Tag: poetry
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A Hole in the Bucket
My mother was always a better singer than she was a cook. She may have burnt a lot of things but never missed a note, especially when Harry Belafonte came on the transistor kitchen radio-a voice so pure it made her cry with joy.“There’s a hole in the bucket dear Liza, dear Liza,” he sang…
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The Pond
The pond was a quarry first, a blast furnace to the colonies where trains ran across its field.“Iron Ore Bed” map points called it.It was left to the rain when it dried up.When his parents bought the land twenty- five years before he was born, the field was overgrown and the pond was weedy and…
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Living the Half Life
The drought has made July linger. The air smells of sewer booty, sweetgum, sassafras, fescue, concrete and asphalt. On this long summer day when the light and heat decide to linger— parents let their children play well into the night on the community’s green. Their laughter and the croaking of frogs in the rention pond,…
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An Almost Practical Man
I don’t know if I am a practical person. I don’t obsess over the uses of a watch.It’s enough that it tick and the hands move forward, even if I don’t.When my dog paces in front of the door I know I must walk him. When he paws my lap, I must feed him. He…
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Getting Gentler
I’m gentle with the spaces I know and walk through. Every door knobs has fingerprints. The dust and air is full of ghosts,I make them free not by removing them but tidying them up into their own wandering space,letting them tell their stories so I can joyouslytell mine in the right place, time and words.…
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Extinction
Gray wolves howl invisible on the granite shorelinewaiting for the sea’s answer-standing tall on the headland,against a wind that allows no trees,signatures the stones with ageless storms—howling to know why this once lush placewhere endless fields of poppy intertwined with pineis now defaced with crops of suburban homes.Above, a falcon startled from its rocky perch…
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On Wonder
When I look at the sky its blueness mixes and cycles with thunder, lightning and rain.I notice, the vulture, content to feast on leftovers of once beautiful things, fly with the same majesty of the hawk.At night, I see the stars burn bright and smell the rain’s petrichor snake off the worn sides of Racoon…
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The Cleansing Cycle
i like to cling to the grimethe small grit of my father’s ashesunderneath my fingernails, the part of him that refused to fall to the rocks in the scatteringmy mother’s scented oil in her hair,her burning fat seasoning in the skilletstinging my nostrils and eyes leaving me seeing smelling less than my faultering earshis ash…
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Lullaby of Mother and New Born Child Abandoned in the Night
The Hudson sleepsand the clouds sweep over the moon. I promise little dearwith this small tear I will always love you.Sleep, sleep, sleeppeace, peace, peacethe promise I grant you. This song is the factthat your star remains intactin my heart, steady and true.The river’s lull,the moons’s full glowwill always pull us through.The path will be…
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The Fruits of My Labors
I hate mowing the lawn,hate the way it sends chinch bugsflying to the stars after the rain.In my dreams, however, I have lots of land,and delight in sculpting neat parallel rowswith my tractor- over and over, on and on,aerating the start of warrens and burrows for rabbits and woodchucks to finish their tunnels, for deer…
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Paying the Killers
My wife hears the weed man outside spraying the lawn.The next day it’s the pest control guy doing the foundation.He doesn’t come into the house to spray each room anymore. Just doing the outside is enough to keep the bugs away,says the pamphlet he leaves at the top of the steps.My wife comes from the…
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Invitatory
The birds sing of hungerthrough the pillars of lights that render the sky into beingthe great crease of You stumblingthrough onto my bedclotheskindling the room once morewith the face of peace found-outsatiating my starvation with the lamb’s diminutive thorna whole world waiting for Your Yes Author’s note: I usually start my mornings in prayer, asking…
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Ready!
The pain is gone and I am ready to write about everything beyond the fear,ready to bite into the muscle and bone of the world,to put away the dagger phrase,all the losses of my life,ready to live in hope’s recesses.I am poet enough to make you taste this hidden fruit,see beyond all the sutured sunsets…
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This Old House Knows Me Well
This old house painted in faded pride knows me well. I did not learn to walk here,but I did learn to leap- and do it mightily.The old dishes have been broken or thrown away,replaced by new ones with new owners. The taps stiff with old age and rust, surely have been replaced.The comfortable chairs, the…
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Marriage
After his deep illness was over he laid his body on hers—the length of his body on hers—all the sleepings, awakenings,fights, teacup and coffee mornings,their talks about everything and nothing,the plummets, the joyous-awkward silences—and with a tear, she beared his weight— until it was gone.
