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My Poetry and Commentary on Life

  • This Writer’s Beginnings: EarlyYears
  • Bread Loaf Influence
  • Rock and Roll High School
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  • The Correlate in Memory’s Grain

    by

    abstract, chance, change, memory, narrative, poetry, sonnets, ways of knowing


    With no ledger to fix
    Time, memory’s allowed
    Without accountability.
    It rebuffs reason’s harsh
    Causal relationships
    As unnecessary chains.
    Yes, that trailed this,
    But more of a simple
    Coincidence than a confluence
    Of desires. You know this;
    Yet, like him, still believe
    What you will manifests
    As fate, an inevitable
    Flowering of happenstance.

    (October 26, 2017)

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  • before words silence

    by

    assignment, exercise, half sonnets, language, poetry, response, ways of knowing



    we did not know
    nor if we could
    no tense to time
    no thing defined
    no I nor you
    no we nor me
    no other other
    to disagree
    all was peace
    all was light
    no one knew
    dead of night
    I could not say
    For all was grey

    (October 25, 2017)

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  • Then Those Words I Thought Now

    by

    change, communication, memory, poetry, storytelling, ways of knowing


    he told a story
    she did not listen
    until months perhaps years
    later as she rinsed
    her thick hair
    her eyes closed
    skating along
    the edge of epiphany
    the water cascading
    like time
    across her shoulders
    in which illusion
    do we live
    the one told the one heard
    the one we each remember
    tomorrow we will know
    something more something less
    fragments traces wisps
    loss and gain
    change

    (October 20, 2017)

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  • I Remember Now

    by

    borders, definition, liminal, memory, poetry, silence, sonnets
    Yesterday,
    Like today,
    Spans echoes,
    Ripples
    A parenthesis
    To cordon me
    Now, and then
    Again, until
    A calm
    Settles still
    Upon the lake’s
    Stark surface.
    I am a seer
    To forget at will.

    (October 17, 2017)

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  • Chop Wood

    by

    change, control, desire, fate, identity formation, life, poetry, sonnets, zen
    If I can contain this space,
    Circle what strength I have
    To push against the dark—
    Then perhaps another hour
    May be harvested—
    Another moment survived.
    Like resentment,
    The fire flares again
    Then returns to ember.
    I have no response
    Beyond remorse,
    And that is not enough.
    This is where I am—
    Waiting on winter.

    (October 16, 2017)

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  • What’s Left

    by

    acceptance, alone, erasure, erato, eros, life, lonely, loss, love, melodrama, poetry, response, sonnets, time, traces
    I hold nothing
    But your absence,
    An empty shell
    Dry and chalky.
    My words fracture,
    Then flake like plaster
    Cast fakes decaying
    Over time into dust.
    Residual layers formed
    And held under pressure
    Coat the landscape
    In an amniotic cowl,
    As love’s stark remnant
    Lingers in the dark.
    (October 15, 2017)

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  • A Mirror Sees Only Itself

    by

    interpretation, interrelationships, paradigms, poetry, reader response, reading, relationships, sonnets, ways of knowing
    “my nature/is a quagmire of unresolved /confessions”
                            –Robert Creeley, The Door
    I resist autobiographical
    Interpretations others imply
    When they ask about my work.
    I do not write to you, nor
    Even for you. I am no
    Placebo to numb your pain;
    No multi-car pile up
    To drive by relieved
    That it is some other;
    No prurient desire to linger
    Over, dripping hunger
    Like an open wound.
    Yes, I write this; yet, you
    Come only to see yourself.

    (October 12, 2017)

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  • to lost friends

    by

    change, charm, friends, liminal, lonely, loss, other, relationships
    “some sunny day”
                vera lynn
    I hope your life is true
    And you are happy as you are—
    I miss you, with your explosive
    Laughter, and intense sincerity

    (October 12, 2017)

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  • Memory’s Indifference

    by

    change, delusion, dream, erasure, erato, eros, interrelationships, language, life, liminal, loss, memory, patience, poetry, relationships, sonnets, traces

    “You have not made me suffer,
    merely wait.”
    –Pablo Neruda
    in the ignorance of dream
    we walked almost
    as if together
    like empty mailboxes
    for unwritten letters
    wait with purpose
    we wait within
    our wandering
    neither lost nor found
    to say merely abandoned
    presumes an aspect of ignorance
    absent in silence
    where we were where we arrived
    remains indeterminate
    (October 11, 2017)

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  • eros in retrospect

    by

    beauty, desire, erato, eros, life, love, lust, poetry, romance
    on the bed asleep
    she lies face down
    early-evening’s
    half-light filters
    through the blinds
    lacing her bare skin
    with a cool sheen
    he cannot describe

    (October 10, 2017)

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  • Silt

    by

    despair, dissatisfaction, existential angst, fate, life, poetry, sonnets, tension, worn
     I wake into unease
    Generic and vague
    Yet near enough
    To feel its breath
    Thick and hot
    Along my neck
    I don’t know
    How to extract
    Laughter
    From this
    It bears down
    Equally over all
    A slow accumulation
    Of sediment

    (October 7, 2017)

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  • Uneven Ground

    by

    broken, poetry



    The moon’s torque turns
    Toward another tangent.
    I step and stumble drunk
    Over uneven ground.
    The moon is so far away,
    While I am here
    Watching the blood pool
    Beneath this broken night.

    (October 9, 2017)

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  • A Moment of Balance During an October Commute

    by

    life, nature, poetry, work


    The ghost of a harvest moon
    Floats like parchment paper
    Over the pale western horizon.
    The sun blasts the sky in blood
    Reds and orange behind me
    As I drive to work in a rush.

    (October 6, 2017)

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  • Enacting My Age

    by

    acceptance, aging, change, haiku, life, poetry, process, worn
    A breeze sways the trees.
    Summer slips to memory
    As leaves start to fall.

    (October 5, 2017)

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  • Even in the Dark

    by

    abstract, change, dissatisfaction, life, poetry, sonnets, tension, transition



    Each moment’s an agony:
    Vague, indecisive, filled,
    Like cotton in a wound
    With self-abnegation.
    My thoughts fester, without
    Care, without direction—
    A viscous ooze tucked
    Within damp crevices.
    This is not self-pity,
    Nor bragging as complaint—
    I live in the landscapes
    Which surround me today.
    Where I’ve come to stand

    Is where I must begin.

    (October 4, 2017)

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