-
-
Elemental
I must tear the lids
from my eyes to burn
past the ritual shrouds,
if I am to walk
into the air and breathe
enough to speak clear.
What I see filters
through a thousand
thousand veils,
thin and translucent
like water swiftly slides
over a spring rock,
glossing the granite
in a thin sheen
which belies its course nature.
If I stop writing
and close my eyes,
then I submit
to the thousand voices
which slip unimpeded
through the dark
like photons streaming
from a sun
I cannot see.
(February 17, 2018)
-
what was finally said
the silence gave way
to small talk banishing
desire’s remains to memory
(February 15, 2018)
-
the unknown’s always vast
I take off my glasses
and cannot see
with any clarity
more than a little way
my vision’s weak
but sufficient
to navigate within
these blurred horizons
as with any truth
only what’s near
coheres enough
to provide shape
even so few know
the heart close by
(February 13, 2018)
-
anticipation and regret
by
as a boy he wrote
all the words
she might say
in old age
he revises
all she said
(February 12, 2018)
-
solve for X
by
you present as a variable
an x or a y
an unknown desire
to provide an outcome
for a question
I did not know to ask
each only opens one door
to slip down the hall and out
is to dance the wet grass alone
or sit near the window and sigh
as one grey day blurs into tomorrow
with your answer left unresolved
I do not know where to go
within the variables of my heart
(February 11, 2018)
-
the simplicity of rain and chickens
i hear a line
then forget
between the day’s
distractions
and duties
to write the thought
and so it goes
and later
without paper
I remember
again
then forget
again when
I have time
to write the line
which keeps
eluding me
so little time
to write
to remember
what one sees
enough to detail
the slow flow
of the rain drop
as it makes
its way along
the porcelain
yard ornament
near the old
burr oak
(February 9, 2018)
-
Communion
by
love and fear bond us
the collaborative
notion we are dead
without the other
that god exists
within not without
as the beast devours
the ones on the edge
together we hold
what wisdom we have
in the stories told
as we eat our bread
the dead like god live
as wine in our blood
(February 8, 2018)
-
The Hardest One
by
If I met myself
Would I like him?
Or would I know
Enough to laugh
Derisively and wait
As he packed to leave?
I want to settle
Like dust upon one
Version of myself,
One I can trust more
Than the one I am;
One with the knowledge
Of skin who can forgive
Everything he has done.
(February 7, 2018)
-
Necromance
by
As blood from wine,
He is transformed;
The words solidify—
Lift from the page
Like a starling murmur
flows in morning air.
Obsessively, his thoughts
Turn and return
To the slightest wisp
She might, in passing,
Have whispered.
Memory is present
Always to form
A different future.
He writes and revises,
Remembers and reforms,
As if a candle’s smoke
Can reshape a flame;
As if all the words
Are uttered correctly,
He will be reborn.
(February 5, 2018)
-
transparent
by
a dark hallway
opens through him
he is a door
an absence
like an echo
scratching anxiously
at a window
to be let in
he opens as an emptiness
a conduit for others
to shuffle one
fragment into another
in an attempt to align
fragility’s last tremor
(February 3, 2018)
-
the surface should be enough
a calm demeanor
belies the panic he feels
outside his window
(February 3, 2018)
-
the untold continues despite silence
by
there is always that moment which arrives
when the conversation has abated
and all that must be said remains unsaid
and our minds’ sharp intimacies depart
amid insincere handshakes and chaste hugs
in a doorway and what occurred that night
vanishes into small talk’s silent wish
and this wish is somehow always the same
which is somehow that what one says matters
enough somehow to whomever may hear
that they will somehow respond in a way
which will somehow equate as well to your
first desire and yet still somehow both will
mange to survive your disparate lives
(January 31, 2018)
-
Time’s Lackadaisical Continuum
by
A fire flares and flickers
As the dark embers pulse,
Keeping beat to the dancer’s
Feet twirling in a circle.
He hesitates to speak,
To throw his slow mind
Into relief against her quick
Laughter rippling the room.
His words bind him to earth
Like roots tangling underground;
Hers flutter like butterflies
Rising as one from flowers.
Flames, flowers, roots and embers
Turn, and turn, and turn again.
(January 30, 2018)
subtext 