My poem “Postcard from Pandemic” is up at Vox Populi. I am grateful to editor Michael Simms for his continued support.
I wish you all good health and peace in these troubling times. Take precautions, stay safe!
Poem Up at Vox Populi
23
Tag Archives: creative writing
The Question is Never
The Question is Never
Who will lock the door
or leap in front of the jacketed
bullet. Nor is it four words
born in lust and camouflaged
with piety. No one cares
if you blink or continue
breathing. No one knows
what you think. Nothing
matters. Not the pen
in her hand or your finger
on the trigger. Not the crying
and the dead and the stains
in the hallway, the man
in the street hiding behind
himself. The question
is no question, but an answer
struggling to emerge. Never
formed, never truly complete.
“The Question is Never” first appeared on Vox Populi in June 2018.
Shakuhachi Blues
Shakuhachi Blues
That waver,
like the end of a long
dream flickering to wakefulness,
or an origami crane
unfolding between whiskey
poured and the tale of deceit
and a good woman done wrong.
Air flutters through this bamboo
tube, and it seems I control
nothing. Inhaling, I try again.
A simple instrument that will take a lifetime to learn…
Chill (Cento)
Chill (Cento)
I shiver a little, with the evening,
and you print a shadow like a thin twig.
Wait for my death, then hear me again.
He believes a pomegranate is a thesaurus,
the thundercloud, tomorrow’s puddle. Is
this hunger unlike that of others?
When a drowning man calls out,
his voice follows him downstream.
Why am I grown so cold?
A cento is composed of lines borrowed from other poets. “Chill” owes its existence to: James Wright, H.D., Ingeborg Bachmann, Eduardo C. Corral, Blaga Dimitrova, Forrest Gander, Yusuf Komunyakaa, and Adelaide Crapsey.
“Chill” first appeared on the blog in March, 2016, and was subsequently published in Long Exposure in October 2016.
What Happens Next
What Happens Next
Another night with the frost,
she says, and you’ll know
the half-life of cold.
Which is not to say enjoy,
or pity, or pretend.
It is the sheath of God’s
gaze, an unsuspected lump.
The harvested curse.
You grasp what happens next.
“What Happens Next” first appeared here in November 2017.
Poems Up at Juke Joint
Even the Light
Even the Light
You look out and the sunbeam blinks –
a difference in brightness
on the drooping seeds.
Some days nothing gets done.
We live with the unwashed,
with stacks of mail, the unfolded,
the incomplete. Phrases pop out
only to crawl away, and later,
reincarnated in other forms,
embed themselves just under
the skin, calcifying. Scratch
as you might, no relief appears.
Your tongue grows heavy
from shaping these words.
Even the light subtracts.
* * *
“Even the Light” was published in the May 2017 issue of La Presa.
Forced By This Title to Write a Poem in Third Person About Himself, the Poet Considers the Phenomena of Standing Waves, Dreams Involving Long-Lost Cats (Even If He Has Not Had Such a Dream Himself), And the Amazing Durability of Various Forms of Weakness
Forced By This Title to Write a Poem in Third Person About Himself, the Poet Considers the Phenomena of Standing Waves, Dreams Involving Long-Lost Cats (Even If He Has Not Had Such a Dream Himself), And the Amazing Durability of Various Forms of Weakness
Five White cat always made sure no rats gnawed my books.
— Mei Yao-ch’en
His brain is squirming like a toad.
— Jim Morrison
Standing by the water, the poet wonders if,
as in this dream, his dead dog and Five White
might seize the separate ends of a rope and blend
their tugs, matching highs and lows, growls and purrs,
with near stillness, dawn to dusk and back again,
always equal, sharing through death their love
of work and honor. He throws a small branch
and asks the dog’s ghost to fetch, but it remains
at his side, as if reluctant to leave. How to release
what you no longer hold? Shadows disappear in direct
light, but always return at its departure. The
raindrop remains intact through its long plummet.
Words, though unspoken, hang like lofted kites
awaiting a new wind, a separate rhythm,
beyond compassion. He cannot hear it
but joins his dog in singing. The cat yowls along.
This piece first appeared in deLuge in fall 2016, and was drafted during the August 2015 30-30 challenge. Thanks to Jeff Schwaner for providing the title (which I edited for publication).
Which is an Eye or a Bowl, a Dream
Which is an Eye or a Bowl, a Dream
Or well-placed mirror in a sunburnt room, shivering through shifted
images: that hand, blackened and stout, opened like a dark peony;
the tattooed chin; shovel and torch; hook and owl. You say no one
chooses one fist over another, that bread’s rise completes its cycle
and begins anew, pressed flat and rounded. Take this heart and seal
its chambers. Note the anterior descent. Compression, lesion. Plaque.
Consequence. And your friend, who slept, never to awaken. Lying
in that strange bed, you taste salt, acknowledge change, whisper
to no one: audible house…audible tree, knowing that time’s limit
remains unclear. The air swirls and you accept this new light.
Note: “Audible house…audible tree” is from Jane Hirshfield’s “Not Moving Even One Step,” from The Lives of the Heart.
While Walking My Dog’s Ghost
While Walking My Dog’s Ghost
I spot a baby rabbit
lying still in a clump of grass
no wider than my hand.
It quivers, but I pretend
not to have seen, for fear
that the dog, ghost or not,
will frighten and chase it
into the brush, beyond
its mother’s range,
perhaps to become lost
and thirsty, malnourished,
filthy, desperate, much
like the dog when we
found each other that hot,
dry evening so long ago.
This first appeared here in September 2016.
O at the Edges 