by
above the brook’s surface,
as thought insinuates
itself past itself,
and petals escape eddies
to slip downstream
like small silent ships
without consequence,
here, on the rock’s face,
a sheen of mist,
far into the afternoon,
clings to shadows
folded within crevices
like secret notes
tucked furtively
into a back pocket
before she walks away
(February 25, 2018)
four haiku
I use words as walls,
and as balm. These are my hands
I hold out to you.
*
I cannot control
the flailing rising from dream;
the dream controls me.
*
your absence ripples
the nightmare through the next day,
pebbles on water.
*
I need your presence,
your soft breath through the night,
and morning’s first hug.
(February 21, 2018)
in a few weeks it will be
forty years since we went out
for a banal movie and pizza—
forty years, college, a marriage;
three children grown,
and moved out mostly.
We are grandparents now.
Isaac toddles about the house
determinedly going where he goes,
as we follow behind bemused.
I think we worry too much
for the troubles we have. I am
aware they are there, as they are—
yet, so am I, and so are you.
(February 19, 2018)
by
Beauty laughs beatifically at us
who pass by obsessed with desire
and fear for the next distraction,
unaware of each moment’s
kaleidoscope rippling, like an eye
opening, toward a new horizon
in each hesitant step we take.
I open my hand as an offering
to the life we are becoming
inside this present we are in.
Beauty lives here or nowhere:
a dust mote swirls in sunlight
spilling through an open window
into this singular Sunday morning.
(February 18, 2018)
I must tear the lids
from my eyes to burn
past the ritual shrouds,
if I am to walk
into the air and breathe
enough to speak clear.
What I see filters
through a thousand
thousand veils,
thin and translucent
like water swiftly slides
over a spring rock,
glossing the granite
in a thin sheen
which belies its course nature.
If I stop writing
and close my eyes,
then I submit
to the thousand voices
which slip unimpeded
through the dark
like photons streaming
from a sun
I cannot see.
(February 17, 2018)
the silence gave way
to small talk banishing
desire’s remains to memory
(February 15, 2018)
I take off my glasses
and cannot see
with any clarity
more than a little way
my vision’s weak
but sufficient
to navigate within
these blurred horizons
as with any truth
only what’s near
coheres enough
to provide shape
even so few know
the heart close by
(February 13, 2018)
by
as a boy he wrote
all the words
she might say
in old age
he revises
all she said
(February 12, 2018)
by
you present as a variable
an x or a y
an unknown desire
to provide an outcome
for a question
I did not know to ask
each only opens one door
to slip down the hall and out
is to dance the wet grass alone
or sit near the window and sigh
as one grey day blurs into tomorrow
with your answer left unresolved
I do not know where to go
within the variables of my heart
(February 11, 2018)
i hear a line
then forget
between the day’s
distractions
and duties
to write the thought
and so it goes
and later
without paper
I remember
again
then forget
again when
I have time
to write the line
which keeps
eluding me
so little time
to write
to remember
what one sees
enough to detail
the slow flow
of the rain drop
as it makes
its way along
the porcelain
yard ornament
near the old
burr oak
(February 9, 2018)
by
love and fear bond us
the collaborative
notion we are dead
without the other
that god exists
within not without
as the beast devours
the ones on the edge
together we hold
what wisdom we have
in the stories told
as we eat our bread
the dead like god live
as wine in our blood
(February 8, 2018)
by
If I met myself
Would I like him?
Or would I know
Enough to laugh
Derisively and wait
As he packed to leave?
I want to settle
Like dust upon one
Version of myself,
One I can trust more
Than the one I am;
One with the knowledge
Of skin who can forgive
Everything he has done.
(February 7, 2018)
by
As blood from wine,
He is transformed;
The words solidify—
Lift from the page
Like a starling murmur
flows in morning air.
Obsessively, his thoughts
Turn and return
To the slightest wisp
She might, in passing,
Have whispered.
Memory is present
Always to form
A different future.
He writes and revises,
Remembers and reforms,
As if a candle’s smoke
Can reshape a flame;
As if all the words
Are uttered correctly,
He will be reborn.
(February 5, 2018)
subtext 