Monthly Archives: June 2016

Human Distance

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Human Distance 

1

Apart from edges, and into deeper darkness,
our scars crawl, remaining aloof.

2

Open windows frame the ache in motion, the
displaced notes between two wavering spaces.

3

Absent light, absent voice. What is the longitude of
grace? Consider errors and their remnants.

4

Navigators measured lunar distance and the height
of two bodies to determine Greenwich time.

5

I study the passing cloud
and its descent, noting the nature of condensation.

6

Desire: the fragmented night and its circumstance.

7

Heavenly form. The moon’s dull glow.
Acquiescence before the body’s silt.

8

Interstellar matter become dust, become
gas, become molecule.

9

Human distance registers no scale.

greenwich_meridian

Roof Charm

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Roof Charm

What is home if not exile to the familiar?

A serrated kiss at the closet door.

We duck our heads and cook meals undercover,
the sun’s rays deflected.

And every relentless     day finds
our hands     wanting.

The black shawl, unfolded.
Wax melted on the whetstone.

You say stars shiver despite their light.

You say one hand      mirrors its mate’s      arc.

I say warmth flows through you, the roof     our sky.

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Self-Portrait with Umeboshi

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Self-Portrait with Umeboshi

Our resemblance strengthens each day.

Reddened by sun and shiso,
seasoned with salt,

we preside, finding
comfort in failure. Or does
the subjugation of one’s flavor for another’s

define defeat? The bitter, the sour, the sweet
attract and repel

like lovers separated by distances
too subtle to see.
Filling space becomes the end.
What do you learn when you look through the glass?

Knowing my fate, I say fallen. I say earth.

 

Ah, simplicity! When I was a child my mother would occasionally serve rice balls in which a single mouth-puckering umeboshi rested at the center. These have long been a favorite, but I admit that umeboshi might be an acquired taste. Commonly called “pickled plums,” ume aren’t really plums but are more closely related to apricots. I cherish them.

“Self-Portrait with Umeboshi” first appeared in the Silver Birch Press Self-Portrait Series (August 2014), was included in the subsequent print anthology, Self-Portrait Poetry Collection, and also appears in my chapbook, If Your Matter Could Reform.

 

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Trains

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Trains

1

In the marrowbone of night,
your song parts the fog.

I never knew the secrets entrusted there.

I never knew that cinders and steel
could lie so passionately

and still believe that the watchman’s hours
would evaporate and leave us scratching for more.

I have stolen time.

The windows remain closed and shuttered.
Even the wind turns away.

The track narrows.

You call.

Again.

2

Sometimes song seems the only respite,
the rhythm of clashing cars

and moments stretched beyond the next bend
to that point where light winks out.

We both know this lonely tunnel.

Payment is due.

I have always exited alone.

3

Another evening, and red smoke completes the horizon.

Your ribs stretch for distance,
and while I cannot see their end,
I know by sound
their lot.

Sing for me.
It is not
too close.

 

“Trains” was originally published in Lightning’d Press (Issue 8) in Spring of 2014, and was reprinted on Aubade Rising in April, 2015. It is also included in my chapbook, If Your Matter Could Reform.
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Patterns

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Patterns

For one who moves in uncertainty, this
flower, the petals of which

gently fade, as if reason
is found in the decline of beauty
and its comforts.

But all you touch remains
touched. If silence reveals the body

of music, what can be said of darkness? Words
appear motionless until they blossom, a
pattern seldom seen yet carried to us in

all manner of conveyance. Listen,
for there is no purer voice.

Let the earth speak.

* * *

“Patterns” first appeared here in March, 2015. I wrote it 30-some years ago, placed it in a folder and promptly forgot it.

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Nine Variations of a Cloud

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night window

Nine Variations of a Cloud

1
Looking up, I renounce pity and the sadness of wind.

2
Only lust pulls and shapes more, diminishing your integrity.

3
It slips through whenever I try to grab it.

4
Every phrase is a window glowing at night, surrendered to its frame.

5
Water in another form is still water.

6
In whose ruins must you survive?

7
Another shape, another moment desperately spent.

8
And still you thrive in diminishment.

9
Bearing nothing, it conceals.

“Nine Variations of a Cloud” first appeared in Kindle Magazine in December 2015, and was also included in Gossamer: An Anthology of Contemporary World Poetry.

 

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Bone to Bone

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Bone to Bone

He claims two sides frame every story.

I count three,      sometimes more,

believing in          multiplicity,

threats                concealed

but never

buried.      A dust devil twists across the path.
What ascends, what dies?

Heat, ashes.       A shadow’s flesh.

The earth, restraining all.

small town

Knots

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Knots

Who you are not seldom rises
beyond midnight’s

sum: one strand thrown over
another, looped through

and pulled taut, achieving
tension and a sour taste

at the back of your throat.
Everyone believes this

doesn’t bleed. I lock the
windows, draw the shades,

twist the cord. Even distracted,
nothing comes undone.

modern light MGD©

Huazi Ridge (After Wang Wei)

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Huazi Ridge

Limitless birds merging
with the autumn-colored hills
all along Huazi Ridge
this sadness, too, without end

Another adaptation. I hope that I’ve not strayed too far from the original’s tone.

The transliteration on Chinese-Poems.com offers:

Fly bird go no limit
Join mountain again autumn colour
Up down Huazi Ridge
Melancholy feeling what extreme

This version of “Huazi Ridge” first appeared in June, 2014.

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In the Place of Cold Doors

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In the Place of Cold Doors

We have a word for everything,
or seven for nothing. Soon

you’ll enter and I’ll talk
on the other side,

watch for signs in every
dropped crumb,

every nailhead and
embedded phrase remembered

in another’s voice. The light
will dim and I’ll look for rain and

go on speaking. My words will wander
unnoticed. You hear only yesterday.

 

“In the Place of Cold Doors” first appeared in Gossamer: An Anthology of Contemporary World Poetry, published by Kindle Magazine in Kolkata, India. I was thrilled to have several poems included in the anthology.

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