by
Lisps and shadows pulse
an aura about him—grey
partial truths like a tongue
along the edge of a lover’s lip.
He’s seduced into his dreams,
limply tangled with desire
for different words, altered spaces;
until his waking life’s effaced,
and he vanishes into mockery
as if he only existed as parody
of everything he once believed.
(January 25, 2019)
by
to Lisa
from “Change,” a work in progress
Holding Together
For decades now—
I cannot imagine
waking without you.
We move together
like rivers
through the earth.
Even when lost
in tidal shifts,
we are an ocean
holding together
who we are
in the world.
We share this day,
with each small embrace.
(January 25, 2019)
by
from “Change,” a work in progress
Poetry, like dark earth,
contains my strength.
(January 24, 2019)
by
from “Change” a work in progress
Too often, when I find time
to write, the clamor of the day
staggers about drunkenly,
muddling my thoughts. So,
I wait, go for a walk, cook.
Eventually all the falderal
falls away to silence;
and, I write again.
(January 22, 2019)
by
I found myself
without looking
for myself.
Only fools question
and question, then
doubt again.
I was there
from the start;
I simply noticed
where I had been
all along.
(January 21, 2019)
by
from “Change” a work in progress
Finding water,
roots slip past
earth’s grain;
I cannot decide
at which fractured
line to start.
(January 20, 2019)
by
from “Change” work in progress
I am open
as the earth;
all rivers flow
through me.
I walk out
following the sun–
radiant with intimations
from fate– here,
now, light flows
into the dark
forever determined
to be free.
(January 19, 2019)
by
from “Change” a work in progress
Once,
I was
not here;
but still,
I am
today
In time,
I am
complete;
Ouroborus
becomes
the egg.
(January 19, 2019)
Amid twilight’s slow dance,
along a moment’s periphery,
always some other lurks close,
whispering him toward the rocks:
“Don’t stop. Over here, no here.
Somewhere other than where
you are, someone other
than the person you are.”
As the voices rattle like bones
in a box longing to be heard,
he barely notes the susurrations,
never knowing where he goes.
Thus, the lackadaisical waves
slip him limply past the shore.
(January 16, 2019)
by
Like lover’s forgotten notes,
disturbed dreams fold
into night’s pocket. I wake
into another dark morning,
surprised I was still asleep.
It’s wearing to be aware
even in one’s dreams. The days
protective surety thins
and the ground falls away
into air. Too often I return
to you, who does not exist
beyond my desire for you
to exist. Like stepping
suddenly into a forest
clearing, each narrative
trace left from dream,
or memory leads me into
a present space. Not caught
up in past complications,
nor the fractal explosions
on the verge of occurrence,
I notice momentarily
the effulgent light along
The edges of the shimmering
leaves, and I am happy.
(January 15, 2018)
by
Since I do understand the importance
Of narrative, I tell stories without
Telling stories, like now, as I write this
Poem. I’ve created a fiction of me,
Truthfully, yet still a grounded fiction,
Who is speaking to you, someone absent,
As if we were strangers ordered to share
A rough table in a pub. But instead
of talking about the local football
team, or rudely about the government,
I talk to you as if you are in love,
Listening, as I speak, rather than write,
These simplistic thoughts upon this blank page,
And pretend you did not leave years ago.
(January 11, 2019)
by
We exist in mirrors
And shadows, the curve
Of the maze wall.
One way’s through;
One way’s return.
Devoid of shadows,
Absent reflection,
Each moment’s alone
In cold clarity.
Memory has no place
To go, so must be
Continually reshaped
In the turn and return
Of worry and doubt.
(January 10, 2018)
I cannot stop
thinking: thought
takes tangent
from thought
like traces
of bubble chamber
particles, arcs
spin angles skew
to the intent
as if even
a tendency
toward a line
could be maintained
for any strand
to cohere.
(January 6, 2018)
by
(a post-modern renga)
(draft 1–this is the complete 46 stanzas, I will remove the numbers (syllable counts) when I finalize the whole. I am looking for comments
(23)
Lights break auras
As night deepens
The rain. The solstice
Grows closer through the dark;
Grim days shorten.
(28)
Half-way back
To summer’s long heat—
In afternoon hours,
It hurts to step
Outside as if someone
Near waits with knives.
(14)
Patient enough now
To watch all this unfold
Into spring.
(40)
Outside, another cold day:
Most of the leaves have fallen
From the sycamore outback;
Its white bark stands in contrast
To the stark grey sky. Beauty
Lives with our view.
(43)
Nietzsche said, among other things,
We experience only ourselves—
Even when I shift toward you,
It remains me who must see
The shadow which falls starkly
Between us on the floor.
