Owning the room
As he does
With ease,
Insecurity
Blunders
Through the door,
And takes
His place
On the sofa
Near me.
I try to leave,
But can’t.
I’m not sure
Why.
(November 29, 2018)
-
Epilogue
by
abstract, assignment, broken, desire, erato, eros, love, muse, perspective, poetry, relationships, response
“but I was only bruised”
—Denise Levertov
I thought you were a butterfly,
But I was just a construct.
I thought I was an open wound,
But you were not a surgeon.
I thought you were my subtext,
But I was just a shallow novel.
I thought I had healed,
But still I wrote this poem.
(November 27, 2018)
-
Weeks Before Winter Solstice
by
W
“and I am
out with hanterns, looking for myself”
–Emily Dickinson
Despite the lights in the house,
The darkness penetrates.
It assumes positions in corners,
Presumptuous in its domain.
Like lions pace a cage’s confines,
I am lost in loops of thought
Looking for a set of keys
Which will let me inside.
Yet, there is no rest within
Nor without which can comfort
Enough to bring a closure;
Locked in my obsessions,
I worry each item in turn,
Tangled like tumblers at a fair.
(November 26, 2018)
-
How Poetry Works
by
An image like a flower,
something simple, a cliche
even, to distract away
from the slight of hand performed
beneath the mark’s open gaze.
Like now, for instance, you turn
your attention from the poem,
secure in your own slow thoughts;
what you trust to know trembles
as if a leaf in autumn.
Here exists my truth and yours.
I can explain myself true,
in a way that you cannot.
Thus, seeds grow into flowers.
(November 25, 2018)
-
Broken Telegraph Lines
by
Stop. I’ve said too much
to you. Stop. Like smoke,
I hold traces: conversations,
finger tips along my arm.
Stop. I cannot. Stop.
Love crushed me. Stop.
Still you run rampant
through my poems. Stop.
For years without reply.
Stop. I want you still
To say something. Stop.
What vague answers
Can I give you? Stop.
Other than this. Stop.
(November 21, 2018)
-
Archeology of the Present
by
like so many broken bones
scattered on a shaman’s floor
wait to be puzzled back
into our imaginations
these are the answers
I do not know as these
are the questions I am
too frightened to ask
the fragments are small and soft
the edges vague indeterminate
how they are to be returned
whole waits troubled for night
as each day’s tenuous relation
struggles to piece the past entire
(November 21, 2018)
-
Storied Definition
by
Within the parameters
Which define me,
Am I who I am,
Or who I have created?
I revise a simple story
Of which I am a part;
The story compels belief,
And I comply completely.
I am only a part of
this story as a voice
I hear, which stays near
Slightly behind all I do:
I am this voice, this story;
I am my only limitation.
(November 20, 2018)
-
Nothing More
by
“..truth is often nothing more than meaning”
—Trinh T. Minh-ha
I mean–
what can I say,
you know?
I’m just talking,
to myself.
You know
what I mean?
I imagine you
do, since
I hear what
you’re saying–
You understand
what I mean?
(November 13, 2018)
-
Cant
by
“Knowledge of the name gives him who knows it mastery even over the being and will of the god.”
–Ernst Cassirer
The mythos surrounding
Can’t in positivity
Can’t hide the truth
That can’t can
Always be said,
And can occur
Even when said
Can’t can’t.
Ultimately changing
A word can’t change
the word. Limits
Exist that can’t be
Broken, even when
We say they can’t.
(November 12, 2018)
-
Too Many Conversations to Slough Off
by
After the teacher conference
spent listening to others
speak of techniques
to hold their students
locked around an idea
of reading and writing
with little actual reading
or writing of consequence,
I am reminded of a Greek
statue of a wrestler,
who stands silent
scraping sweat and
filth from his arm,
his day done.
(November 11, 2018)
-
Sedation
“How have you made division of yourself?”
–William Shakespeare, 12th Night
In order to feel,
I parse the world.
Behind prescription’s
Veiled violence,
I choke out
A staccato song
Into the resonance
Of the reflected world:
I am you— but
I am not you,
no more than the air
Is our breath
Fogging briefly
The silvered glass.
(November 6, 2018)
-
Source
Often while reading,
I scan the words,
turn the pages,
and then the book
vanishes, and I vanish,
aware of nothing.
To hold nothing,
and have nothing hold,
I desire this freedom–
a breath unnoticed,
as it is
ubiquitous:
Radiant, without center,
I cannot name
my discontent.
A wind, at my ear,
stills as I turn;
yet, still’s nearby.
(November 4, 2018)
-
Dream Journal #33: Binary
He could not sleep
In the dream,
So he wandered,
Without moving
Room to room,
Worrying details,
While obliquely
Hiding
His traces.
Until like a flower’s
Augury For love’s
True answer, he strips
Off the flavors
Of the dying night,
And stands barren,
Without possibility
Within the omnipresent
Never-ending day.
(November 1, 2018)
-
Leaf Fall
by
Somewhere, not here
A field lies open,
Unframed, without
Mind, as if lost,
Waiting on ritual.
In Increments,
I have changed.
Each day dawns
Into itself;
There is no other.
Hear, and here
As well, I
Still seek
Her across
These echoes:
She followed
A fragile winter
Ice across a lake.
I am cold; the wood
Grown dark.
(October 30, 2018)
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