subtext

My Poetry and Commentary on Life

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Clay Feet

by

aging, babies, change, humility, life, love, perspective, poetry, unspoken, worry

to Lilith

I am no god to grant permission,

nor to watch your struggle

and pretend I know any more.

I want to lift you into the air,

to hug you close to my face, but

you are a grown woman now.

I flounder along in my own life.

The easy problems— to kiss

your stubbed toe, and all be okay—

have grown exponentially,

until I am as lost and incapable

as I think you feel. We all subsist,

scrabbling among the rocks searching

for that tasty bit of explanation

that will cause it all to fall neatly

into place, which never happens.

We are all lost in our worlds,

doing our best to love each other.

(July 3, 2018)

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Rothko Chapel: a meditation

by

art, attention, ekphrastic, erasure, fear, liminal, meditation, poetry, prayer, silence, ways of knowing, zen

like stepping into a still pool

deep in a primal cave—

you slip into this silence:

the light breathes, a liquid

luminescence, in slow

arrhythmic breaths,

and you are changed—

you see what you want

to see; desire, fear, hope

flicker across the surface

like faces of the dead,

hesitant and fleeting

until you see only your self

stripped of all significance

(July 2, 2018)

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parallax

by

abstract, aging, change, life, memory, perspective, poetry, response, time, transition, ways of knowing

“they go forwards past

the inclination

darkening corners to form”

–Clark Coolidge

you turned without seeing

the I half-a-step behind

you turned without seeing

the more obvious direction

the direction more obvious

to others standing apart

later this now blossomed

angles to bend new visions

you saw without turning

for they were all yours

ahead of you stumbling behind

the direction more obvious

if only the now could hold

despite its dark form hold

yet edges form corners

and corners form edges

as any form of redemption

turns and then turns again

(June 27, 2018)

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the words were why I wrote when young

by

art, borders, breach, change, chant, definition, gratitude, identity formation, language, meaning, patterns, poetics, poetry, power, resistance, social construction, sonnets, ways of knowing, words, writing

the words were a way out

between the rigid definitions,

the expectations carved in cant

the words slipped along fault

line’s edges; the incongruous fissured

like water through the undefined

the words wore meaning there,

bare and taut, shrugging off

all social niceties for love

the words were love for the world:

the laughter of the sun rippling

the horizon further each day

words were a way to a salvation

from what I was not to become

(June 25, 2018)

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onward into the day

by

abstract, anger, attention, change, courage, existential angst, life, poetry, politics, resistance, resolve, vision

“Love is the root of everything….Love, or the lack of it.”

— Fred Rogers

like glass resonant in trembled anger

the fear is outrageous and constant

one horrific event erases the next

in an infinite succession of bomb blasts

bludgeoning attention to a bloody slurry

only the noise of the moment matters

and it does not matter even then

but only in the silence it creates in you

the silence of the possibility of dissent

so one must learn to hear without

hearing deafly to see again without

seeing blindly to go with open trust

across the shattered shards of glass

onward into the darkening night

(June 23, 2018)

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Even Sleep Worries Me Now

by

aging, borders, breach, control, doubt, poetry, sonnets, transition, worn

Inside dream’s not different

than day— I’m pursued

by doubt, dumb beasts

that plod along in herds.

I hurl myself away,

before I am trampled.

I wake bruised on the floor.

Then, embarrassed, without

transition, I return

to bed to sleep. I kick,

and shout out warnings

against the shadows

that crawl beneath my skin,

slowly feeding as they go.

(June 22, 2018)

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Macbeth had Scorpions in His Mind

by

acceptance, hope, life, memory, poetry, social construction, thinking

Me, I’m much more mundane:

just piles of clutter collected over

meandering decades: associations

misconstrued; memories cast,

broken, reconfigured again

and then again into iteration

after iteration, before scattered

about the place so willy-nilly

one can barely move without

stumbling, causing stacks to collapse

onto stacks, shifting the only path

throughout this maze as if there

were ever one way to go,

as I was about to find out.

