From Left to Right I Ponder Politics and Kanji

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From Left to Right I Ponder Politics and Kanji

In the evening I pour wine to celebrate
another day’s survival. My motions:
up to down, left to right. Glass

from cabinet, wine to mouth.
And then I return to the page.
The character for stone, ishi,

portrays a slope with a stone
at its base, and I take comfort
in knowing that as my knee aches

at the thought of climbing, ishi exists
in descent only. A volcano belches,
producing hi, fire, rising above the

cone, while earth, tsuchi, lies firm
beneath the shoots pushing up,
outward, and ame, rain,

consists of clouds and dotted
lines and the sky above. But if
wind is made of insects and

plums, do I assemble new meaning
without fact or wisdom, form
or assumed inflection, left to

down, up to right? Consider water,
its currents, its logic and needs.
Consider truth. This is how I think.

 

* * *

“From Left to Right I Ponder Politics and Kanji” appeared in Bonnie McClellan’s International Poetry Month celebration in February 2017.

 

Poem Up at Mason Street Review’s Community Room

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My poem “Dreaming That My Legs Won’t Move, I Think of Debts” is up at Mason Street Review’s Community Room Page. I’m grateful to the Newark Public Library and the editors of Mason Street for taking this piece.

 

 

 

Michael Simms: Going Deaf

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“Going Deaf” by Michael Simms is a great poem. Make that GREAT. It’s big in all the good ways, and quiet where it needs to be. Read it. Your day will improve.

Vox Populi's avatarVox Populi

Now is the time for drowsy tanagers. -– E.S.

.

First I lost the tick of snowflakes hitting glass.

Then the sound of the cat’s tongue running over her fur.

It used to be I could almost hear her tail moving,

The muscles of the back stretching, the yawn going to a different register…

I lost the buzz of the fly, the distant hammer of my neighbor fixing his roof,

The whine of wind in the rafters and the exact words you speak

As you walk away, rooms opening to other rooms, houses full

Of music I’ll never hear as I walk by. The tinny laughter

Of television sitcoms I don’t miss,

Nor bus-farts nor gunshots of the cops

But Louis Armstrong, Bessie Smith… missing a few notes

Means losing the whole song, the way all the beads

Fall to the floor when the string breaks.

.

What I miss…

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Galveston, 1900

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Galveston, 1900

First the wind, then a tide like no other
uprooting the calm,

a visage tilted back in descent
as if listening for the aftermath.

And later, the gardener’s lament
and the building’s exposed ribs,

light entering the eternal
orchard, nine children tied to a cincture.

Not even the earth could retain its bodies,
and the sea remanded those given to its care.

 

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“Galveston, 1900” first appeared here in January 2015. Last February it was accepted for publication in an anthology to be published in 2020, but alas, I’ve just been informed that the publisher is unable to move forward on it. Such is the literary life.

 

The Sky Withholds

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The Sky Withholds

   night. In this event I breathe alone, one entity hoarding
space. And to where do shadows retreat under moonless skies?
I sit among the cedars and mourn my life’s dogs. Dark memory,
raven nights layered upon days, trailing more memories, white
after black. We regard their appeal, their limitless reach into
other systems and the fissures between thought and action,
dawn and closure.

“The Sky Withholds” was first published in Bright Sleep in July 2017.

As Blue Fades

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As Blue Fades

Which defines you best, a creaking lid or the light-turned flower?

The coffee’s steam or smoke wafting from your hand.

Your bowls color my shelves; I touch them daily.

Sound fills their bodies with memory.

The lighter’s click invokes your name.

And the stepping stones to nowhere, your current address.

If the moon could breathe would its breath flavor our nights?

I picture a separate one above your clouded island.

The dissipating blue in filtered light.

Above the coral. Above the waves and ocean floor far below.

Above the space your ashes should share.

Where the boats rise and fall, like chests, like the waning years.

Like a tide carrying me towards yesterday’s reef.

Or the black-tailed gull spinning in the updraft.

