My poem “Letter to Gierke from the Future’s Past” is featured at Vox Populi.
Poem Up at Vox Populi
19
Monthly Archives: December 2017
3 Books, 3 Poets
I’m thrilled and honored that Charlotte Hamrick thinks so highly of my book.
Poem Featured at The Clearing
My poem “Prescribed” is one of three featured at The Clearing, a British online magazine focusing on landscape. I’m thrilled to have a piece included. Thanks to editor Michael Malay for taking this one.
Silently
This! Anna Marie Sewell discusses faith and strength and getting on with the hard things.
The joy of the Lord is my strength. – Nehemiah 8:10
So there’s Nehemiah, ringside at the Ultimate Fighting Championships. Or is that him at the Rumble in the Jungle, as the ‘Ali, Bomaye!’ chant starts up? Is that him swaggering behind Bruce Lee? What is the appearance of this strength? What is the joy of the Lord?
I didn’t see my Mom as a joyful person. She was definitely not the one to be happy-clappy, singing out the ‘joy of the Lord,’ that is for sure. She was often grim and weary, actually, burdened by many responsibilities, beset by challenges, bowed down by grief and betrayal; her strength lay in her firm resolve.
There was a day when I accompanied her to our new home, 19.8 acres, fenced, with a yard site and barns. It would become the family home base. On that day, though, it was not yet…
View original post 1,603 more words
A Brief History of Babel
A Brief History of Babel
Borders, windows.
Sound.
Trudging up the steps, I am winded after six flights,
my words smothered in the breathing.
The Gate of God proffers no favors.
When the spirit gives me utterance, what shall I say?
Curiously, no direct link exists between Babel and babble.
A collective aphasia could explain the disruption. One’s
inability to mouth the proper word, another’s
fluency impeded by context.
A stairway terminating in clouds.
Syllable by twisted syllable, dispersed.
Separated in symbols.
And then,
writing.
To see the sunrise from behind a tree, you must face
east: higashi, or, a discrete way of seeing
the structure of language unfold.
Two characters, layered. One
thought. Direction.
Connotation. The sun’s
ascent viewed through branches
as through the frame
of a glassless
window.
Complexity in simplicity.
Or the opposite.
I have no desire to touch heaven, but my tongues reach where they will.
Who can know what we say to God, but God?
And the breeze winding through, carrying fragments.
* * *
My poem, “A Brief History of Babel,” was drafted during the August 2015 Tupelo Press 30-30 challenge, and was subsequently published at Bonnie McClellan’s International Poetry Month celebration in February 2017.
Icarus
Icarus
the answer is
not the history
of flight but
a question of
wings a notion
born of desperation
and fright each
quill ruffled by
the delicate tongue
of air can
only reflect this
fortune a dream
but never a
tragedy the gift
of gravity’s denial
Written probably in 1985 or 1986, this is the first poem I titled “Icarus.” It’s fun to unearth these old pieces.
My Poem “Vesuvius” is Up at The Big Windows Review
My poem “Vesuvius” is featured at The Big Windows Review. Thanks to editor Thomas Zimmerman for accepting this piece.
Bamboo
Bamboo
the ringing in
one’s ear is
not desire but
language the song
of another mouth
moving in a
different wind the
music is nothing
it is all
and has no
substance but that
shaped inside beyond
thought like growth
in a seed
there simply there
* * *
Something written in the 80s that seems to fit today’s mood. Funny how that is.
I’ll Turn But Clouds Appear
I’ll Turn But Clouds Appear
You gather and disperse and nothing I do salves my hunger.
Where are you, if not here among the roots of dead flowers
or inches below the window’s opening
in the leaf-filtered light. Or spread across
the ceiling, caught in filaments of expelled
hope. Savoring motion, I look up and address the Dog Stars,
longing to catch your attention. But clouds muffle
my words, and instead I turn
to the fragrance of tomato and garlic and spice
wafting into the night. What could bring you back?
Not love. Not wine. Not solitude, nor the sound of my voice.
I spoon out the sauce, cautiously, and wait.
* * *
“I’ll Turn but Clouds Appear” first appeared in Bindlestiff.
Recording of “Every Wind”
Every Wind
Every wind loses itself,
no matter where
it starts. I want
a little piece of you.
No.
I want your atmosphere
bundled in a small rice paper packet
and labeled with strings of new rain
and stepping stones.
I want
the grace of silence
blowing in through the cracked
window, disturbing only
the shadows.
Everywhere I go, bits of me linger,
searching for you.
Grief ages one thread at a time,
lurking like an odor
among the lost
things,
or your breath,
still out there,
drifting.
* * *
Music: “Gymnopedie No. 1” Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)
Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 License
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/
“Every Wind” first appeared in The Lake in July 2016, and is included in my chapbook, From Every Moment a Second, available for order now via Amazon.com and Finishing Line Press.
O at the Edges 