Destined by Gravity to Fail, We Try

Destined by Gravity to Fail, We Try

Having fallen from the roof not once, but twice,
I verify that it is not the fall but the sudden stop that hurts.

The objectivist sense of the little: the and a, my house in this world.

Galileo postulated that gravity accelerates all falling bodies at the same rate.

While their etymologies differ, failure and fall share commonalities,
though terminal velocity is not one.

The distance between the glimpsed and the demonstrated.

Enthralled in the moment, Icarus drowned.

Rumor has it his plunge was due not to melting wax but to an improper mix
of rectrices and remiges: parental failure.

Thrust and lift. Drag. Resistance.

Acknowledgment of form in reality, in things.

When the produced drag force equals the plummeting object’s weight, the
object will cease to accelerate and will move at a constant speed.

To calculate impact force accurately, include the stopping distance in height.

Followed by long periods of silence.

house

This first appeared on the blog in December 2015.

Recording of My Poem, “Icarus”

feather02-2

 


Icarus

Currents of breath, the slight curve and lift
within a single motion, once

poised then released as if to say
the wind is mine, or wait,
I am alone –

the story we most fear, not height nor gravity’s
fist, but to exist apart, shadow and

mouth, rain and smile, feather
and sun, all denials reciprocal,

each tied fast and renewed.

sun

“Icarus” first appeared here in April 2016, and subsequently was published in The Basil O’Flaherty in November 2016.

Mushrooms I Have Known

 

 

 

Mushrooms I Have Known

Reticent and tired, withdrawn,
dejected, I return.

Emerging overnight from nothing,
then withering back to zero.

Does light incite you?
The shade?

I walk by and say hello.
You do not speak.

 

 

3 Poems Up at Quiet Letter

stroller

I’m delighted to announce that three of my poems are live at Quiet Letter. The three (“Cutting Down the Anniversary Pine,” “Strollermelon,” and “Memory and Closets“), were written during the 30/30 challenges I undertook during the past two Augusts to raise funds for Tupelo Press, a non-profit literary publisher.

Recording of “In Praise of Rain”

file00093561951

 


In Praise of Rain

Which is not to say lightning or hail.
Sometimes I forget to open the umbrella

until my glasses remind me: Wake up, you’re
wet! If scarcity breeds

value, what is a thunderhead worth
in July? A light shower in August?

Even spreadsheets can’t tell us.

***

“In Praise of Rain” has appeared here several times, but this is the recording’s debut.

file8541339345592

Tarantula

file000990621742

Tarantula

The patience of stone, whose surface belies calm.
Neither warm nor cold, but unfeeling.

It digresses and turns inward, a vessel reversed
in course, in body, in function, the

outward notion separate but inclusive,
darkness expanding, the moist

earth crumbling yet holding its form:
acceptance of fate become

another’s mouth,
the means to closure and affirmation

driven not by lust nor fear
but through involuntary will.

Neither warm nor cold, but unfeeling.
The patience of stone.

file5091271408303

“Tarantula” first appeared here in February 2015.

Scarecrow Pretends: Robert Okaji’s Metallurgy

This is kinda fun. The Slag Review published “Scarecrow Pretends” back in January, and now this has appeared on the Long River Review’s blog. I’m always grateful when someone extends the life of one of my poems. Thank you, Benjamin Schultz.

(Hotel Eden) In Full Light We Are Not Even a Shadow

file5691252161803

(Hotel Eden) In Full Light We Are Not Even a Shadow

Which is to say clarity persists in
increments, in the silent space between
color and lens, within parables seen
in the incomplete: straw, hand. Imagine

white valued more than manner as hidden
thought remains obscured. Lower your eyes, lean
forward. Perspectives tilt towards the mean,
suggesting purpose. When we examine

intent, do we find it? The irony
of bottled cork, of sullied paradise,
a coiled wire, the parrot whose voice,

unheard, implicates us. What felony
must we commit to admit the device
in play? Pull or release? The mimic’s choice.

Notes: “In full light we are not even a shadow” is a line from Antonio Porchia’s Voices.

Hotel Eden is the title of a piece of art by Joseph Cornell. An image may be found here:
http://www.wikiart.org/en/joseph-cornell/untitled-the-hotel-eden-1945

DSC_1972

This made its first appearance here in March 2015.

Tell it Slant: How to Write a Wise Poem, essay by Camille Dungy

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA

Few essays on writing poetry grab me by the collar, slam me against the wall, and say “Listen, dammit!” But this one did.

Camille Dungy’s words sear through the fog. She tells it slant. She tells it true. She explains how some masters have done it. If you’ve not read her poetry, seek it out. You’re in for a treat. If you have the good fortune to attend a lecture or reading by her, do so. She’s energetic, wise and kind. She knows.

http://www.poetryfoundation.org/article/247926

Originally posted in June 2014.

Apricot Wood

clouds

“Apricot Wood,” is included in my chapbook , If Your Matter Could Reform, and was featured on Autumn Sky Poetry Daily in March 2015

Apricot Wood

I built a frame of apricot
wood. This was for you. The clouds float
through it even as I sleep. You wrote
once of wild herbs gathered and brought
to a lovely girl, an offering not
of passion but of some remote
desire to hear a word from the throat
of the Lord Within Clouds. I thought
of this as I chiseled the wood.
Last night it rained. I listened to
it from my bed by the open
window, hoping that the clouds would
not leave. This morning two birds flew
by. It is raining again.

file8641239202119