by
Never her lover,
Nor even a friend:
It cannot be over,
If it never begins.
Let me sing this song,
A tune for her ear:
It will not be long,
Before I am near.
I watch from the margins,
As she moves through her day;
I wait with chagrin
‘til I do what I may.
Without cause to my intent,
I won’t rest until I am spent.
(January 29, 2018)
by
Light, like gauze
Over skin, glazes
The forest floor
In mottled shadows.
As on other days,
One walks here
With a slow step
Along patterned trails.
What’s to discover
Depends upon the lens
One brings—The light
And the dark blend.
All paths converge
In each step’s shift.
(January 28, 2018)
“Our awareness leaves us defenseless”
–H.D. The Walls do not Fall, 27
Like an assassin’s garrote,
A grape vine swirls around
The surrounding trees;
It pulls itself toward light,
Tangling through the clotted
Branches, among the shadow.
At dusk, the edge
Of the earth’s present;
Unlike the dawn,
Where it’s disguised
In a radiant light.
To be aware is to vanish.
Totality’s moment
Slips past unnoticed.
(January 26, 2018)
by
I stand on a ragged edge.
My feet ache,
Crumpled like broken claws.
I am unsure:
Am I distorted
And blurred?
Do I sing
In some voice
Not my own?
Demands disallow
The silence
For thought.
Too often too much
Rips and pulls
Like tides.
Beneath this clamor
I listen—
My heart beats
Steady, yet wary
Like a rabbit
On a field’s edge.
I gather my doubts
And step out
Into air,
Until all
That falls
Falls away.
(January 24, 2018)
by
“wholly unremembered”
Yesterday’s rose is
As different now
As the one fresh cut
before me unfolds.
Memory’s an echo
Charged by distance—
Accurate as much
As a teller’s
Moment’s shape’s
Maintained:
My thoughts
Muddy my past,
Past even a passing
Resemblance of love.
(January 23, 2018)
“Gods make their own importance.”
–Patrick Kavanagh
All the passions, indecisions,
And inarticulate fears
Which seize you randomly
Throughout the day,
All the sudden moments
Of chaos, and clarity,
Of lust, anger, and charity
Are more than you, yet only you.
Reason cannot hope to contain
The gods’ whispered instigations;
Wisdom’s inherent in your skin,
And transcends all interior
Motivations like accomplices
Waiting nearby for the fall.
(January 23, 2018)
by
My world’s abraded,
Worn thin, roughly patched.
I’m often unsure what
I do; and, when I stand,
The ground bends and slides
Like a slow-motion
Tilt-a-Whirl
At a country fair.
To find a balance,
I write into the tatters,
To the frayed coherences,
Desperately spinning
New tales to old
As a balm against the cold.
(January 22, 2018)
by
the empty whiskey glass sits
next to a tumbler full of wine—
where did I become this?
at some decision, some acquiescence—
to change, or give up,
to let myself be, nothing
more than surrender
(January 20, 2018)
by
From the opening, one can see
Flickers of light and dark
Dancing another world,
If one places one’s eye
At a precise angle askew
To the present lived world.
This Vision’s dream pulses
Like an omphalos stream’s
Constant thrum of blood
Caresses a nascent life.
My eye’s curve opens,
As the horizon catches
The dawn, to a distant
Transcendence in your eye.
(January 19, 2018)
by
make a random reference
to some allusion other
than the one here now
and if one misses it
from ignorance or
one’s own obscurity
the dead grey eyes
hear in the fissures
more than conceived
in any normal conversation
in which one’s a part
minutes arrive like hours
and all the inhabitable
caves encompass the other
(January 17, 2018)
by
He resists his clichés
With their tiny reins
Guiding the blinder’s
Simplistic vision.
“Everything’s okay,”
he says, yet knows, as she,
it is all just a lie:
her questions, the feigned
interest, are too much—
too coy in their intent
for him to be okay.
He feels his answers
Thicken like cataracts
Clouding all before him.
(January 15, 2018)
by
No words tonight to push back
Against the dark lurking close,
Nor books, with their comforting
Runes, to solidify the chaos
Which prowls about the house
Like wolves on the edge of a fire.
I desire affirmation—
A coherence to believe
Beyond the tremors which buck
And warp my life’s lassitude.
Yet, there is nothing beyond
My own shallow thoughts
To assuage the vacuous
Profundity of my days.
(January 10, 2018)
To resist
My
Dismantling,
The nibble
And nip
Of niggling voices,
I must stop
Listening
To myself—
The snide
Mocking
Laughter
Which waits
To eviscerate.
(January 9, 2018)
1.
Moonlight sparkles the frost
Across the Honda’s trunk,
As I pack extra warm clothes
In case my students fall
Accidently into the lake.
2.
The sun sparkled the day;
Town Lake centered the sky.
As ducks skimmed the surface,
The canoes slid through the water.
Today no one fell into the lake.
(January 7, 2018)
As he has each morning,
Treebeard, the orange tabby,
Leads me down the stairs
For a first cup of coffee.
Today he shows his age
As he descends the stairs—
Something off in each soft pad’s
Touch upon each familiar step.
He stops at the end, and meows
To be let out into the dark.
I slide the door open; he sniffs
The cold air, then slips away.
I watch him move through the flowers;
I shiver, not knowing what to do next.
(January 5, 2018)
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