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The Things Is…
(after Ellen Bass)The trick is to love life,even when you have no stomach for it-even when your life crumbles to burnt paperin your hands- your throat choking in its ashes,embers turned tearing diamonds,weighing you down in grief’s obesity. “How can a body withstand this?”you will ask, cradling your facein your palms- your ordinary facenow, no…
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American Sonnet for My Roomba Soul.
I am old and have seen so many dawns that their beauty has no wonder.You see, my God doesn’t need to be perfect- just right more times than not, and not repeat his/hers/its creations so much, for me to be totally happy.The only thing that still amazes me is that I can navigate the dark…
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Oracles
My grandmother was my oracle, speaking stained insights in a Spanish I hardly understood at the time. My offerings were small but true: kisses, hugs, “I love you” on paper scraps translated by my mother for her knowing. It was as if I had written them in blood and it became a forever tattoo of…
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The Path
I come to the creek path near my house, the one my wife doesn’t like me to walk alone, for fear I might fall. I see mountain bikes riding through, a leashed triplets of dogs of Goldilock sizes their caregiver behind, struggling to contain their strides.My husky-chi barks at them, underneath a low growl in…
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Rollercoaster
When I was young I use to workout my death every time I rode a rollercoaster.I would give myself a glittery gold stickerfor not giving into the fear of the ascent,another if I did not pukeon the first big drop,three if I didn’t fall out raising my hands on turns.I would walk off feeling dizzywith…
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Sonder
I watch my shadow disentangle from the light to plead for its life with the oak’s penumbra and the rising sun, the stride of leashed dogs, bicycle wheels and othersilhouettes, evaporating in the park’s heat. In the artificial lake beyond, a one-man sculls theunobscured water, its paddles leaving clear streams behind.Five strokes later the craft…
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Fading Dreams of a Summer Nymph
jump off the rotting pierfloat face down in the lakeyour arms and legs spread far from your torsohold your breath and drift in the sun swirl near the edges under the tree canopiesuntil you feel the stones of others trying to prod you awakethey will watch you water dripping down your hair face necka beautiful…
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The Infinite Blue
the sky reflects my solitudeeverything above methe witness of my beingand things I left behind s. i. l. e. n. t. c. a. r. e. l. e. s. s.
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Olive Trees
One day, a man with his little boyin a wagon rested under the shady branches of an olive tree.They ate cheese and bread and when they were done they picked olives. When the sacks were full and they grew tired, they slept under the wagon.In the morning they noticed that the earth below themsparkled and…
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Wrack Line
I stay behind the wrack line, alone and ancient,only knowing the stillness my wounded feet allow. A Laughing Gull is revering the border left by the tide.Pass, the mate, thumbs its long bill through the leavings:dried kelp stripped of Brittle Stars, bottle caps, broken glass becoming now fine and deadly sand, mangrove twigs, unstraightened, eaten…
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Another Night’s Peace
(after Solomon ibn Gabirol) https://poets.org/poet/solomon-ibn-gabirolA pure heart in the moon’s smilethe heavens show their peace—another night’s rests from the mischance and mischievous love of moon and tide—the storm’s mantle that covers the moonand presses clouds and streams to burst—and pretenses luna’s death beyond the clouds,the mind’s falling, the soul’s weeping in the lie there is…
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Lost Words Still Unspoken
I’m at that age where death occurs regularlyenough that too many things are left unspoken—in the fall of life grief has unburdened their meanings. Animals know the definition of winds and rainsdescending mountain slopes and plush valleybut I know no mortal words for this silence.I hear it in the song of birds, see it in…
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Lightness of Age
In the moonlight, with grace and style. the old folks start their first time dance.Young, they watched winged flight, felt the warble with delight. In the patient beat of time, knew the stepof the meadow’s light.Now, snowflakes later, they finally dance with the wind, this special harvest night.
