All the Little Pieces
How to rewind
broken,
the subtle shift of shard
and floor
laid between night’s
fall
and the morning’s first
glow. Take this
lantern. Set it
on the wall. Remove
the glass. Do not
light the candle.
Wait.
The transliteration on Chinese-poems.com reads:
Spring sleep not wake dawn
Everywhere hear cry bird
Night come wind rain sound
Flower fall know how many
Bright Autumn Moon (after Su Shi)
Clouds gather on the horizon, but here
it’s clear and cold as the silent Milky Way
and the stone of heaven, turning.
My life, like this night, will not last long.
Where will the bright moon find me next year?
The transliteration on Chinese-poems.com reads:
Mid-Autumn Moon
Sunset cloud gather far excess clear cold
Milky Way silent turn jade plate
This life this night not long good
Next year bright moon where see
Jade was also known as the “stone of heaven” and was considered a bridge
between heaven and earth. It made more sense to me in this context. I’m clearly
taking license here…
You Say Cicada, Which Shrivels My Ears
I say cicada, the difference lurking in the middle,
like the shortest dancer in an off-Broadway musical,
or a note hidden between two reams of legal paper
in the supply room of a well-appointed dentist’s
office, where you find yourself, by accident, searching
for the exit. But think how our sap-sucking friend must
feel, a foot underground, during its final instar phase,
reversing course, leaving behind the darkness
and moist roots, burrowing up through the soil
toward light and the shrug into maturity. And after
that, squeezing through a crack in what had been
itself, emerging, soft and vulnerable, slouching to the
inevitable call. I think of ecdysis, how we, too, shed
ourselves, leaving behind remnants, old skin and
armor, and rising, on occasion, wiser, softer, more
complete. But sometimes we try to reenter those
discarded shells. My acquaintance searches through
the past for bits of himself, purchases toys – marbles,
pocket knives – stitching together a semblance of the
old comfort. He keeps, in one jar, three teeth from his
childhood, in another the exuviae of a half-dozen
scorpions. How delightful it would be, he says, to
abandon your hardened self and become someone
new. He looks to the ground. I nod, and whisper.
“You Say Cicada, Which Shrivels My Ears,” appeared in the inaugural issue of Claw & Blossom, in July 2019. The poem was originally written during the August 2016 30-30 challenge. I’m grateful to Sunshine Jansen, who sponsored the poem and provided three words to be included in the piece: instar, ecdysis, and sap-sucking. Thank you, as well, to editor C.B. Auder for accepting the 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.
Calm (after H.D.)
I flow over the ground,
healing its hidden scar–
the scar is black,
the bedrock risen,
not one stone is misplaced.
I relieve the ground’s
burden with white froth,
I fill and comply—
I have thrown a pebble
into the night,
it returns to me,
settles and rises,
a white dove.
* * *
“Calm” is included in my micro-chapbook Only This, which is available via free download from Origami Poems Project. It made its first appearance here on the blog in March 2015, and was written as an exercise, using a poem, “Storm,” by H.D. as the launching point. I’ve tried to emulate her diction and rhythm, with mixed success. Still, it’s fun to try these on occasion.
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.
My poem “Lying in Bed I Think of Breakfast” is featured at The Big Windows Review. Thanks to editor Thomas Zimmerman for accepting this piece.
One
I am Brahma
the straight line, the upright being,
fire that flares,
seed without end, manifold
self beyond all
polarity, radiating sun:
the all.
Philosophers considered one a non-number,
generatrix of all that follows.
Other.
The singularity. The lone.
From the Indo-European oi-qos we achieve solitude,
while the collective meaning of one derives from the Sanskrit sam.
United in itself, it changes nothing,
becoming everything.
On its side it represents the horizon.
Alone is all-one.
The Latin non is one negated, as is the German nein.
Symbol of intellect, the Hindu moon glows wide.
Atomic number of hydrogen, magician’s numeral,
monad and eccentric, I bear the empty product.
“One” last appeared here in September 2018.
The Real Question
I ask myself why I mourn
what has not yet
occurred. Will that last fledgling
fly or will a snake swallow
its gravity before descending
to a separate end? Coffee
darkens the carafe and an egg
poaches amidst the scent of basil.
Sprinkling parmesan on buttered
toast, I wonder where to unearth
the real question, when to look
into its eye. How to read its grief.
“The Real Question” was first published in After the Pause in June 2019. Thank you, Michael Prihoda, for accepting this piece.
O at the Edges 