Category Archives: Poetry

Nine Variations of a Cloud

Posted on by
8

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.

windmill

End of the Road

Posted on by
10

photo

End of the Road (2002)

Neither expected nor sought, truth arrives.
One phrase, a minute turn of the

wrist, and the beginning reverses itself, becomes
vessel versus point, illuminating

the reach: one sign, two paths. The agave.
How far we’ve come to affect this place.

Last season the flowers were gray and we knew nothing.
Even the stones quivered with laughter.

And then it rained. And the creeks rose, and the bedrock
appeared as if to say your efforts lack

substance. Look underfoot. There lies the truth.
Neither expected nor sought, it arrives.

“End of the Road” last appeared here in April 2017.

eotr

Simplify, as in Forget

Posted on by
10

Simplify, as in Forget

To turn off the stove
or close the refrigerator door,

such brazen attempts to win
the aging contest or blur the mirror

of clarity — you won’t say
which to blame or praise

or whether intent is implicit in
action or if I should hold my breath.

What is the freezing point of love?
When you were cold, whose

belly did you curl into, whose ear
gathered your breath and returned it

warm and with the promise of bees
producing honey? Your name floats

above my outstretched hand,
and unable to grab it, I blink and turn

away. Nothing works as it should.
I exhale. You push the door shut.

* * *

“Simplify, as in Forget” first appeared in the print journal Good Works Review in February 2018.

A Personal Apology

Posted on by
10

Please remember that editors have lives, too. Matt Larrimore, editor-in-chief of Four Ties Lit Review, apologizes to his readers and submitters for the delay in publication of the next issue. Read why, and help out if you can (there’s a go fund me link).

FourTiesTillFriday's avatarFour Ties Lit Review

I want to personally apologize to all our readers and folks who have submitted to Four Ties Lit Review for Issue VII. I have not been able to devote the time I thought I would to the magazine over the last 3 weeks. We should be finished and announcing who has been accepted for publication. However, my wife and I have just moved from Norfolk VA to Fort Collins CO. In the process of that move, we’ve been the victims of fraud. Fraud perpetrated upon us by our moving company. The company was “adjusting” the price of clients moves after signing binding contracts with those clients, extorting money from those clients if they wanted to get their shipment delivered. This is a form of racketeering. A federal grand jury indicted 12 company employees on July 31st and at least 5 of them have been arrested. Authorities have identified at…

View original post 167 more words

Nocturne with a Line from Porchia

Posted on by
12

bureau

Nocturne with a Line from Porchia

Everything is nothing, but afterwards.
I rise and the moon disturbs the darkness,
revealing symbols, a few stolen words
on the bureau. Tomorrow I’ll express
my gratitude by disappearing be-
fore I’m found, which is to say goodbye
before hello, a paradigm for the
prepossessed. Compton tells us to imply
what’s missing, like Van Gogh or Bill Monroe,
but why listen to the dead before they’ve
stopped speaking? Unfortunately we throw
out the bad with the good, only to save
the worst. I return to bed, and the floor
spins. Nothing is everything, but before.

This first appeared in The Blue Hour Magazine in December 2014, and is also included in my chapbook, If Your Matter Could Reform. The line “Everything is nothing, but afterwards” comes from Antonio Porchia’s Voices, translated by W.S. Merwin. Porchia wrote one book in his lifetime, but what a book it was! Often described as a collection of aphorisms, Voices is so much more – each time I open the book, I find new meaning in old lines.

Vincent

Untitled from the 80s

Posted on by
18

Another untitled poem from the 80s…

wood and water
the wave of
fragrance so perfect

we seek to
obtain it as
if we could

be windows open
to a light
the gentlest cloud

would obscure still
spreading like one’s
final exhalation which

travels only to
disperse and become
at last another’s

This first appeared here in June 2017.

Un-Solicitous — A Dream

Posted on by
2

Experience Carrie Birde’s evocative dream!

Carrie Birde's avatarNightjars & Damselflies

Slate.jpg “Slate” — C.Birde, 8/18

Underfoot, the hall’s floor is a puzzle work of slate – gray-blue, charcoal, sand-flecked. To the left, a rough plaster wall rises; opposite, a series of ornate, heavily carved and curved wood frames define bevel-glass windows and doors. At the hall’s far end, a single, narrow, French door emits dusty bands of light.

Walk the hall’s length, pale cat in tow – calm, despite its slack leash; small, excited dog free to leap and prance at heel. Count each stride. Turn. Double back. Half-light swims and glitters; reflects off glass; pools upon polished wood and slate.

The words surface, unbidden:

One-hundred-

six steps

along

the gray stone,

sand-strewn

river…

Complete the lap — down the hall and back. Turn into the open doorway, incised in the plaster wall. Enter a large dining room. Its ceiling soars overhead; its furnishings baroque in detail. A long trestle table, lavishly…

View original post 166 more words

Curtain

Posted on by
23

black-curtains

Curtain

Adept at withdrawal, it retreats.
How appropriate, we think,
that its body curls
with the wind’s
tug, offering
only the
slightest
resistance. Then
it returns,
bringing to mind
the habitual offender
whose discomfiture
lies in choice,
the fear
of enclosure
removed. The
forward glance.
And back again,
whispering its
edict: concede, reclaim.
Give and take. We are as one.

file1631251405894

“Curtain” last appeared on the blog in July 2017.

Poem Up at Vita Brevis

Posted on by
16

goldengate

My poem, “Bone Music,” which originally appeared in Gossamer: An Anthology of Contemporary World Poetry, published by Kindle Magazine in Kolkata, India, has been reprinted on Vita Brevis.

I am grateful to editor Brian Geiger for offering a second home to this poem.

Echo Charm

Posted on by
15

Echo Charm

Right on left, or returned

what circles back, unbroken
yet opened?

Your mouth centers me.

Diminished, I rise, listening.

Grass rubbing against grass.
The lizard’s scarlet throat, swelling.

Not refusal, but denial.

Eyes the color of blood.

You practice your words carefully,
repeating each special phrase.

Blood the color of sky.

Sky the color of eyes.

And always the warm shade.