by
the words were a way out
between the rigid definitions,
the expectations carved in cant
the words slipped along fault
line’s edges; the incongruous fissured
like water through the undefined
the words wore meaning there,
bare and taut, shrugging off
all social niceties for love
the words were love for the world:
the laughter of the sun rippling
the horizon further each day
words were a way to a salvation
from what I was not to become
(June 25, 2018)
by
“Love is the root of everything….Love, or the lack of it.”
— Fred Rogers
like glass resonant in trembled anger
the fear is outrageous and constant
one horrific event erases the next
in an infinite succession of bomb blasts
bludgeoning attention to a bloody slurry
only the noise of the moment matters
and it does not matter even then
but only in the silence it creates in you
the silence of the possibility of dissent
so one must learn to hear without
hearing deafly to see again without
seeing blindly to go with open trust
across the shattered shards of glass
onward into the darkening night
(June 23, 2018)
Inside dream’s not different
than day— I’m pursued
by doubt, dumb beasts
that plod along in herds.
I hurl myself away,
before I am trampled.
I wake bruised on the floor.
Then, embarrassed, without
transition, I return
to bed to sleep. I kick,
and shout out warnings
against the shadows
that crawl beneath my skin,
slowly feeding as they go.
(June 22, 2018)
by
Me, I’m much more mundane:
just piles of clutter collected over
meandering decades: associations
misconstrued; memories cast,
broken, reconfigured again
and then again into iteration
after iteration, before scattered
about the place so willy-nilly
one can barely move without
stumbling, causing stacks to collapse
onto stacks, shifting the only path
throughout this maze as if there
were ever one way to go,
as I was about to find out.
(June 21, 2018)
by
as now, as then
I am a continuum,
an arrayed spectrum—
less division,
than slow flux,
less a singularity
than background noise:
a low rumble in the hills.
I am not an event,
not a dalliance
to be swept away
like the darkness
which clings
along your horizon.
(June 19, 2018)
by
A thick malaise slurs
the day with inarticulate
desires. There is nothing
but dissatisfaction beneath
each prime move. He slips
about the house finding solace
in unread books, in thoughts
of what he might have done.
The pointed questions come:
Why he dawdles over trivialities?
Why he quakes a pauper to his ideals?
Will the last glass of wine be his cause?
Will the safety of his status quo
be the death and guilt of all?
(June 18, 2018)
by
Thanks for thinking of me
she wrote
When do I not? he thought
but did not reply
(June 17, 2018)
To hammer a nail straight
and quick with a few strikes
takes practice— to the point:
I stake myself on a cross,
a basic graph to plot
trends and sequences—
facts and numbers,
numbers and facts,
are so easily turned;
so, perhaps a story here
that can plant the horror
will suffice to save us:
Do you hear that? It is
coming. Martyrs laid
out like drying fish;
where distortions and lies
bend all matter to earth
a fetid stench rises.
In a hell so manifold,
your closest friends
will be devoured.
(June 16, 2018)
The line demarks a space
opened in the word—
As I speak, I see
the air tremble like glass.
The length of time left
demands fealty to the page,
to a resonance with a past
that is only there in mind.
An open window no longer
distorts vision, nor withholds
access to a world other than
the tight confines of this room.
A vein runs my arm’s length,
spilling blood across the floor.
(June 15, 2018)
by
“The limits of my language mean the limits of my world.”
–Ludwig Wittgenstein
Emerson once wrote
that the first circle
is that of the eye.
My self fleshed in words
falls in a circle
that binds me to god.
My world’s in my voice
which whispers close by.
The first circle sees
these limitations
inscribed in thin lines
along the edges
of my fragile skin.
The weight of my words
holds me to the ground
where the air grows thick.
No fairy circles
exist to conjure
magic from a dance
only a few know.
I know my own dance;
each step a new world,
each thought adds new flesh
to my empty bones:
my thoughts embodied
in the day’s motion.
I wander slowly,
head bound in prayer,
obsessively lost
in the ancient turns
one must take each day
to gather the strands
that were left behind
by all the others
who tried to escape.
(June 14, 2018)
by
For years, nothing fit.
I’d puzzle over
patterns; imagine
interweaving strands;
trace lines through tangles;
and believed in gods.
To think is belief
it can be known,
the first delusion.
There’s nothing beyond
reason, but paradox.
No grand unified
theory to connect
everything to all,
each box was its own
design, the pieces
cut with precision.
Now what is in front
of me is enough.
I no longer seek
the last missing part
in my broken heart.
(June 8, 2018)
I am not being
listened to means
you are not being
submissive enough
do not speak
simply act
on my desires
do not question
questions cause doubt
I must not hear
as insecurities
rattle like chains
for me to be free
you must not be
(June 8, 2018)
by
Metaphor turns all
to itself. I am no more
the subject, than I
am the object. Like Delphic
seers speak god’s voice,
the poem moves through me—
changing itself like air
moving slowly across grass.
As a child I’d dangle
my feet in Clark’s creek.
Minnows nibbled my toes
cautiously; I’d sit still
as god listening to prayers
happy in my boredom.
(June 6, 2018)
“Proust had a bad memory,
the only kind worth having
Beckett argues: there’s no remembrance
and so no revelation,”
–Denise Levertov
Like stray cats cautiously
patrolling the periphery,
memory haunts the present.
Even small transgressions
resonate into horror,
for there is no possibility
to repress, a form
of forgetting
inherent with silence,
abused children,
and broken lovers.
The details blur and slip
from one to another,
unfolding their lines randomly
within a new context,
until you realize
what it is
you have done,
and that it cannot
be undone.
(June 5, 2018)
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