Tag: Poem
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The Crying Old Woman on the Bank
An old woman in a Mantilla carries hernew sorrows. She wanders lost—knowing not enough Englishto understand and answer questionsShe needs to sell the familia silver to recover her drowned hijo from the river,but she is sunset to everyone she pleas to.
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Their Feather Dance
When she danced he knew his hope was a feathered thing.In the moonlight, she shone,a blue smooth watery rippleof ostrich wings that made her seem his Cleopatra in bas-relief.She raised her hand to the sky and up high, six feathers flew up.And just as quickly returned toearth a billow of floating down.His twi-night met her…
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To Know Guernica Is to Fall
He saw Guernica in front of him and knew what falling was in all its gray grace and white horror. “Jesus, how they huddle together like close trees in a savage wind,” he thought, noticing his phlegm falling into the acid of his stomach. By the time he left the museum dusk…
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The Cosmic Princess and the Frozen Peas
The ginger cosmic princess slept on ten rainbow bright beds.Under the one for seventh heaven,just under all the amethyst haze a pea stung her into faux dismay.She felt her back and knew this malaise was a diamond in hidden displayjust needing frozen peas to allay.
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Full Moon Prayer
The full moon veiled the ramshackle barn in the embrace of its shadow- a prayer for animals gone.
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The Boat Awaits
Silent boats await to take us all to distant shores.
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Just One Rose Is Enough for Love to Bloom
A lonely rose in a bottle on a hill- first gift from Beasts to Beauties.
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A Crush of Light All Around Them
A crush of light all around churned the still waves into cumulonimbus clouds. Behind them, the grass withered to molten gold. In front, the sun exploded to a yellow mushroom, hiding all the green in between from their fearful eyes. in these moments, they knew their life together was over.
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Playing the Piano on Her Last Day
The fingers can’t strike the black and white keyswith the precision and grace of her youth,but today this last song, would be sweeter.“If this be all that is left of what I wasI will rejoice in all the good breezes I blew across these strings and keys.”
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Ark
Two by two they all came into the ark, shut the door. The rains came. Forty days God stood on their roof.
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Ulysses Plea to His Crew
Sail with me, into the the siren song, swell. Let us hear life’s perilous sweetness unroped, knowing what will wholly happen when its sound kisses our thirsty and wanting lips.Go to this Wikipedia page regarding the background story of Ulysses and the Sirens;https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Sirens_and_Ulysses
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Mermaids
There they where at sundown, half women and half fish, shifting in time and air, sunning themselves in slow light where lilies and leeches tangled beyond all their casting nets.
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My Happiness Is Defined in You
To see what I see as beautiful. and not ever hide your little joys, knowing the sun rises, stars don’t fall, and all our Chinese meals are poems.
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Aquarium
Contained in this glass world that is of the sea, but not it, fish swim blindly from end to end,kissing the blue bottled fog.
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Caress
She stops her motorcycle and takes in the beach grass blooming all around her.She once saw her life in a dirty puddleand the black tenements blocking all light.Now, for the first time she sees a horizon.In the breeze she feels her mother cupping her face in her palms telling her everything will be alright.
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Times Square, January 1st, 3am
The old year has dissolved into the next.The dropped ball has been dismantled. The ghosts of life have left their white tracks.The Square in breathes in white abandon.At first light, after the exhale, the feet and faces will return in bewilderment seeking what they thought was impossibly lost in the night crush.
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Secret of the Queens
The Queen of Sheba knew that power was not in the prides of men one keeps but in the pride one has.
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Taking a Train Ride
An old fashion steam train ride together is the only good way fathers know their young sons and sons their old fathers.
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Death and the Maiden
She gathered lilies to her— Held them to the Lord of Sky until she fell away and he granted her eternal night.
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Pedestrian
The broken man emerges from the subway. The metallic vapors of manhole covers penetrate his chest. So many insignificant defeats, disappointments, broken and hidden hopes trail him— ones that keep him awake all night. Exhaustion keeps him downcast, unaware of a horizon. From corners, blind alleys leading in and out of hell emerge the others…
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Driving the Night Road
Headlights slip over the asphaltgoing from grief to grief as the road ghosts rise.Like us, they are lonelyseeking lost dreams as the road goes on, forgetting us.