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An Old Cold Wives’ Tale
His wife turned cold. He touched her,hoping to die, at the least, maybe sleep. He did not die and he still could not sleep.Her coldness did not dry him out inside. He looked outside and noticed the street littered with other cold wives, demon hands holding them down in a web of rootssprouting from the…
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We only name the heartbeats shared
Alike heartbeats are called out in the evenings radiance:a slouch of bears awakening from a long slumber into the rising spring- the receding snow bringing the feast of a winter’s kill, memories of honeyed searches.a host of house sparrows creating nests in the corner eavesof every Elm Street roof, far away from the doors of…
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Transporting Fragile Materials
Today was the day to dispossess all the possessions in her room.I take measurement after measurement, only making things ghostlier.She was never one for order, or for keeping stuff in one place, holding on to these impressions until thinkings end, and the lights went out.Preserving this was her joy, all these fragile materialsshe held on…
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Adjustments
We all look alike in the dark, until our eyes adjust, and we see all the old, familiar forms.
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A Grieving Song for Unsung Lullabyes
Small steps, my child,in this wilding place.Sharp life everywhere,the spaces too. Steps, small steps, child, tiny prayers, hopes blowninto the trees, the faraway birds,taking safety in the chantof this golden butterfly’s rise,who drank from the splash of the summer rainin the chase of light atop the trees.Small steps, child, forward, sure and true.
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My mother use to say….
My mother use to say whenever I gave I her one of my poems to critique-my mother whose grace and beauty lingers like the reflection of sun on water-that my words remind her of the time in her youth when her life was honey.But I am not a bee and she was never a queen—…
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Duty Free
The van to the Cayman airport hits every pothole,shook every bone. I felt the ride in my teeth.My Dad bought some duty free Johnny Walker,a logwood trinket, a gift for his second set of kids.. A siege of harbor cranes are bobbing in the sway,waiting for the moon to dig its way into the sand.The…
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Monster
It must exist in the closet or under the bed with musty fur that throws jagged shadows, knows the fears that you keep intimately inside, be all mouth, claw, tooth, full of all hungers, and oh, it must be large, LARGE!- and THICK- the fallen image of a once ancient space, the guardian at the…
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I Inherited My Mother’s Nightmares
My memory is just bones-a clutter of heirloomsin the kitchen junk drawerwhere my mother’s soul is hidden in veils of tarnished tchotchkes.This women who refused to vanish has almost vanished from me,leaving these relics of unclaimed bones,this flatware she so carefully inscribed now rubbing out her initials in the consuming rust. There’s no place settingleft…
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I Think My Dog Needs a Bath
The dust of my house pirouettes to its own song, a dog-nosed existence in gray arrangements— the particulate matter of belly rubs and hocks stirring in a delicate assemblé of dog hair waiting for the start of heartfelt applause.
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The Maiden and Her Beauty
Beauty sunned itself on the stone walla slice of the light come early, then gone.But the maiden knew Beauty would stay near, hidden in the summer grasses.In the morning she went to the stone and found Beauty uncoiled, slumbering.The maiden took Beauty into her own hands.and opened the silken feed sack, she’d brought.Beauty poured itself…
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Reimagining Eden
The snake: nothing more than an sunning iguana Eve: the dove settling in the flight of pigeons Adam: a beach bum washing himself in a fountain Expulsion: the agreeing fireworks of fallen angels Cain: the running child with the flowing hair Abel: the fool blinded when he prayed in the eclipseGod: A host of drunken…
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Unfinished Poem
(after Mark Strand)In the drifting of the moon over the waters she saw a past fear jumping to the future : Rain was falling on her husband’s grave, while this poet was moving into her house, in the rain.In her old room the poet was writing a poem abouta woman who strolled under trees and…
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This stove I love so much.
My wife’s kitchen is her solar systemwhere she never burns out.The heat of her stove has been sizzling for more than fifty-five years.When she cooks, she’s at her most beautiful.I find nourishment orbiting her star.
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I Hear the Gapped Heart
My past is blind, locked in its own code.The sunlight is the only gold I own.Grief, birth, the scent of night rain,time’s count down is my inheritance.The wind that lifts the sea, leaves it’s salt drying on my fingers- a dream salvaging the tideline’s gleanings for things oncegenerous, intense, yet lush and lean. I hear…
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Unsent Letters and Messages
Our best messages are in the letters we never write.They’re the ones meant for the grave with no official seal.The ones in your voice but not your definition.All of them meant to be faceless,placeless, sleeplessa whispher of the night,the rain, the streets,all tomorrow’s dusk.The ones that become maps made up of what always been missing.
