Forecast
Does the peach
blossom
count its
numbered days
in the lure of false
spring?
Smiling, you admit pleasure
in cruelty,
in assigning lots
to the relief of those
never called,
and those whose answers
remain open,
unfixed.
The freeze is coming,
you say.
Let us pray.
This first appeared here in January 2017.
Gaza
We presume affliction by census,
whereas light
requires no faith.
Is the roofless house a home? When you call
who answers? The vulture
spreads its wings
but remains on post. Shifting,
I note minute of angle, windage. No
regrets, only tension. Breathe in. Exhale.
Again.
***
“Gaza” first appeared here in July, 2014, and is included in my chapbook, If Your Matter Could Reform.
Nights at the Magdalene Laundry
Waiting, as if it could
be foreseen, as if influence and love
and truth could ease into the conversation,
she pours water into the night’s
mouth. A little longer, says the voice,
and the wind bends the grass,
reaching, without apprehension, a conclusion.
Which is not to claim verity, nor the patience of stone
crumbling along the ledge.
She leaves when nothing remains.
“Nights at the Magdalene Laundry” first appeared here in January 2016, and was subsequently published in The Basil O’Flaherty, in November 2016.
My poem, “Forced to Eat Soft Food, I Consider Options” has been published at Little Rose Magazine.
Forced to Eat Soft Food, I Consider Options
What good is pizza to one who can’t eat it? I’m thinking of a rolled crust
stuffed with prosciutto and parmesan, with onion strands and whole
basil leaves nestled among them, accompanied by a frothy pale ale,
bitter yet smooth and tuned so finely as to flit comfortably between the
notes of a liquid arpeggio. Or if not pizza, perhaps a red chili of braised
and shredded beef seasoned with ancho and chipotle and a smidgeon
of chocolate and beer, simmered slowly and served on the year’s
coldest day in front of the fireplace. I have so much and am grateful
for so little. My clothes are warm and dry, and the eggs I’ve poached
offer me sustenance and flavor and textures wrought of memories
of childhood and comfort, family and treasured books at hand. Then
I think of water and protectors, of standing rocks and centuries of
abuse and neglect and lies bred to fill coffers, and I wonder if we
could pile stones ten horses high around the cowards who spray,
bludgeon and strip search, who fire water cannons in sub-freezing
temperatures, and throw concussion grenades directly at pacifists, all
for the cause of holy oil. What good is pizza to those who can’t swallow?
I fork a bite of egg to my mouth, and choke, but only for a moment.
Written while recovering from abdominal surgery, this appeared on the blog in December 2016 just a day or two after the first draft spilled out. Unusual for me, to say the least, but it was a topical piece. Let us not forget those who stand for us and others.
My poem “Hunger is Hunger” is up at Spider Mirror.
The poem was drafted during the August 2015 Tupelo Press 30-30 challenge.
What We Say When We Say Nothing
The rain has died and everything follows:
black, white – the law’s supposition. Their bodies
glisten only in memory. One says look at me from the steel
table as the scale registers the heart’s
weight. Another cries uncertainty in the most certain
of circumstances — laid open, emptied then closed,
the simple mechanics of ritual and form. Throughout my
dreams a line of dark figures shimmer in the cold
corridor, end-to-end, supine and unmoving, assigning
loss. I have fifty-six years and more questions than
answers. The drought testifies to a wrong. A woman
visits her son, a father weeps. Our silence, complicit.
My poem, “What We Say When We Say Nothing,” was published in Glass: A Journal of Poetry in January 2017. Many thanks to editor Anthony Frame for taking this piece and aligning it with some great poems.