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Jigsaw Puzzle
Slowly the pieces come together,the edges of paradise first:grapes, golden flowers, oranges floatingin a cerulean sky forming sleeves of clouds, skirt, top until the goddess is revealed.
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Black Dress
When she wears the black dress against herself and sees her every reflection in the mirror she knows it will fit her better than even her mother ever wore it.
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Magnolias
The Japanese Magnolias lean into the cicadas chirr,into the every shadows of the day,before returning back to the very open airthey keep to themselves before they die.
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All the Peacock Is, Is But a Jest
To hear the peacock’s shrill is to know that all beauty is a jest.(It is easy for eyes to deny the truth the ears hear.)Look closer, all those eyes are really iridescent stormsor blue-green cometsrushing to a solar collision.A light halo of black makes themind see only beautiful eyes.The peacock spreads its tail to keep…
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The Bottle All Around Her
Her life now is a message in a bottle. She sails anywhere, somewhere, nowhere,it doesn’t make a difference . She’ll never break free of the glass all around her.She will remain anchored to past lovers. Her thoughts will never get pass her memories of them. Their gaunt faces will pull her back, warning sirens lost…
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Thomas Mann Watches Venice Fade Away
The green city decaysinto beauty—the stone lions facing the sea,the gondolier’s drift, the Five Domes beseeching the immigrantstars.
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Love’s Kiss Is a Parisian Night
Love’s kiss—a Parisian nightatop the Eiffel Tower. The world below—boxed macarons on a blue boulevard. All lovers- Louvre exhibits knowing only Giaconda smilesbefore la petite mort.
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The Musician
Inner torment plays his face. He prays that the music will come when he strums the guitar’s strings. The sun plays on his hands, serenades his face,whispers the sounds.
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The Fairground Closes for the Night
The whirligigs above will stop,fold and rest their metal wingsfor the night.The cars and those in them will not collide.Gravity returns, granting peace and stillness from the movements of the day. The weary attendants will slump their shoulders,sighing in relief.So too, will the teddy bear in the claw machine once the current shuts off. Bullets…
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The Candy Coated Giraffe Who Did What He Pleased: A Child’s Poem
The candy coated giraffe who did what he pleased one day suddenly got his long neck caught in a tree. “Please, please! Help me! I can’t get free!, “he pleas to all the wondrous animals floating in the breeze. Try as they must, they could not help him very much. Chirp, chirp, chirp they fuss,…
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New Year’s Eve Comes and Goes
A friend I’ve know for but a year came a knock, knock, knocking at my door.He was cold and thin, and even though he wanted in, I did not open the door.He was once such a grand delight but now he was so so such a bore. Knock, knock, knock, his knuckles rappedagain, again. I…
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At the Barbershop
At the barbershop my hair sings The Ballad of Long Locks “Cut it off. I’m done with it. It gets in my way.” Thus, I’m kept alive with regular haircuts.
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The Bench
When the oak fell in the stormhe carved a bench for her.He placed it in the best grove shade asa reminder the bench once bloomed.Still, rays of light split through the leavesand the bench, even in winter, was warm.Here she knew fully his silent love for her,even after he fallen silent, buried nearby.Eventually, it became…
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Walking the Beach With My Wife and Dog
This beach walk like all the others will be erased soon,but for nowthere is a line or two for us.