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a ladybug, cicadas, bumblebees,a butterfly and moths: portrait of a marriage in stasis.
(Poem should be read horizontally to show original formatting)The ladybug climbed the porcelain salt column,on my breakfast table, heading to a nowhere heaven with confidence, its beauty rounding and rounding the rim- delivering the message of herself in its tiny being. I admired this bug that did not crave the darkness,or need not crawl headfirst…
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Well of Souls
(after William Erickson)The well sings of all the fallen children.The song is sad and long for there are many,but it’s also beautiful, for the children sing to the din of stars above.It’s the song of the echo of love, a song that grows, low and soft and secretbuilding a staircase to the heavensthat rises above…
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Woman, Snake, Man
Because of Eve men assume there’s a snake inside women,a dark internal dream state where she lives beyond the mere form that exists.They believe that to know a women you must enter her fully, but thatdenies her an identity beyond flesh and sex and sighs.Some men see women as dreams(come true)— and when she presses…
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Epithalamion
Our bodies exist to bewritten on by one another.Your hand in my hand is inscribed in my thumb. In the clasp, our hearts whisper each other’s name.Even In the embrace of shadows our story lives.It’s the story of lovers and friendsstill waiting for the right wordslike a thumbprint lifted from the panes from the gathering…
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My Planet
Instead of a ticket to mars, I like one to my own planet.It would be Goldilock’s right,with love as far as the horizon.beautiful as my best imaginings.It would have conformable chairs,creatures of my rainbow bridge, theaters with the best movies and plays,schools fostering the best of imaginationcreating great philosopher and poets.There be no geography and…
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Before Entering into the Morning
(after Brenda Hillman)Before entering into the morningI shrug off chemo memories,swallow the bitter taste of other ancient ashesin my mouth.1 minute 30 seconds on defrost,the flip, another 1:00 on high,the microwave sanctifies my biscuit wrapped in a paper towel shroud.My dog paws at my feet, beggingfor the meaty morsel that I will solemnly cut in…
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Living With the Zoomies
I wish I was my dog, keeping the scent ofspring sunshine on everything forever inside.How I envy this creature that knows sky is the color of all the aromas of nature,that beauty is the crush of every nose that breathesin its reeling sunlight.It must be so delicious for him to sniff the scintillating buzz of…
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Little Things
I gift you all the little things of my heart both old and new.Hold them gently in your hands until they start to coo.Then, release them to the wind.
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Amongst the Monuments
One day I will commit the greatest heresy and spread my father’s ashes over my mother’s grave.I will sit, with them and all these other named and nameless cloud covered bodies stretching to the horizon—a final gesture, maybe, but surely a goodbyeto how they came to this place, and how I must leave when the…
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All the Common Desolation Among the Cruelest April Blooms- A Wasteland Homage and Parody
[April is the cruelest month….The Wasteland by T.S. Eliot]It’s almost April and the trees will be shedding winter’s desolation in the canopies of the late afternoon sun.The golden few, the sheer blue above know the ritual dead will be shredded byhoof, foot, beak, talon and claw.Only the poet, the one who lives apart,will mourn and…
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Touch, Please
Every one in your spaces will dieand you will never know if you willbe the last to touch them.Most will get our ragged stubs,a few, palm to palm caress, fewer still, your fingertips brushing their lifelines.They’re all going to die. That last touch is all theycan take with them beforethe crack in heaven splitsand they…
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Relax
Look, it’s inevitable,bad things are going to happen.Your dog will die before you,probably both your parents too.You’ll leave the refrigerator openand the chicken will go bad and your wife will chew you out for it.You’ll wash the colors in the wrong temperature and they will shrink to the size you wore when a boy.You’ll give…
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Fat
As I undress, I watch my flesh swell.I notice the sheaves of my hips,my marshy belly rivered with surgery scars—and I fall in love with the acreage of my life.The four years, that I unraveled into cancer,I do not miss. Nor the weight of my happinessshriveling into a stick man- vacating skin and bone turning…
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Remembering First Snow
The snow in its gloaming has been heaping field and highway with deep, white silence.The pine, fir, hemlock are draped in ermine,the poorest twigs ridged in deepest pearl.From the shed’s roof a rooster crows and stiff rails now down, flutter to the ground.The silent father listens to the noiseless workof beating snow birds whirling by.…
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Another Day
I am at that age where I am relieved that it’s day again every time I awake. Instead of crushing time between my hands, I am content to let it take shape, watch the day’s soft eyes blink the hours away, help take it by the hand when the night says it’s time to go.
