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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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  • 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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  • until a fine paste

    by

    abstract, broken, existential angst, frustration, life, poetry, sonnets, tension, tired, unstable
    time and lost desire grind
    with relentless imprecision
    as the night’s flailings
    attempt to toss off the day
    muscles along my shoulder
    blade cleave my neck
    like a well-honed knife
    through a lump of raw meat
    hard and tight they bend me
    like a crumpled can until
    so misshapen and abused
    I forget who I used to be
    the pestle pounds a paste
    in the mortar’s shallow bowl

    (September 29, 2017)

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  • My Ignorance

    by

    abstract, clarity, doubt, god, hubris, humility, poetry, thinking, truth, ways of knowing
    Certainty, like god,
    Is a comfort denied
    Those uncomfortable
    Enough to doubt.
    I know to say
    I know’s a lie,
    And truth exists
    Only as arrogance.
    There are no words,
    Nor silent sighs,
    To bridge the gap
    Between then and now.
    What was said’s said.
    What’s known, unknown.
    To claim my ignorance,
    I know, must be shown.
    (September 27, 2017)

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  • Regret

    by

    alone, change, despair, erato, life, loss, love, memory, muse, poetry, regret, worn
    Until I can step through
    The hole I leave behind,
    I scoop handfuls of dust
    From my heart.

    (September 27, 2017)

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  • Knowing Where One’s at is Too Much, and Not Enough

    by

    abstract, change, definition, fate, poetry, sonnets
    I locate myself, a miasma
    Of diffidence, pinned close
    To the cork beneath display
    Glass: a frayed diorama
    Too tired to not repeat
    The same accusations again,
    As if change can change any one,
    As if transcendence will mend.
    Like a raven’s slow-arced descent
    Along the edges of a dead field
    Fluttering from bone to wet bone
    Questions become irrelevant
    as the answers circle back
    To echo half-articulate moans.
    (September 26, 2017)

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  • doggerel puzzle box

    by

    abstract, change, narrative, poetry, sonnets, surrealism
    Split seed impeached
    through unquenched desires:
    no Noah hammers
    this obsessive dream;
    stars cloud the dark
    horizon with cold light.
    As one narrative
    resists revision,
    a tourniquet cannot
    staunch the open wound.
    Blood becomes another sign,
    another way away;
    until, an until fails,
    and all’s lost to dust.
    (September 23, 2017)

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  • reading the world we’re in

    by

    anger, broken, god, poetry, politics, worry



    there is no secret on the wall
    no wall no hieroglyphs
    what message there is from god
    is as thick as death
    it clings to our hearts
    the word made flesh
    if such words are lost on you
    there truly is no hope

    (September 21, 2017)

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  • With Age

    by

    acceptance, aging, change, lament, paradigm shifts, poetry, unstable
    I have no balance
    And cannot juggle.
    My hands
    Cannot hold
    Anymore
    Awkward shapes:
    Polygons, rectangles,
    Too many, too
    Odd and bulky
    In broken fingers.
    Today is today,
    Yet I flood it
    With yesterday’s
    And tomorrow’s
    Thinking.
    I know time
    Too well, I choke
    On splintered
    Seconds,
    The clotted hours.

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  • What Do I Know?

    by

    abstract, borders, clarity, poetry, ways of knowing

    It’s hard to see
    In the day’s dazzle—
    Too often
    Out of habit
    And negligence,
    I fail to notice
    Much
    Of everything.
    Each step forward
    Shimmers like light
    On water, a rippled
    Path expanding
    To disperse
    Exhausted
    At the edges.
    Each moment glistens
    Possibility’s radiance.
    I stand within
    A lambent circle;
    An aura
    Of misunderstandings
    Flutter like feathers
    Along my skin.

    (September 20, 2017)

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