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Childhood 3: Riding Dark Horses Bareback and Barefoot
The boy wants a horse.The dad gets him a horse—a bronco he was told which use to be a thoroughbred,a black wind of a creaturewho barely tolerates the old, cracked saddlefrom the dad’s jockey days.It takes two track hands to hold the reins, to keep the stallion stillwhen the dad addresses him . In the…
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Childhood 2: Creating Wonder
Only a child believes that a jar of released fireflies will become stars.That the calico teddy bear watchingthe still lake with you knows every creature in the 100 acre woodsThat the too big straw hatwill never blow off your headwhen running through a field of lilacs.That the biggest fish ever caughtis the blue origami one…
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Childhood 1: Visiting the Land of Make Believe
This is not a true story but the expression of a wish of a poor Bronx girlon Christmas Day. There were Christmas gifts but they flew out the windowin a drunken father’s rage.There was a menagerie setwith a Jesus in a manger,cows, sheep, pig, donkeys,two collies, a pony and a camel,but all was shatteredto pieces,…
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Missing Prayer for an Abandoned Sacred Place
The brown wagon that took the children to the jubilee leans wheel-less against the old chapel walls.Weeds striving for the light arise from the black moldy nave from narthex to transept. The hymnals in the rotting pewsgrieve a living and active voice,the echoes of services preached.There is a sheet over the pulpit,a shattered virgin in…
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The King’s Rumination
Befuddled with thought the king sought the oracle. “Count the sands, calculate the seas,” she said. Of the king’s future,she spoke nothing. Henceforth, he contented only in his nightmares.
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Snow Chapel
The world exists to remind us to see: the snow chapel in all its brightness— soul’s landscape asleep, forgotten, until bells remembering.
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Our Pets Know His Light
The cat and the dog sitting in the snow, admire an amazing singular heavenly glow.Together they form the world’s great halo.
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The Village
Flake by flake the snow came The village was already asleep. Lights were twinkling softly bathingall in the Lord’s heavenly peace.
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Mirror, Mirror
The light Light the in the mirror mirror in the casts its casts it light lights, on the light not the light that has been that’s been cast away, cast away, that reverse reverse that to what is which is too real. real.The looking glass proclaims only the life that is in its light. Life…
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Riding Home: A two version poem
First version:The mare bears me home in that graceful stride that makes me feel better than I am, not broken, small, but whole. Second version:out of the earth come the cowboy and mareflawed and aching and wronged but well and glad to be riding home Let me know in the comments which version of Riding…
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Dancer in the Mirrors
In the spinning mirrorsthe dance is hers. She leans a little more,to the glow.The balancing pointonly she sees.
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The Water Calls Us Down
The water call us down.She names us and we call her ours. Down we goand we sleep.Awakenedwe remember- that blue pool-the one with no bottom.
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The Rainforest Lives With Our Ghosts
It sings of falling water, until the roadcuts a scar. Its earthlives with our ghosts.Trees must bear our names.
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Sad Geisha with Parasol
Parasol blossoms float to her porcelain skin caressing her thoughts Ebony tresses cover the tears salting scar red left behind The sun is hidden the samurai is silent under bed
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New York Skyline
In the mist, black granite, linked scales melt away. From afar, the tinkle of a music box is heard. The street pleads a prayer to broken sky. New York awakens.
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Still Life With Peaches
They had evolved to be split midway by thumbs, juice pooling to lifelines in cupped hands a sacrifice to be sniffed, tasted— sweetness cursed, the lustful last bite of life.
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Dogs Bearing Gifts
No greater love a dog has for youthan to return all your holiday shoeson Xmas day so so thoroughly chewed.
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From the Manger the Child Gazed
Above the sky in the Bethlehem dark the Father noticed the child in the manger gazing up at his Father’s greatest creation.
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Ivy for Holly (a children’s poem)
Ivy for Holly,Michael and you.Garland for Grandma,a sprig for Santa with cookies two. All God’s blessing for world renewed.
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The Holly Grows Green (a children’s poem after Shakespeare)
The holly grows evergreen.The ivy does too.Through long winter’s blast they blossom holy and truelike God’s love for you.
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Going Up the Stairs She Heard
She heard her children going slowly up the stairs of the old grand house draped in linen solitude. On the peacock treadsthey chanted discoveries,whispered mysteries she intimately knew.
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Mask
The soul’s happinessis uncovered when the beautiful white death maskslips off the face.
