by
There is less to do,
less to talk about now.
Where do I lay
my belief like a sack
full of rocks? When
do I shuck off
the tired traces
and stand unburdened?
There is no where
to go, but here–
and finally I have come
to a place I have
always been unknown,
a place that is mine.
(September 18, 2018)
by
advice to my 15-year-old self
Keep writing; it defines you.
you are about to meet your wife;
she is not your current crush.
Your dad is dying.
In a couple of months, he’ll know.
It will take two years.
Except for your wife,
who you do not know yet,
no one thinks like you.
Poetry will save you
now, and again forever:
so read more, write more.
You will become who you are.
Quit German, learn Spanish.
(September 17, 2018)
The cat sleeps nearby;
I ma cold and need a nap:
the day fills with tasks.
**
Snow on bare branches
melts as fresh green buds beckon
after the sun’s light.
**
Light rain saturates
the garden after a grey week,
I write listlessly.
(September 15, 2018)
by
The sadness in the open rose
falls like petals to the path,
while you are somewhere else,
and I am nowhere near.
I hold on to the shreds
as a cicada’s husk
to a tree still clings
to a life not its own.
All maps are tattered
to an unstable memory–
which forms and reforms
until a landscape adheres.
Slowly I have fallen onto
a shapeless and empty road.
(September 15, 2018)
by
Morning light’s enough,
As my students quietly write—
How we change our world.
Young trees grow to provide shade,
As the old begin to fade.
(September 14,2018)
She moves the block to the right
slightly, turning its axis
parallel to the table’s edge.
It is now as she imagined,
arranged in her mind’s symmetry,
aligned with the larger world.
Life would be easier if only
every one would take care
of everything instead of her.
But they don’t. So she does
what she can to help
put things in their places.
Yet the world she desires
rarely mimics the world
she lives within,
and the difference grows
as roots in a forest
askew to any explanation.
(September 7, 2018)
by
The river runs dry,
and he has no bait
for stones. Distantly,
delusion shimmers
a claim on intimacy
somewhere beyond
the moving horizon.
He writes towards
her, casting out lines
in hopes of catching her
in a turn of phrase,
where she will see
herself, and come
to know his slow intent.
(September 7, 2018)
by
I’ve never been free:
approbation and fear
a constant tap-tap
at my shoulder,
as a reminder— “No,
do not go there.
Stay inside this truth.
It’s comfortable here.”
Justly, it is never
too warm to sweat,
nor cold enough to shiver.
There are no bears here,
lost in their quandaries
as to my medial decisions.
(September 3, 2018)
On another night
years ago,
the air, like ash,
still warm
after the burning
day, we lay
in the cool grass
watching the moon,
tangled in the oak
trees, coyly slip
between trailing clouds.
We were happy
and in love,
nothing between us
but skin.
(September 1, 2018)
“All life is a foreign country”
–Jack Kerouac
All my life my tongue
could not curl about
the words spoken here—
my teeth cut my cheek
as I stumbled over
simple words, simple ideas.
I was silenced in simple
misunderstandings, in fear
of the wrong word spoken
too loudly, too softly,
or not at all.
I wish I were
a mockingbird able
to flit between the leaves
singing the song of others;
to speak earnestly around
the mundane bits of life
we share, like now, or mimic
an old man’s nod of greeting,
or children’s laughter outside
this window; or to simply cross
over the border to a home.
(September 1, 2018)
by
My old tai chi master
watched his students
study their college texts,
then laughed explosively
into the silence
of the courtyard,
our open air dojo.
We all looked up
like gazelle’s scenting
the air. He laughed
again, then said,
“There should be a book
on how to watch clouds.”
We looked at him quizzically.
“All it would say
on every page—
Look Up!”
(August 28, 2018)
“chiseller of inaccuracies”
–Fernando Pessoa
I would not speak
if I knew what to say.
There would be no need
to form words around
an unrealized dream.
It is the unsaid
which must be given
shape; which calls us
from its shapeless dark
to speak into existence
what we cannot know.
Yet, I know so little
about so much, I must
speak about it all.
I start where I am
which is always here.
First, I must listen,
discern the shapes
before I can speak.
My words carve out
what is there
from what is not
as the silence unfolds
a new kind of truth.
(August 23, 2018)
by
While the mendacious moan
their pious exclamations
to smother any dissent,
a metaphor translates thought,
holds out the broken leaves
as an offering from the gods,
an opening to move through
to find a different bend
in the light you’ve come to know.
The ground, slightly uneven,
is common enough, a solid
base to build upon.
Simple words whispered
into temples and prisons.
(August 21, 2018)
by
Questions
which remain unanswered,
as if on a student exam,
befuddle me. I wonder
the possibilities: lack of time,
lack of knowledge, lack of trust.
Some stay silent, although known,
because the question
was never asked—or
never formed
clearly enough to be able
to be asked. Or I feared
the answers might be
the ones I desired.
(August 19, 2018)