(36)
If no one hears the Eliot allusion,
Does it make a sound?
Or should one pretend
A studied nonchalance
To carry one through the late afternoon?
(39)
Thus, an old ritual snickers
To a close, the porch lights
Turned on, the curtains
Drawn. I feel safe,
Less exposed, contained
With the pattern—
A spider moves toward motion.
(34)
We’ve woven our disparate dreams,
And become subsumed beneath the totality
Like ocean waves rolling upon themselves
Far from shore.
(28)
My anger sits at a distance,
It does not go away—
It whispers discontent
Like whip’s end striking wet flesh.
(41)
Ubiquitous as fear,
The air tightens
Without provocation.
Yet, still we sing,
Sing our song,
As if redemption
Can be gathered
Like bags of wet cotton
Blotched with blood.
(23)
I caught my breath,
And did not speak.
Is writing equivalent
To speech? I loved you,
In silence.
(42)
Self-doubt’s constant
Caterwauling echoes,
Like now— I mock
Attempts to quiet:
Hush, hush
Little baby hush—
All these scorpions
Are your own, each
Tail-strike skitters
Across skin.
(11)
Memory circles back to savage the corpse.
(42)
If only the dead would remain with the dead;
The past cannot so easily be revised—
I know what I desire to have happened;
Yet a mirror cannot be unbroken.
(12)
I can only see what
I think it is I see.
(4)
A lens warps light.
(38)
We are woven through our day
Despite our proclivities
Or desires. A thread’s easy
Enough to trace in retrospect
As being a part to a whole.
(31)
And here I am
Beneath a December moon
Waxing its way
Across a gray night.
Fate, or circumstance,
Is of no consequence.
(36)
He touches his forehead
To the damp ground
In a patterned response
To appease God’s chaos.
Here things are quiet;
Here one pretends
There is this center.
(6)
She waits, then dons her mask.
(7)
He scurries beneath the rain.
(41)
The sideways shift and snip
Clatters across the sand.
It’s easier to move out of the way—
Trouble passes, one remains
To proceed with plodding step
Along one’s path.
(3)
Time’s slow arc
(34)
All the variables led here
As inevitable as this morning’s
Sun striking the sycamore’s white
Bark; no god laughs as our choices.
(14)
A left, a right, a yes, a no:
Life’s crushed to binary.
(16)
I close an eye
To see the obvious
Connection: the moment.
(15)
I stumble step across a bridge
Swinging above a crevasse.
(21)
No saints guide us home,
Nor care how far we fall.
The emptiness opens
Like an aura.
(43)
This morning everyone sleeps in
As fog drifts between the trees
Near the creek and the gray sky.
The last brown leaf has fallen
From the sycamore; the solstice
Passed under a full moon.
(30)
Dusk and dawn, progressive
And simultaneous, flow through
The landscape. Yet, we think
Our futile actions have consequence.
(3)
I’m a lens.
(19)
Like you,
Light bends
Along each wave’s edge
Into separate
And singular parts.
(36)
I live on the periphery
Whispering songs
To the dry wind–
No bold flights
Of choirs or timpani rolls
To assuage the silence
Which surrounds me.
(15)
Edges, like borders,
Allow difference
A false consequence.
(5)
Mirrors are echoes.
(26)
Like Narcissus,
I see only
What I want
To see; like
A song wedged
In my ear,
A flower grows
Nearby.
(35)
Another flower flowers
As if it were made for you
Each flower flowers
From bud to petal fall
The flower flowers
With or without you
(35)
In action, the noun is
Verb without separation.
The sentence inscribed
In bone, slippery as blood
Along a knife’s edge,
Leaks into our veins.
(34)
The sun moves and spins;
The earth spins and rocks;
The galaxy twirls along
Its own circuitous dance.
Nothing stops. I am tired,
And wish to rest.
(45)
The creek behind our house has risen
As the rain has been unrelenting
For the last few days. Work begins
Again tomorrow; over time I’ve grown
Accustomed to the pervasive fear.
(36)
Each day leads to another;
As do such platitudes; thus
We humbly don our daily masks
As those we meet present their own,
Forever and ever.
(12)
Rituals bring comfort,
Like an old dog its bone.
(16)
I keep revising the past—
Hoping for a new denouement.
(32)
She unfolds the origami crane
Next to his bed, but does not
Write the note. Oblivious,
He cannot erase what is not there.
(40)
We make only one choice.
Possibility’s extant only
In possibility. The first
Motion’s desire, which
Collapses upon itself
Continually.
(1)
Choose
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