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Chop Suey
(Ekphrasis on the Edward Hopper painting.)In the white tablespace between themshe thinks only of theodds and ends danglinginside. The hissing tea kettlehushes the words in front, the love chatbehind.Note: choppy suey comes from the Chinese tsap sui for “odds and ends”.
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The Green Gown
The green gown rippled downin the breath and shadow of the willow branch, invisible noon and nightto all searching ships.
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The Last Tree
The last tree sheds its leavesin the barren dry knowing the breezewill breathe its revival.
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Sheltered, I Am Now
No terror seedsin my soul. The gentledust of my mother remainsall around me. Her old comfortssnuggle away any regretsuntil our heavens meet. Not soon,but soon enough I will remain with you.Why will I decay in the crypt when only smoke can rise to joy?That cloudy mass that rises from burning,burns tears beyond the wear of…
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The Singing Honeyeater
The Singing Honeyeater fell following the shadow of my hand on the wall.Right wing coveringits breast, it fellin full song.In a splash of last rain,the shadow of my handit knew was not sky, it fell.And,in the speckled evaporation of a mute sky, its last notes fell forever inside me.
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Nourishment
The buried placenta knows not the suffering of the womb,only that it once nourished.
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A Short History of ”The Troubles”
Jack held his da’s old black revolverhigh in his hand, even with his face.His fingers barely reached the trigger.In time, it would be an easy squeeze,a proper squeeze for a proper Doherty,but for now, he would wipe its barrelacross his face like a fillum gangster.The soot of coal and Sperrin spit clung to Jack’s face,…
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Song for My Departed Sharma
You were held close to mommy’s cheston that last day full of walks, belly rubs,and lingering in the rays of perfect sunshineand us delighting in so many kisses from you.You were named to remember the good boyswho left us seven years before you came- and as your head unwillingly left mommy’s chestand yielded to gravity…
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Last Day
She exists a clam shell folded in the middle of the bed, her bedspread forming a waterfall of somber gray tears. She hears her daughter shut the door, probably for the last time, and step into the clear, bright light all around.Yet the clam mother will remember it as a dark and overcast day. She…
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Walking Along the Seashore Without My Mother
The old negative of her with her hair pinned backI hold up to the horizon and see it fade into the waves.It was the one taken through the filtered window of her black car,her face half in night and half in day.Behind, I hear the echo of the sand cave.In front, the roar of swirl…
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Lifeblood
The new blood runs over the old scars on her wrist,the unforgiving crucifix held tight in her palmwhile the unwrapped fish stinks on the table.
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Phorcys Claims Medusa for the Sea.
Medusa’s soma falls into the Aegean,almost into the fatherly arms of Phorcys,almost close to the sobs of her sister gorgons,their monstrous grief now deformed into the cursed shriekthat is human terror, that is the horror ofall human existence.Her soma’s splash releases a thousand stars upward to the moon.Perseus looks awaylest the Ohia viper curlsheld high…
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The Road to the Sea
When I was a young boy my mother drove us in a white Plymouth to a road that ended even with the sea. The last tenth mile was paved seashells mortared with beach stones, the low shoulders no higher than my ankles- the carapaces of turtles, crabs, lobsters boiled and eaten over a century. She…
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Mirror Images
Today, in the car, you see the moving imagethat always traveled with youand was really always with you. Do you squint beyond the image of yourself reflecting back to you in the glass to see the church beyond?or do you concentrate on just the road ahead and the cars in front?But now you noticethrough the…
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The Slaughter
After 5 years Fatima hugs her sister Almaunder a gray sky.The wind whips Fatima’s kerchief backforming a mask that matches Alma’s dull stare into the browning field all around.Alma feels only the roughness of the green blanketwrapping itself around her,sees the small farm in the distancewith farmhandsloading cattle into the slaughter carand remembers the heifer’s…
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City Noir
The caged birds of unrealized dreamshang heavy from steel and glass skiesstooping the walk of pedestrians.They think it’s a heavy rain but it’s their anodized desire fracturing into a thousand feminines/masculinesin the windows all around them.Their noir has orange hair sirens with Klint faces blowing gray smoke, or the Private Dick who lives on past…
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Riding the Bus at Night
The night bus cradles the weary and those waiting for the dayonly those who know the city’s cocoon can appreciate the hustle and ritualof its morning butterflies orthe way speed blurs tenement lightsinto a stained glass display—diffused halos of red and green,blue and yellow.To ride the night busdemands you living with the shadowsmovingwith you,behind you,staring…
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Christina’s World Knows the Ocean
Christina imagined the ocean beyond the withering grass, the yellow hilltop, the gray house just above her vision. On the shore she would lift herself up without the fear of falling. Her hair was swept back by the considerate breeze. Her white dress flew backwards resisting the wind’s effort to delineate her body. The tidal…
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Things Just Caught Up With Her
It wasn’t all the popcorn, hotdogs, candy eaten in the dark that killed her.Those things just caught up with her.It wasn’t all the boxes piled highand then tumbling on her that cracked her head and made her a corpse.All that junk just caught up with her.It wasn’t all those clothes hung up on clotheslinesstrung through…
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Knowing the Face of the Land
If you wish to know who really owns the landlook at the faces the windhas carved into the mountains.
