My poem “Today’s Lesson” appears in Shantih Journal with many other fine writers. Check it out.
-
Where it Hurts
along all molecules’ edges
and between the atoms’ swirls
in the oxygenated blood
slipping beneath the skin
in all those words never said
and in the silences we hid within
(October 5, 2018)
-
Improvisation
by
at best—
a bird flits
across the yard
with a divine grace
from bush to tree top
as if each wing-beat,
dip, and glide
were planned
more likely— I wing
each moment; in chaos
I flail, arms akimbo—
a cartoon character
only cognizant as I fall
slowly through clouds
into a soft puff of dust
that pocks the ground
(October 4,2018)
-
Palimpsest
Ritualistically
like fingers slide
along rosary beads,
I worry the minutes,
feel the grain
of the past,
then shift between
decades and days
as if idly shuffling
a tarot pack. I heft
each moment’s density
tasting the cold hours’
iron passage
like blood clots
which slowly drop
from bones
strung across
a killing floor.
(October 3, 2018)
-
inside a tattered web
I cannot focus too long
anymore on text
on the flow of sentences
from page to page
or often from word
to word except for
the sounds they make
like small rocks clack
agains a well’s wall
before the ruffled splash
absorbs what small
meaning was left
among the tightly
criss-crossing ripples
(September 29, 2018)
-
tentative
with no cautious
humility
to amend
he steps lightly
through his
incompetence
as if there
were
some place safe
where he could
escape who
he has become
(September 29, 2018)
-
Interlinear Ghost
Am I here?
Can you hear me
anymore?
I am no answer
to your questions,
implied, or stated.
Is this what’s left–
to fade in and out
like a side-show ghost?
Am I here
scratching inside
the house’s walls,
like a rat
slowly dying?
(September 27, 2018)
-
Memory’s Vague
“Chorus But there is no remembering the human mind.”
— Gertrude Stein
Even in the act,
the mind is not
remembered.
Memory is
remembered
as past.
Yet mind
mediates
creation
of a present
past cast
as memory–
a story still
told today.
(September 27, 2018)
-
eye of the storm
in this vacuous world the air is pulled
from these lungs like a scream on a string
a whirlygig’s motion without purpose
other than to click and clack in the wind
as winter branches break against branches
with a self-flagellating destruction
my words flail against themselves in anger
searching for a simplicity not there
I’ve desired to speak since I was a child
but have been hesitant to raise my voice
above the churning storm outside the door
the constant turmoil conspires to control
like a hand at my throat each syllable
until all I could say is ground to dust
(September 26, 2018)
-
the constant
by
as if an aura buzzed
a neon glow along an edge
of a byzantine saint
a low level dread burns
on the periphery of his days
like a star verging on collapse
everything everywhere constantly
distracts toward simple
chaos toward tangents
askew to well ordered
paths desired in his constant
scrabble for affirmation
instead of beatific joy
in the exploding universe
-
Harness
by
aging, broken, definition, despair, dissatisfaction, frustration, haiku, lament, life, metaphor, middle-age, patterns, poetry, ritual, tanka, teaching, work, worn
I step out the door,
Another muggy fall day:
Mules trudge through the field.
Mud slowly sucks at my step;
I shall fall and become earth.
(September 20, 2018)
-
Ballistics
by
The young girl thinks
constantly of the proper
manner to serve
a volleyball true.
The smack-smack
of leather against
the polished wood floor
dominates and supersedes
the hard-lined proofs
of geometry; the arc
and vector, with
the slightest bump,
returns her to the game’s
concrete abstractions.
(September 19, 2018)