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Bumper Crop
Some of my poems are seeds,some of them are weeds.All of them sprout everywhere,for good-bad, over your living things. I never know which will be seedy or weedy.I don’t preserve them between sheets of paper.They’re not museum specimensor even a nicely cultivated garden.They’re cast in the wind for anyone to have them. The ones you…
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White Egret
There it stood, the white egret—scripture as animala saint’s skeletonrising from the weeds.It burst into flight. For the boy watching from the riverbank it was glorious.He wanted to say something wonderful, but his profound thoughtsfrittered away in the simple wisdom of wings annunciation. Soon, the egret was high,almost into forgetting,a flicker in a heap of…
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Gills
When I was a kid I convinced myself I could breathe underwater.I even dreamed I would join a lap of cod and swim all the way to Antarctica. I would never get tired of navigatingtides, forging rivers, crossing gulfs. I was sure if I did surrender to the waters I could not be drownedor become…
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Poet’s First Bath
Falling into the soothing waters all around his infant body- the gurgle of words, meanings to reach with his hands until his mind is ready to explore them, the possibility of something so beautiful that he would spend his life defining her, the knowing of her every single word.
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Play Ball! (Haiku)
This big green diamond waits for these boys of summer to make it sparkle.
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Questions Left After the Big Bang
Suppose the stars burn with a just divine neither man nor beast can rightly define?A blessed passion we can not returnand that humbles all love in its big burn?Will we miss them more should they glow awayleaving all to define their life long way?Will we look at the then starless night skyand remember there were…
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Two Haikus On the Death of Youth
Dead leaves underneath:The grief of a now shorn thing That knew sky and stars.The dew has dried.The red blossom shadow’s grows—Exhales, fades away.
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Why I Write
I didn’t start writing poems because I felt the indifference of nature,or soon after my mother diedon a hot September day.I never sat on a stone bench weeping with the blooming lilies and roses all aroundor wrote because something wasblack and broken inside meor to correct the world’s injusticesor any such serious poetic stuff.No, I…
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Ocean Apostrophe
The ocean still spits up toys and shoesyears after the hurricanes blew threw.The erosion of sand below the water andon the beach display other sadnesses.The unwanted apostrophe between sea and shore,the warning red sky and the calm cerise night breaks into crescents on the bay, each moonbeam an invisible memory.The union of jealous wind and…
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Cinderella in the Second Trump Administration
Cinderella polished the ache in her—washing walls, scrubbing floors,stirring, stirring, stirring the pot, cleaning windows over, overand over again— was her grief.The lady of the house (calling her stepmother she could not do-not that orange haired demon)bellowed her demands: “When one goes to my windowsand looks out, they must be in real doubt whether it…
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Silent Little Boy
The mother watches her first child in his first wintercatch fistfuls of sun—watches the dust and airriding down to the crib—waiting for the mobile to play sweet music in the arc of light—and the sweep of his hand to its frame.The melody plays but not the words.It’s for mother and childto complete. The mother knows…
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In Passing (Haiku Chain)
Slowly time crushesthe coal black of all nighttimeto diamond morningsand the bud quivers only in the mystery of its blossoming in the wide meadow-lost in precious existence with the nastic night. ————nastic: the non-directional movement of a plant part in response to an external stimulus is known as nastic movement . The folding up of…
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Poesy for the Grown-Up Child
(The poem is best read in landscape view, so as to keep the original formatting intact.) This year when the ginormous flamingos arrived Harold and Lilith, little brother and sister so, lassoed the pinkest and to the sky they arose— above all the straw maidens playing games with life’s fire, the slow dancing couple living…
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Oblivion
Sprinkle my ashes in an unknown spot, neglected by everyone but you. Let those who forget me, forget me. My death won’t revive their utter lack of life, relieve their petty jealousies, hates. The tribute of an unknown walker spreading my dust is honor enough, living in your secret oblivion, my joy.
