My poem, “Forced to Eat Soft Food, I Consider Options” has been published at Little Rose Magazine.
Poem Up at Little Rose Magazine
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Parkland Haibun
Parkland Haibun
What toll, dripping from his fingers? How does he sleep? Which truth
honored? The senator takes millions and offers prayers in lieu of action,
betraying the children, appeasing his benefactor. Seventeen chairs emptied
on this day, alone. He says nothing can be done, that laws are ineffective,
the shooting was “inexplicable.” What do his thoughts weigh? What griefs
will they bear? Can they reverse a bullet’s track or bring laughter back
to a family’s shattered life? Would any god answer this man’s prayers?
even the skunk balks
at Rubio’s empty words
ah, hypocrisy
Call for Submissions: Poems for Peace: Anthology
Some of you might be interested in submitting poems to this anthology. I know I am.
poems for peace: an anthology to uplift encourage & inspire
This anthology, poems for peace (forthcoming, fall 2018), is the love-child of a group of poets and listeners who have been gathering quarterly in San Antonio, Texas since Nov. 11, 2017 in association with the San Antonio peaceCENTER. This anthology will be published as a peaceCENTERbook, with all proceeds going to support the CENTER.
While we are aware that many horrors occur in our world and that, as a people, we seem to be in turmoil and conflict on many fronts, our aim is to provide respite from the apparent problems and to purposefully turn our attention to the good, the Whole, the Holy, that which is full of peace and comfort.
For this inaugural issue of poems for peace, we seek work that is metaphysical, celebratory, fun, funny, lighthearted, playful, thoughtful, warm, tender, beautiful, compassionate, heart-opening, or spiritual without proselytizing, nostalgic without being overly sentimental, empowered without being politically charged and rich with imagery and story but not with graphic insensibility or dealing with overtly, hot topics that may trigger anxiety or anger in the listener (like abuse issues, natural disasters, or tragedy in general).
Rather, we seek work that uplifts, encourages and inspires. We are especially interested in the metaphysically broad; we look for the profound, real, fearless, gender-inclusive, curious voice.
Guidelines:
Please send 3-5 previously unpublished poems of up to ten pages in length and in any form in a single Word document, making sure that no identifying information appears within the document. Include a brief, bio (100 words or less) in your cover letter. Submissions are being hosted by Moon Shadow Sanctuary Press via Submittable only (see link below).
The book will be perfect bound and available online through the peaceCENTERbook link and other online venues plus locally in bookstores TBA. Poets included in the anthology may be invited to participate in future poets for peace events. For more information or to ask questions about poets for peace or submissions, look for us on Face Book, or send us a message here: fb.me/poetsforpeaceSA
Deadline: August 1, 2018
Click here to submit: https://moonshadowsanctuarypress.submittable.com/submit
Patterns
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, and again in June 2016. I wrote it 30-some years ago, placed it in a folder and promptly forgot it.
Forgetting Charm
Forgetting Charm
Even your bones remember what you’ve long discarded.
This field of stone grows beyond sight.
In our house the tang of burnt sugars.
You say I love you in four languages I do not speak,
but never in the one I claim.
We light fires with stolen paper.
Douse them with stored rain.
Fragmented memories fill our cupboards.
Did I once know you?
Take these words from me.
Bury them in daylight.
* * *
“Forgetting Charm” was published in The Icarus Anthology in August 2017.
Nine Ways of Shaping the Moon
Nine Ways of Shaping the Moon
for Lissa
1
Tilt your head and laugh
until the night bends
and I see only you.
2
Weave the wind into a song.
Rub its fabric over your skin.
For whom does it speak?
3
Remove all stars and streetlights.
Remove thought, remove voice.
Remove me. But do not remove yourself.
4
Tear the clouds into threads
and place them in layered circles.
Then breathe slowly into my ear.
5
Drink deeply. Raise your eyes to the brightness
above the cedars. Observe their motion
through the empty glass. Repeat.
6
Talk music to me. Talk conspiracies
and food and dogs and rain. Do this
under the wild night sky.
7
Harvest red pollen from the trees.
Cast it about the room
and look through the haze.
8
From the bed, gaze into the mirror.
The reflection you see is the darkness
absorbing your glow.
9
Fold the light around us, and listen.
You are the moon in whose waters
I would gladly drown.
