as if suspended
in air by a string—
separate for a moment
from my body— I watched
myself fall suddenly
to the stair’s landing
like a broken puppet
into a bloodied pile
(May 31, 2018)
-
A Confession Must be Heard
by
Much of what I write these days
sounds like a rote confession;
yet, I am no savior, even to myself.
So to hear the nuance thicken
around a verb in my own ear,
I must speak a native tongue;
and like all true stories I tell,
I shape myself to a form
which best suits my desires.
I collect what is at hand,
charting all my little failures
as profound, as if the paucity
of my life could ever be enough
to transcend these humble clichés.
(May 31, 2108)
-
History’s Ground’s in the Dead
by
Thus another pattern
is laid into a palimpsest,
like cities built on cities.
New iterations of schemata
entangle with the old.
Roots strangle roots
turning paths away
from any intention’s form.
The urgent surge searches,
like blind fingers flutter
across dead faces,
invoking ghosts to rise
darkly, to saturate the air
with earthy thickness.
(May 28, 2018)
-
A Stumbled Fall
by
Static allowed no pauses
to slip his supplications
into their conversations.
Filled with honey, his mouth,
spoke too slowly, too low,
to be heard over the swarm
of bees infesting her ears.
The tea cup had no depth
beyond the damp leaves
he fingered metaphorically.
It was too late to go back,
to be what he was not,
to grow his silent desires
from the salted earth.
(May 28, 2018)
-
This is a Portrait of Me
Despite my resistance,
or perhaps as a result,
I live within boundaries,
yet am unable to discern
clean edges, as all walls
fall into grey on approach.
The poem is dark, as you,
who like a peeping Tom,
slip through these words,
hoping to glimpse more
at the window frame open
before you than can be
imagined on your own.
This is a portrait of me
within a frame, a simple
frame, not minimalistic,
certainly not ornate,
for either would provide
far too much that is not
a part of me as if it were;
and, you would believe
these thick lines to be
exposing more to you
than I could possibly
reveal on my own,
as if I do not know
what it is I write.
It is arrogance to think,
on my part and yours,
without blinds one can
see all that exists
within a well-lit room
while standing on the street,
as if life were a simple
sentence tucked neatly
in a proffered book,
like a love letter
marking a certain poem
lovers shared in secret.
Oh, do not tell me how
to see the lines I write,
nor open my words
to finger a wound,
probing for pock marks
to read like Braille
along bloody bones.
Yes, this is me here.
Yet, it is just as much
not me. My borders
extend like language
blurring dialects
with familial tongues.
I refuse to speak
Into the silence
simply to speak,
as if any sound
by itself could be
enough to save us
from our muffled
dread always near.
(May 27, 2018)
-
unrequited
I never answered
the question you did not ask
but I wanted to
(May 26, 2018)
-
one way always remains behind
With each choice
but a shadow,
rhyme’s echo
adds confusion
to the forest tumult.
Do you see
you are lost
in the leaves?
Or like the mantis
do you pray
to a different god,
bending yourself
toward some shade
of urgent green,
which could be you
as no other?
Where one begins
and leaves off
is indiscernible;
the coherence
of patterns
ripple like wind
across wild grass,
fluttering light
into shadow,
mimicking starlings’
murmur in the sky.
(May 22, 2018)
-
Kintsugi
by
I write into the fissures
which slip across my façade
like ice cracking in early
spring rivers. Nothing’s fixed,
but changed. A broken cup
is still broken. Like now,
after years of sadness
inscribed into my skin,
I’m still who I was at ten,
but changed. Each line I write,
each word, fits another bit
into the kaleidoscope’s mosaic.
Each moment becomes a whole,
before fracturing to reform again.
(May 22, 2018)
-
My Son Explains My Poetry to Me
One does not want to find
the body on the floor,
bits of brain and blood flecked
in patterns on the walls.
After decades scribbling
these poems to the page,
reading hundreds if not
thousands of others ,
apparently, I just needed you.
So, please, tell me, my child,
what my poetry means
to an ignorance like mine.
Keeping in mind, the reader
finds what he wants to find.
(May 16, 2018)
-
Blur Into Heaven
The words above the door
replicated and smeared
themselves along the wall.
With one stroke, I saw
what drugs decades before
revealed in delusion:
For a surety,
our projections turn
back proffering chains.
Yet, no chains exist beyond
our myopic visions;
the earth begins and ends
with a whisper, with a shout,
with inarticulate gargling
(May 15, 2018).
-
Supplication
by
My mouth is my wound,
a stigmata of broken teeth
and words. My tongue’s slashed
like ribbons flapping
in the mountain’s wind.
My prayers snap violently
into the icy air’s silence.
I don’t know what to do
now: swallow my own
blood, and drown; or spit
my life onto the ground
to call forth a bitter
beast which I fear
will devour me whole?
(May 11, 2018)
-
Committed to Ritual
The days and nights pass
in calm acquiescence. As
expectations lurk without
patience, sad laughter slips
into conversation’s pauses.
We each drink to avoid the
silent ramifications: there’s
nothing to say; and, what’s said
means nothing. A stock phrase
spills from a stock question
in a communal recitation.
Only empty gestures remain
to conjure, with a hollow
dance, the clichés of love.
(May 10 2018)
-
Unconditional
The tree grabs the light tight
against its lithe branches,
a quick embrace, then release
into the slow evening air,
like a child running to her mother,
hugging her in affirmation,
then dancing away in delight.
(May 10, 2018)
-
Peter Pan
I have no shadow,
it faded like cloth
in the sun.
Light passes through me,
no wall marked
with my absence
to imply a presence
now lost in light.
I sweep my footprints
from the trail
like gardener monks,
leaving all behind.
Not knowing how to fly,
I walk close to the ground
between pulsing shadows;
condemned to watch
the butterflies flit
above the flowers
blooming in the sun.
(May 9, 2018)
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