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The Night Is a Triptych
You sit invisible in the green chair of the diner not enough lightto cast a shadowthe dinner is tastelessyou think you have Covid on the way back to the car your footsteps sink into the blacktopgetting lost in the yellow overheadsthe strippings belowYou trip, stumblefind the carstruggle with the keysthe opening the closing all the…
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Walking Along the Bay Beach at Night
The dusty stars above, the stars in waves besides,where the very sand is dust.The bay is the nightinseparable from the starsand the winding coastline,the brilliant creatures tide-linedin the black sands swirlsas we walk in their darkness—star ash, beyond the life watch,the dusty light of their spiralaway from the swish and spill,the other walkers walking back,holding…
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Moon Play
The moon slipped into his room a suitcase of light seeking commiseration,The boy imagined three stars stolen from the Northern Sky packed inside.The beam stopped by the bookcase,thumbed its light on a few titles,and since the books would not open and confess their wordsdrifted its attention to the unexpected life awakening on the other side—a…
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Song of the Air
The dying fisherman stares at the sea gray as his hair, cap and clothes-knowing the day he freed the tangledmermaid from the kelp, and how she spoke of the brine and slid back into the waves. On this last day of his nothing, she appears- and he hides behind the mast so she would not…
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The Oven Bird
The song of this ugly bird fills the kitchen and escapes through the window, this thing that could only gobble in life, teaching the tree one to sing. Note: There are two birds being referred to: the first- the turkey in the oventhe second- an actual bird species, the ovenbird.
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Behind the photo of the boy on the rubble
The boy sits atop of the rubble of his homeHis father lies silent twelve feet belowHis infancy has fallen from that summitThe darkness chokes his gentle neckNeedles of despair push into himTheir sharpness kills his heartInside he feels all his organs shrivel His tears fertilize the moundFrom them, a black flower seedsIts delicate roots claw…
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Gift of a Good Little Girl
After brooding on many deaths I decided to take a walk in the bright winter sunbefore it steals away for the coming night.The wind is blowing harsh, delivering a muddle of birdsong,cacophonies of voices,mostly from behind,one or two familiar,but only one voice,now in front, wasclear and distinct. A little dog, maybe, a chi or a…
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After October 7th
He had collected remains for most of his lifebut now can’t stand the smell of grilled meatHis son marks time from that fateful date,everything before that, lost in time’s horror.His son-in-law now gags at the smell of rotten food.They work to bring the families of the dead closure,even though there is no real closure for…
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On Reading of the Demolition of the Once Good Hospital of My Birth
I think He made this hospital beautiful this place of dying, birthing, healing and enduring—How It opened up like a prayermonumental and pleasinga place to tend God and body—How He wanted those returning from sleep not to know the smell of cotton but the feel of traveling into a kiss—How He made it to repeat…
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Clarity
Joy rises in feathered swirls on sorrow’s wings, above the illumined dusk— the grieving heart of all living things.
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Mischief
It’s odd how my lifehas balanced on some rat mischief-floating around-curing me previously, gnawing at me the next.Having nibbled my fingertips clean,they gnaw my toes.The three blind micelend me their stick,“It’s your cane,” they say.I beat them away knowing they will return either by drip or thru the walls. Notes: A group of rats is…
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Christos
The beautiful things he made came back to him: the long tableof good wood built solid, true;the simple seatscarved even, joinedtogether perfectly right;the hung doors that swung cleanas he passed;even the crossbeamhe swayed from— his blessed creation.
