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My Poetry and Commentary on Life

  • This Writer’s Beginnings: EarlyYears
  • Bread Loaf Influence
  • Rock and Roll High School
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  • Inattentive

    by

    assignment, attention, daily haiku, haiku, hubris, meditation, poetry

    Chopping bell peppers,

    I slice my left thumb deeply;

    blood splats on the floor.

    (October 20, 2019)

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  • Labor

    by

    assignment, attention, daily haiku, haiku, poetry, work

    My feet ache tonight,

    burning like a sack of coal.

    The work week’s over.

    (October 19, 2019)

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  • One Shot

    by

    acceptance, assignment, attention, daily haiku, drinking, haiku, poetry, politics

    Bourbon’s no answer,

    yet, our day begs the question—

    Where else could I be?

    (October 18, 2019)

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  • Instinct

    by

    daily haiku, haiku, poetry

    The Calico purrs,

    and rubs her head against me.

    Where am I to go?

    (October 16, 2019)

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  • inclement

    by

    assignment, daily haiku, education, haiku, poetry, students, teaching

    My classroom is hot;

    my students droop on their desks

    like fruit left to rot.


    (October 16, 2019)

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  • Within a Dream

    by

    abstract, aging, death, definition, dream, end, erasure, poetry

    The sound of my last dream

    will be silence: the silence

    of fog, the silence of fear.

    My last dream will echo

    the clack of high heels

    on wet London streets.

    My last dream will be warm

    like your bare skin beneath

    my hands late at night.

    My last dream will linger

    over the thousand, thousand

    kisses: your lips soft,

    warm, hungry for more.

    My last dream will be free

    of doubt, secure in coherence

    with all the lines blurred.

    My last dream will not wake

    to return me to a place

    it can never know.

    My last dream will be

    a harbor, a sanctuary, 

    a last whispered breeze.

    (October 15, 2019)

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  • Agency

    by

    aging, assignment, attention, daily haiku, haiku, paradigms, poetry, ritual, zen

    I put on my socks.

    The sun slides across the sky.

    I take off my socks.


    (October 15, 2019)

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  • Tired

    by

    aging, assignment, attention, broken, daily haiku, haiku, lament, poetry, work, worn

    Pale in a white sky,

    the moon hangs low this morning.

    I must go to work.

    (October 14, 2019)

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  • Afternoon Saloon

    by

    aging, assignment, attention, daily haiku, drinking, friends, haiku, poetry

    The bar exudes warmth.

    The old bourbon is loquacious;

    our talk’s tangental.

    (October 13, 2019)

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  • Reprieve

    by

    assignment, attention, change, haiku, poetry

    Wind tosses the leaves

    ecstatically to the air–

    Summer is broken!

    (October 12, 2019)

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  • Garden

    by

    assignment, change, haiku, meditation, patience, poetry, work

    All day my eyes ache

    from reading student essays:

    Flowers grow so slow.

    (October 11, 2019)

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  • a fatigue of consciousness

    by

    acceptance, change, clarity, erasure, meditation, poetry, vision

    to erase presence,

    blend into dust

    dancing in sunlight;

    or, to be aware,

    beware, constantly

    of the eternal now

    is not a choice

    between happiness

    and a lived life,

    nor, life and death

    for that matter,

    but compromise:

    to watch the sunrise,

    to see the sunrise,

    despite the sunrise.

    (October 10, 2019)

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  • Awake

    by

    assignment, attention, daily haiku, haiku, poetry
    The rat hid in the space between the wooden beam and the roof tiles,Hiding of the mice

    The cat stalks the bed;

    insomnia’s companion.

    A mouse hides nearby

    (October 10, 2019)

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  • Fall

    by

    acceptance, aging, assignment, change, dance, fate, haiku, meditation, patterns, poetry, process

    Brown tinges on green

    grass like light dancing on wind;

    I’m no longer young.

    (October 9, 2019)

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  • Up Before Dawn

    by

    assignment, attention, daily haiku, haiku, meditation, poetry, time, zen

    The house’s silence

    echoes the darkness outside.

    A wind chime rings once.

    (October 8, 2019)

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