In almost a religious ritual,
he castigates his niggling doubts
in a timid formality of failure.
Even now, as he folds his thoughts
neatly into another inaction,
a new desire falls softly to regret
like crumbs from a banquet table
scatter slowly across the floor.
Doubt and regret feed each other
a fetid feast lavished with fear.
He imagines a different world
free from this hunger, where he moves
forthrightly without pity, instead
of staring blankly at an empty bowl.
(March 14, 2018)
by
moments decades gone by
twist tightly at my throat
I cannot speak beyond garbled
syllables juxtaposed like a collage
each angle cuts a new facet
to bend the light of reason
as prisms blur rainbows
across a darkened wall
I am shattered into colors
frayed and inarticulate edges
until what I once knew whole
fades into inconsequence
and regret like memory reverberates
throughout the gathering darkness
(March 9, 2018)
by
if I could say,
then I would
not have to—
the inexpressible
drives every attempt
to define
Frost’s wall
Stevens’ jar
Eliot’s need
lines and circles—
outside— the other,
the ineffable
nothing comes
from nothing
(March 7, 2018)
an almost symmetrical row
of imitation leather chairs
stretches a divide across
the stark waiting room
we all sit alone
filling out forms
looking at our phones
watching shadows
on the floor slowly
trace time’s passage
in a futile metaphor
(March 6, 2018)
by
I drown in increments.
Pebbles added to my pockets,
like time, pull me to earth.
I’m bored with minutia,
the cynical laugh
in disdain’s cheap fear.
My eyes ache; shadows,
like dark angels, run
with knives between rooms,
searching for something
to clean the blood off
the brain-slicked walls.
(March 6, 2018)
after Rexroth’s translations
In the empty classroom,
I hear the girls laugh
down the hallway.
I think of you,
who is not here.
*
early march morning
spring whispers
on the tree’s edges—
redbud, mountain laurel,
ornamental pear
*
as memory
a mist hangs above the creek
out behind the house.
by noon, it is gone.
(March 6, 2018)
Tangents follow tangents
As I speak. Transitions
Diverge from an initial
Turn in conversation,
Like fractals of ice spread
Across eyes of the dead.
I stop and cannot see
I’m lost in an older tale.
From birth, the labyrinth unfolds:
Where I’ve been, where I go
Tangle as each step implodes
Into my present quandary,
Much as snow sifts across
Barren hills beneath the stars.
(March 3, 2018)
by
Poetry is existence: the bark
Of the primal tongue gnawed
Into the first cave’s wet clay.
I summon myself with words
Others have spoken. They offer
A bastion, a solace to live out.
Each line defines, creates tension
Between what I know and silence;
Where I am, where I leave off.
When reading late at night,
Or walking in morning fog,
I vanish into some other
Like a fish blindly mouthing
Voiceless O’s into the air.
(February 28, 2018)
by
I look to a mirror
And see I am old,
Balding, skin dry,
My beard greyed.
The skin of my hands
Has thinned like plys
Of ice on water, early
Winter mornings.
I first read this poem
My class read today
Forty years ago, when,
Like them, I still believed.
I am old; there is no
Resolution to this poem.
(February 27, 2018)
by
little of what’s said
can pass without
interpretation—
to encompass within
a new language the old,
a translation unfolds
my metaphor of cloth,
my change of clothes,
my understandings,
like an old television,
flickering in the dark,
slips frames unfocused:
alone, I do not know
What’s left to put on
(February 26, 2018)
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)
subtext 