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Rattlesnake
I tasted rattlesnake once at the annual Wild Hog BBQ held at the old Ocohopee fair grounds.It came in inch thick fork stabbed slabs on a Hefty styrofoam plate.It did not taste like chicken.The hog, however, was sweet,tangy, full of saucy squealing death,and nothing like chicken at all.Back home, my grounded sister,punched me hard in…
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I want to tell you something nice
Awake, awake my love!I want to tell you something.In summer nights I can hear stars falling,the sound of the big city revel.I want to tell you something niceabout the darkness you believewe live in and are forever going against,how the world stops spinningcatches fire, falls in our hearts.I want to tell you something goodabout how…
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a dead poet is discovered
They discovered him in the sandthe dead poethis wordsall of themground to a nice meterthat and his clothesthe only things not rotting in the sun the only place where he never can be and stillread his poems
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Morning Routine
The leaving night reveals the city’s imperfectionsin the reflecting crystal fires of the rising sun. Coffee brews in simultaneous percolations with the morning subway schedules.TVs switch on the 6am newscasters speaking the demon chants of the last day’s news. Knives descend on bread, sausage, eggsunaware of angel’s ascending in the new light.The last of glass…
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What Remains?
What remains left of holidays if the days of the week dissolve and stop fading into seasonscars refuse to travel on tarmac& shopping centers become empty& our unharvested crops return to jungleWill we live backwards livesrevel in a smaller world to inhabitwith more birds and seen starsfind bliss in ordinary existence
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Rain Chapter and Verse
He fell in love with the rainvolumes and volumes sheets upon sheetseach drop a wet memorya weather forecast of himThere he was a child in yellowand black rubber bootssplashing up and downfeeling the pinging on his hoodthe flavor of pond on his tongueputting his existence on hold for maybe days and dayslocked away in play…
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this is not my poem
Today the poem I wrote was not the poem I wanted to writeI think it was a decent poemmaybe even a good oneI got enough sleepI thinkThe moon was not shining in the roomthe sun was getting brightThe screen had no stars stripesexclamation marksnothing showing I fell asleep on the keyboardNothing had been erasedNothing deletedEvery…
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A Secret Poem
He buried her kiss.For thirteen months it stayed hidden.She did not knowit was lying there.He did not tell her.When it was time,after she fell asleep, he dug the kiss upand pressed it into a little box he especially madefull of cotton.He walked to the garden,dug a two kiss deep grave under her favorite tree and…
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The Fruit
The apple trees emerge from winter sleepcascades of pink-white blooming bright starsbecoming eye memories for the kitchen child eating cherries with cream amidst the cooking spring lamb, the figs, fresh peas, mint As the trees put on their leaves, add yet another ringthe mother puts on the ghost grandmother’s coatfilled with blue-veined memories of the…
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A Harsh Wind
The wind howls in smelling of prisons, cemeteries, hospital ashes— misery.“What does it want from us?”,the people ask. The wind does not answer.They, demand it go away,scram like a lost, confused doglooking desperately for its owner.Instead the wind blows their paintings off their hooks,knocks over their table lights,blows their precious paperswith their meaningful wordsoff their…
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Heavier than Age
Morning heavier than ageleaves the birds weighted to the limbs, unable to break out in riotous morning song.In the distance— a church bell,people in black creeping around-“Heaven. Heaven,” in their earsfor the poor soul laying beneath.They wish to hear only the sea.The old sea. The new sea. Any sea— to catch their tears, drown their…
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A Small Post Christmas Miracle
He watched his grandma create this wonderful thing stitch by stitch, just for him, in her remaining free time.He was mesmerized by the looping and pulling, the unraveling skeins meldinginto this beautiful blanket of many colors.By November it had started showing flashes of his favorite hues: blue, green, yellow— black stitching separating into squares.He imagined…
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Songs for When I Am Dead, My Dearest
When I am dead and ash, my love, keep me close or throw me away- do whatever your heart so desires.Sit on the dock of the bay and sing that favorite song of mine to the gulls.Just remember I wasn’t made tobe planted under a hardy oak or buried under a manicured lawnto see the…
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One Tough Dog
The dog had been shot and knew of pain-the bullet that enters from a mean master dishing out daily doses of cruelty. The dog, had slinkedaway to die, but lived— the bullet scared over, resting perilously close to his heart,rubbing silently against muscle and bone.You didn’t find him. someone kinder did,took him to the shelter,where…
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Cinemaio
the cinemaio shows movies in his empty theater in the darkness of his cinema despite the plague the closure of all othersHe sits in a plush velvet arm chair or sometimesunspools his legs onto the celluloid floor sitting in the back of the room savoring the light and images as he used to do during…