* * *
First posted in October 2014, and again on Valentine’s Day in 2016 and 2017, “Nine Ways of Shaping the Moon” also appears in my chapbook, If Your Matter Could Reform.
Empty Cup
Empty Cup
I set down my cup, pour
tea and think this day, too,
may never end.
With what do we quantify love? How does grief measure us? Nine days ago I wrote “My father is dying and I’m sipping a beer.” More words followed, but I did not write them, choosing instead to let them gather where they would – among the darkening fringe at light’s edge, in that space between the shakuhachi’s notes, in the fragrance of spices toasting in the skillet. In unwept tears. Everywhere. Nowhere.
Seven days ago I wrote “My father is dead.” Again, I chose to let the unwritten words gather and linger, allowing them to spread in their own time, attaching themselves to one another, long chains of emptiness dragging through the days.
If experience reflects truth, sorrow’s scroll will unravel slowly for me, and will never stop. I feel it beginning to quiver, but only the tiniest edge emerges. I am nothing, I say. I am voice, I am loss, I am name. I am memory. I am son.
I have fifty-nine years
and no wisdom to show for it.
Never enough. Too much.
Spring Night (after Wang Wei)
Spring Night (after Wang Wei)
Among falling devilwood blossoms, I lie
on an empty hill this calm spring night.
The moon lunges above the hill, scaring the birds,
but they’re never quiet in this spring canyon.
Another try at an old favorite…
I consider this adaptation rather than translation, but perhaps appropriation or even remaking might be more accurate.
Here’s the transliteration from chinese-poems.com:
Person idle osmanthus flower fall
Night quiet spring hill empty
Moon out startle hill birds
Constant call spring ravine in
So many choices, none of them exactly right, none of them entirely wrong. How does one imply idleness, what words to use for “flower” (blossom? petal?), or for that matter, “fall” (descend, flutter, spiral)? And how to describe a moonrise that scares the constantly calling birds? My first attempt began:
“I lie among the falling petals”
but it seemed vague. The word “osmanthus” fattened my tongue, or so it felt, but the osmanthus americanus, otherwise known as devilwood or wild olive, grows in parts of Texas. So I brought the poem closer to home.
I considered naming the birds (quail came to mind) but decided against. In this case the specificity felt somehow intrusive.
My hope is that I’ve managed to amplify, in some small way, previous iterations, and that while the edges are still a bit blurred in morning’s first light, perhaps they’ll become slightly crisper by the evening.
“Spring Night” last appeared here in May 2016.
Missing Loved Ones
Missing Loved Ones
You marvel that a simple garment retains so much of a person’s
being. I watch the worm swinging on its long thread
from one side of the door’s frame to the other,
wondering how to avoid it should I go out, but a sparrow
solves that problem. In 365 BC, Gan De detected what was likely
Ganymede, but history records no other sightings until Galileo
in January, 1610. Thus an entity with twice the mass of our
moon went missing for 1,900 years, which helps explain
the parameters of oblivion. But nothing equals the heft
and gravitational pull of those we miss – the dead, the gone,
the lost, the never-coming-back – a friend’s laughter
still echoing twenty years later, a lover’s taste and smell
rekindled with each autumn’s first fire, or the dog’s warmth.
Small wonder that we ever exit the house, leaving these
companions behind. I watch the sparrow snatch another
snack, and consider the mechanics of loss. Ubiquitous, but
generated anew. Unique yet common, unfelt and devastating.
Late at night, you say, I draw comfort from cloth, stroke
the once inhabited trousers or the flannel sheets resting
in the drawer. This scarf, her love. That shirt, my heart.
“Missing Loved Ones” was drafted during the August 2016 Tupelo Press 30-30 challenge, and was subsequently published in Eclectica in summer 2017. Many thanks to editor Jen Finstrom for accepting the poem, and to Emily Bailey, good friend of many years and former office mate, for sponsoring the poem and suggesting the title.
Poem Swallowing Itself
Poem Swallowing Itself
Reading aloud—
people turn their heads
and step back, never
imagining what lies behind,
expecting neither snakes
nor bear traps nor other ambush.
Beginning where one ends, or
continuing a conversation
over decades, the truth
rises then subsides,
like soaring vultures or
cubes in scotch whiskey.
Measuring volume by
glance, the poem shivers,
opens its mouth wide.
“Poem Swallowing Itself” first appeared here in April 2016.
O at the Edges 