(June 21, 2018)

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a presence

by

abstract, borders, definition, interrelationships, liminal, paradigms, poetry, sonnets, ways of knowing

as now, as then

I am a continuum,

an arrayed spectrum—

less division,

than slow flux,

less a singularity

than background noise:

a low rumble in the hills.

I am not an event,

not a dalliance

to be swept away

like the darkness

which clings

along your horizon.

(June 19, 2018)

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Those Who Watch the Fall

by

acceptance, existential angst, fear, life, poetry, politics, sonnets, worry

A thick malaise slurs

the day with inarticulate

desires. There is nothing

but dissatisfaction beneath

each prime move. He slips

about the house finding solace

in unread books, in thoughts

of what he might have done.

The pointed questions come:

Why he dawdles over trivialities?

Why he quakes a pauper to his ideals?

Will the last glass of wine be his cause?

Will the safety of his status quo

be the death and guilt of all?

(June 18, 2018)

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Status Quo

by

communication, desire, erato, eros, interrelationships, patterns, perspective, poetry, Uncategorized

Thanks for thinking of me

she wrote

When do I not? he thought

but did not reply

(June 17, 2018)

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Cassandra at the Door

by

abstract, fate, fear, poetry, politics, resistance, tension, worry

To hammer a nail straight

and quick with a few strikes

takes practice— to the point:

I stake myself on a cross,

a basic graph to plot

trends and sequences—

facts and numbers,

numbers and facts,

are so easily turned;

so, perhaps a story here

that can plant the horror

will suffice to save us:

Do you hear that? It is

coming. Martyrs laid

out like drying fish;

where distortions and lies

bend all matter to earth

a fetid stench rises.

In a hell so manifold,

your closest friends

will be devoured.

(June 16, 2018)

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Opened

by

abstract, melodrama, poetics, poetry, sonnets, surrealism, words, writing

The line demarks a space

opened in the word—

As I speak, I see

the air tremble like glass.

The length of time left

demands fealty to the page,

to a resonance with a past

that is only there in mind.

An open window no longer

distorts vision, nor withholds

access to a world other than

the tight confines of this room.

A vein runs my arm’s length,

spilling blood across the floor.

(June 15, 2018)

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Circle Maze

by

abstract, assignment, exercise, identity formation, inner speech, language, poetry, thinking, words

“The limits of my language mean the limits of my world.”

–Ludwig Wittgenstein

Emerson once wrote

that the first circle

is that of the eye.

My self fleshed in words

falls in a circle

that binds me to god.

My world’s in my voice

which whispers close by.

The first circle sees

these limitations

inscribed in thin lines

along the edges

of my fragile skin.

The weight of my words

holds me to the ground

where the air grows thick.

No fairy circles

exist to conjure

magic from a dance

only a few know.

I know my own dance;

each step a new world,

each thought adds new flesh

to my empty bones:

my thoughts embodied

in the day’s motion.

I wander slowly,

head bound in prayer,

obsessively lost

in the ancient turns

one must take each day

to gather the strands

that were left behind

by all the others

who tried to escape.

(June 14, 2018)

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endgame posit

by

abstract, aging, control, death, end, fate, life, poetry, time, ways of knowing

If, then

it must

change in

to dust.

(June 9, 2018)

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Pieces From Different Puzzles

by

acceptance, belief, erato, eros, interrelationships, love, middle-age, patterns, poetry, relationships, sonnets

For years, nothing fit.

I’d puzzle over

patterns; imagine

interweaving strands;

trace lines through tangles;

and believed in gods.

To think is belief

it can be known,

the first delusion.

There’s nothing beyond

reason, but paradox.

No grand unified

theory to connect

everything to all,

each box was its own

design, the pieces

cut with precision.

Now what is in front

of me is enough.

I no longer seek

the last missing part

in my broken heart.

(June 8, 2018)

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