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The Red String
Her mother’s tale of the red string foretold that Miko and Makoto would be together, tied little finger to little fingerby a taut invisible blood line.What she didn’t tell her was that the line would fray, break, need to be retied over and over.In their wedding photos Makoto would stand stiff,sincere in his white suit,chrysanthemum…
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The Fitting
When her maman died Marie flew ten hours to the ancient French village where the houses steepled the church,their mansard roofs brown from neglect. The Weeping Willow in front of maman’s weathered hovel did not match Marie’s feelings. It never did. Inside the furniture had aged into antiques.The handmade chaiseswith ladder backs and unadorned ticking,French…
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Three Parables Stretching for Dignity
The blind do not need blindfolds.They wear shades just for useven as we turn our eyes away.We give them a stick to see.The one-legged woman stands just as tall as the two-legged man.The blind man in the wheelchair can go far,but he can go twice as far if he holds on tothe frame of the…
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Shadow Geometry
at what point do shadows becomenumbers and numbers become dustis it when sunlight and moonlight crossthe eye into our anatomical darknesswhen the zero circle helixes into shortexistence a rose, a cell, a dying memorywhen raindrops no longer liquefaction, leaving umbrellas a meaningless propor the grid that passes over unnoticed during the slow, long ride to…
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Life’s Moments
The child looks out her toy windowand imagines her adult self sailing on the blue ocean of the old hat box that holds her communion veil. Her childhood dances alone along the berm’s dawn light as the sloop plies onto the sand.They hug and gallop horses bareback in the vanishing mistwhile Tess, the sea turtle…
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Irreversible
The oceans recede,its pylons exposed.The great elephants rust in the junkyard they fell when Chukwa shifted.Even his severed legs can’t hold up the earth-sky.The sea grass stiffensto a verdant wave,curl exposing the horizon.The ivory house built on the beach(the one with the bench in back where children playedand the family picnicked,the one with the red…
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I See Only Silence
it’s easy to know where the leaves were before they fell,what her lips tasted after the caress of the loving hand,what was in the crib rusting in the forest of the night.Only the twins know why they nod to each in the fog,the thing the hound bays for in the lake of stars,what the alligators…
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A History of Dying Spaces
Only my grandmother came home to die.Her centuries old home was built with a birthing and dying room,two small bedrooms, a library and as was custom, no parlorShe went through the process of lifein private but away from the spaces entirely reserved for birth and death.Home was a place where she ate,sat still, stared and…
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Paramythology
If you accept the appleyou must accept the bite,the lips that bit the flesh,the legs that climbed the tree,the eyes that looked and lustedfor what was in between and abovethe white cleft rising in the speckled light,all the crucifixes after and the rising flags since. Pondering on the origins of poetic archetypes, religion, and the…
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Adhesion
In Vatican City a cardinal walks resolutely forward, his red trainflowing behind longer than a bride’s.It’s silhouette passes by the open windows of the atelier reflecting crosses over the bodices of thetailor’s latest scarlet creations.Another black smoke day rises from the chimney of the Sistine Chapel. Blood shadows slowly abandon St. Peter’s square for the…
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Two Wheels
Two circles, two triangles locked in against a railexist as geometries of mobility in immobility,movement stuck in a silence never intended.The front wheel swings in the direction of desire,forward progress the only direction it knows.Yet, it seems impossible that it stays upright.Without a kick stand it falls easily into the dust.Without a peddler executing a…
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Night Beach Couplet
When the color goes away for the daythe night beach revels in the shadows play.
