Monthly Archives: February 2022

Having Survived Myself I Lean Away

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Survival

Having Survived Myself I Lean Away 

You know that
but not
why

the mockingbird mocks,
or how one note

marries others,
forming blissful

chords. And the skies
flaring each night

betraying your willful
ignorance,

while you paint
the words for love

in seven languages
you can’t
speak.

Where are you now,

whose bodies
have you denied,

wrapped in linen,
bagged or boxed,
arriving unseen?

Sagging, I observe your
counted victories, the
smirk claiming

exceptionalism
and destiny or
nobility of purpose,

as even your own shadow
recoils.

cemetery

This first appeared here in October 2015.

Every Wind (with recording)

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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 via Amazon.com and Finishing Line Press.

 

 

 

Scarecrow Takes a Holiday

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Scarecrow Takes a Holiday

Having neither organs nor neural impulses,
I no longer ask why or how I hear and smell,
taste and see, feel. This morning I woke
to magpie song and onion breeze, in
a body not mine, yet mine, at peace
on Jeju Island, far from my crows, yet
still among friends singing the same
language. I know this: home lives
within, and no matter where we travel,
it rides with us. Like the man who
spoke to me, bald, bearded, a pale
foreigner in this land, comfortable
here, at home. He listened for my reply,
but unfortunately I’d not been given
a mouth, and my words dropped to the
ground and were rolled away by
beetles before he noticed them.
Perhaps I should have written a note,
but he wished to gamble and how
could I refuse? I am hollow, but not
empty, whole, yet not complete,
away but here. He took a coin
from his pocket, flipped it. I saw…

 

A response to Daniel Paul Marshall’s “Scarecrow Travels (after Robert Okaji)”

This first appeared in May 2017.

Glass with Memory

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lamp

 

Glass with Memory

When I remember you
glass comes to mind,
but nothing so transparent
as an unclothed thought

or warmth trickling in
through the pipes or
under the haze of
the second night’s sheet,

no two alike except
in appearance, but under
the lamp’s unconscious glare
I find warmth spreading

across the hard surface,
telling me all is
not lost, that smoothness
persists beyond our reflection.

 

glass

 

“Glass with Memory” made its first appearance on the blog in February 2017.

 

 

Self-Portrait with Mandolin

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almond

Self-Portrait with Mandolin

Being
the afterthought

of wood and
steel, I accept

the phrases
allowed me.

Limitations
frame our days;

working within,
we grow.

Almond to tree,
sound in time.

Chords
by implication.

I root among
the falling

leaves,
gathering

their tunes.
When I cannot

see, my hands
find the way.

mando

Runaway Bus (with recording)

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tickets

Here’s a recording of my poem “Runaway Bus,” which was featured on Postcard Poems and Prose Magazine in January 2017 and is included in my chapbook, From Every Moment a Second, available for order via Amazon.com and Finishing Line Press.

 

Runaway Bus

Wishing for pristine airways
and unfeathered dreams, I lie
on my right side, and wait.

Again, the bellows flex and pump.

The relentless tickle, exploding,
another round of gasps and mucus retained,
one droplet among others,
spread across the night.

Comfort’s runaway bus never slows,
and I watch it pull away, shrinking in time.

Wait, wait, I say. I bought a ticket.

 

 

Poems Live at The Big Windows Review

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scarecrow and crow

 

My poems “Scarecrow’s Wealth” and “Cells” are live at The Big Windows Review. Thank you to editor Thomas Zimmerman for supporting my work, and to Charles Payne for sponsoring/inspiring the scarecrow poem. 

 

Dream of Wheels and Lights

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file2441309730955

 

Dream of Wheels and Lights

Bells clang in the night. The lamp post belted
by mist offers little comfort. A stone’s
toss away junipers curved like melted
spoons shudder silently. There are no phones
in this place. A thought sneaks into your mind
quietly, like a straw piercing the oak’s
armor in a bad wind. You turn and grind
the thought with your heel. A wheel rolls by, spokes
flashing like scythes. Crouching by a puddle
a man studies his face. He looks at you
and cries: “All I want is to be subtle.”
You think you know him, but you’re not sure who
he used to be. You throw a rock and shout
at him. The wheel slows and the light burns out.

 

Originally published in Amelia, in 1985, and posted here in March 2015. I remember writing this, but it still puzzles me.


photo(5)

 

Meditation in White

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lily

 

Meditation in White (Lilies)

Clouds pass my high window quickly, abandoning the blue.
Indefinite mass, indeterminate, impersonal

as only intimates may know.
Though you lay there, nothing remained in the bed.

Which is the blank page’s gift, the monotone
or a suggestion of mist and stripped bones.

The nurse marked the passage with pen on paper.
Renewal, departure. A rising.

I accept the ash of suffering
as I accept our destination, the morning

and its offerings, with you in synthesis,
complete and empty, shaded in contrast,

wilting, as another opens. Laughter eases the way.

 

***

page

 

This was first published in Shadowtrain, and made its first appearance here in March 2016.

Unwinding

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Relaxing in a chair


Unwinding

As in a day’s long
thread

or with cold drink
in hand,

glass sweating,
ice

shrinking, a little
sweet,

some salt, her
smile saying

relax, put up
your feet,

I’ll take care
of this,

don’t worry,
tomorrow’s

a full moon
away.

fmoon

“Unwinding” first appeared here in January 2017.