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.
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.
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
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.
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.
***
This was first published in Shadowtrain, and made its first appearance here in March 2016.
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.
“Unwinding” first appeared here in January 2017.
My poems “Do Not Retain Me In An Urn,” “Pinot Noir” and “Hotel of my Future” are live at Salamander Ink Magazine, a Nigerian publication. Thank you, founder/editor Salam Wosu for taking these pieces.
.
Blackbody
1
It is a house. A small house.
A small dark house perched on the edge of town
near the river.
The river is constant.
A man enters the house, closes the door behind him.
Nothing emerges. We witness this daily.
No one emerges.
The house is dark.
A man enters.
The river is constant.
2
A pebble pierces the water’s surface.
I awaken to imperfection.
A blackbody allows all incident radiation to pass into it,
absorbing all, reflecting none.
The tensile strength of water decreases as temperature rises.
Hakuin said if you doubt fully, you will awaken fully.
Before sunrise I unshutter the window.
Angle of reflection, angle of incidence.
My doubts reinforced with coffee, I pause.
Perfect blackbodies do not exist in nature.
Opaque box with a hole.
3
There is a house. A small house.
A small dark house perched on the edge of town
near the river.
Nothing emerges.
A man enters.
The river is constant.
“Blackbody” was first published on Aubade Rising in May, 2014, and appeared on the blog in February 2016.
Scarecrow Questions
Though my tongue withers from disuse and
drought, I taste from across the sea astringent
smoke and the progeny of a hundred bullets
buzzing by like misguided insects through
the theater of the dying, and I question how
pride and greed, hubris and fear, unwind their
cords to detonate these differing yet tangled
lines. How to fathom such depth of mistrust?
The Christian paints her door frames azure, a
Muslim carpets his tile floor, the Jew panels his
walls, yet among each, various segments clash,
and all of their houses implode. I feel nothing,
yet shiver throughout the sun-blazed afternoon.
Then I consider the structure of zero, whether its
body contains or extracts, negates or compromises,
hollows out duplicates within duplicates, exorcising
with a blade so sharp as to peel away memory from
those it crosses without the faintest murmur. Gone.
Erased. Banished to never having been. I neither
breathe nor digest, but I absorb and recall. How do
you so willingly forget history? This post determines
my destination, but not my destiny, not tomorrow’s
promise, nor the returning birds and faith, the long
nights, their stars, their deaths, the following days.
“Scarecrow Questions” first appeared here in February 2016.
As Breath Defines Constriction (Solar Wind)
The snake swallows itself, integrating the opposite. Or, illustrating the
nature of earthquakes, encourages conjecture.
Wind meditation. The practice of circling mountains, of emptying oneself.
Matter accelerating away from the sun. The prickly pear on the roof.
The Tendai monks of Hiei run 40 kilometers each day for 100 consecutive days.
Only then may they petition to complete the thousand-day trial.
Coronal mass ejections temporarily deform the Earth’s magnetic field.
I sweat while driving to the store for cold beer.
The heliopause is the point at which the solar wind’s strength is no longer
sufficient to push back the interstellar medium.
No matter its destination, a comet’s tail always points away from the sun.
At which point does one hear the sound of sunlight entering stone?
They must complete the thousand-day challenge or die. To this end,
each monk carries a knife and length of rope on his journey.
A map is simply paper. Solar wind, cord of death.
Stones in the path, quivering earth. Eyes focused ahead.
***
“As Breath Defines Constriction” is included in The Circumference of Other, my offering in the Silver Birch Press publication, IDES: A Collection of Poetry Chapbooks, available on Amazon.
O at the Edges 