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At Sunset
Your death must mean just enough not to curse the day you were born,to stand by the water’s edgeand not want to swim with stonesuntil the first dark wave takesme under in a fetal pose,sinks me down in the last breath,the clear waters almost your ghostpushing me back, allowingme to walk away.Of course, I will…
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The End of the Journey
My grief sails through joy refusing to tack the line of others-straight, plain, flat and so so still-the reason why I love it so.No haven of pine and sand,just mangrove rootsgnarled but knotted strong,holding the beach against the hurricane .That it stands and so do Iis not a measure of what I’ve known, or even…
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Quotidian Life
A bicycle splashes over a puddle and its aurareflects down the streetlightspraying halos on the umbrellasof the pedestriansthat pass under.Down the blocktwo stop signson opposite streetsboth signal WALK,letting the crisscross of the quotidian begin.This moment it’s a blue umbrella scissoring around a red one.Earlier a chihuahua in a poncho sniffs and wants to nip at…
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Stage Directions for the Theater of the Absurd
Act One (The one and only act of which there is no other.)Vladimir and Estragon having waited for Godotlong enough decide to stand up and walk home. They dust themselves off. A boulder rolls on stage.It stops in front of them. Enter a sweaty Sisyphus.Vladimir: Godot!Estragon: Godot!Sisyphus: Not Godot. Sisyphus. Godot told me you two…
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The String is not the only Thing that Holds the Kite in the Air
If kites are nothing but a cross on a sailthey can only rise.Yet, the child running with all his joyin the brown fieldon a cloudless day will hold the string taut, thinking it’s up to himto keep the kite in the air and never let its line cross the path of birds.Today, he will learn…
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Getting It Right
I try on my death suit regularly, and even after my cancer surgery, it’s still too long in the arms and legs..This year I did manage to find a comfy pair of shoes in a size 9 1/2that don’t make my toes numb.in a few years I will come into a nice inheritance and will…
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Living With the Fog
The fog covers the bridge all around.Above the day blurs night. Belowships prowl slowand uneasy lines.Thosedriving or walking throughwill remember the cry of the sky,the sobs of those tiny sirensbelow warning away,warning away,those who come too close to touching themin this blindness-long after the light has returned and their soulshave safely reached the other side.…
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The Lone-some Cowboy
His horse whinny’s while waiting outside the church with the blue cross and tin roof.The loyal herding dog panting on the corner,listens to the lulling cows in the pasture,heels for the hand signal to start the gather.In the center of the town square,a marble angel atop a high stone column,inches below a cross of electrical…
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Facing the Stars
I see the starsand feel I don’t exist,that my grief is the only thing that has meaning. The grief that welcomes my own eulogy, reading my headstonein the decaying light,reminding me that I am mortal and must die,dissolve to indistinguishable dust and dirt, a man, an, a.The glowing cheeks of my parentsjust another flaw among…
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The Box That Holds My silence
At bedtimeI sit in my chairand turn offmy long lived hearing aids,putting them in the pine box with the gold leaf claspand a brown phoenixcharred into the lidThe traffic outside dies,the rasping of my dog is silent,my wife’s snoring is muteand the world is so so quiet now. In the morning only the light streaming…
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Celestial Fission
Stardust, the hardest thing to hold on to,forms our guardian angels,the ones that sway us to our favorite tree,settling each branch in a sugary light.We scamper towards it, all the dust of sun and star reflecting golden in our faces,adorned in the red and white regal robes of our younger self.God particles surround us,their soft…