 

 

“As Blue Fades” first appeared in Underfoot in October 2017.

Who Will Know

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Who Will Know

If I drip like snow from the roof who will know?
When I throw stones at dead men who will know?

The mother’s ghost rests in a razor-filled moat.
He purses his lips, laughs, says who will know?

You are the night sky above the red-cloud horizon.
When I fade like twilight, tell me who will know.

Which vein traces love, which proffers denial
as our blood starts flowing, and who will know?

Unanswered prayers line his frozen pockets.
When he unclenches his tiny hands, who will know?

This man’s tongue repels truth no matter the hour.
If we hear only what he allows, then who will know?

 

* * *

“Who Will Know” made its first appearance in May 2019 at The Local Train Magazine, a publication out of Bangladesh.

 

Better Than Drowning

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Better Than Drowning

As clouds leverage sky and the wind scours each night.

Surrounding the spiraling strands. Wherever I am. And am not.

Over the crushing waves, suspended between air and matter.

With the earth in taproots drilled through stone.

Under the layered fog, dampness upon dampness, differing by degree.

I see you where I don’t look. You live in the mirror.

The night conceals nothing, not even my guilt.

Not even my pleasure. Nor your smile.

I shake the quilt and spread you everywhere.

Though no door existed, it closed behind you.

Which is the point of absence, the fulcrum on which I balance.

You turn and join the light, casting no shadow.

 

* * *

“Better Than Drowning” first appeared in Underfoot Poetry in October 2017. Many thanks to Tim Miller for taking this piece, and for his enthusiastic support of poets and poetry.

 

In This Shack a Cold Wind Blows

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In This Shack a Cold Wind Blows

In this shack a cold wind blows,
shuffling papers and ideas before settling

on the floor. Leaves rustling. Tea,
cooling. You recall the peace of near

death, fear circling the drain,
giving in to breath, labored but certain,

one exiting another and again,
then laughing at the improbability: you

are nothing. You were nothing.
Nothing will come of you. You say

yesterday, and think tomorrow. Today.

 

* * *

“In This Shack a Cold Wind Blows” was first published in April 2019 by The Elixir Magazine out of Yemen.

 

 

Scarecrow Calls Out the Man

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Scarecrow Calls Out the Man

These things I cannot name: that finger of night
between fear and peace, in which darkness both cloaks
and hugs the wide-eyed. A snake, in the open. And that space
behind the watcher? Perhaps it is easier to call it something
else – a gasp, or the immeasurable measure. A presidential
folly. My friends, ever cautious, swoop in and away, taking
with them only those grains they need, unlike you. What use
is a hoarded larder if it rots? How does one come to want
everything and nothing at the same time? A gilded house
spotlights wealth, not right. Is this edifice your legacy,
your monument to self? The heart monitor’s blip paints one
forever, your pursed lips, another. But even the concrete
you cringe behind lacks permanency; regard your hands
and all they can’t stuff into your pockets. Loosen that
coiled tie lest it choke you. Accept what the mirror sees,
and await karma. Though you will not hear my voice,
I offer this: may the combined weight of your lies and
larcenies, your unpaid debts and power plays, rapes,
casual racism, privilege and coarse, childish taunts, merge
into one fist-size bankroll placed upon your chest, and
fueled by the gravitational forces of forty-four black holes,
slowly, with each turn of the earth’s axis, press down and
down and down in search of that shriveled organ, and finding
it, pluck out and replace it with one resembling that of a
genuine human, one honoring respect and love, empathy
and humility. I am the sum of integrated, discarded
pieces assembled to observe and warn, collecting only
diminishment and the means to become less. Wanting
little, the world welcomes me. It arrives free, honest, on
wings, bringing wealth beyond your reach, your greed.
I own nothing. I know nothing. But this: I name you
Scourge, and laugh at the smallness of you. I name you
Farce. I name you Empty. I name you Gone.

 

* * *

“Scarecrow Calls Out the Man” first appeared on Vox Populi in August 2017.