstood word
in the scene not played out
it’s brood hatches
hungry needing to feed
skittering along memory
like spiders alive to every
web strand’s tingle
it descends to attend
to the fly’s quick dispatch
(July 21, 2020)
-
Unconsummated
by
Why shouldn’t I?
A wren perched next to a cardinal
like a drunkard on a stool
looking for a bit of trouble:
Am I such an easy fool
to think this wind is for me?
A yes, and a yes, waited unsaid.
(July 21, 2020)
-
a darker shape was always present
by
from a work in progress: “process, not a journey” (78)
after the worst of summer’s heat
we’d sit in the grass
beneath the pecan and cottonwoods
away from the radiant streets and sidewalks
the adults spoke of friends
far away or long dead
they’d laugh and tell stories
which we were not a part of yet
we ran wild through the night
afraid of nothing
(July 18, 2020)
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