My poems “Moonwalker” and “Take Another Piece of My Heart” were published in Ligeia’s Winter 2019 edition. Many thanks to poetry editor Ashley Wagner for taking these poems. I’m also grateful to Tami Wright for providing the title and sponsoring “Take Another Piece of My Heart” in the August 2016 Tupelo Press 30-30 fundraiser.
Political Haibun
The wind knows impermanence but does not trust it.
Dependent upon atmospheric pressure, absorption
and rotation, who can blame the wind? We, too,
lend ourselves illusions, only to barter them away.
Three miles for a beer. Seven seconds for a fresh look.
A dollar extended for every five stolen. Empathy,
but only for the wealthy. Electing liars to office,
we justify our actions with more untruths. Nothing
improves. Even the quality of lies diminishes.
yellowed grass bending
under the sun’s weight
god’s will, they say
Not Blame Your Pleasure
Because vision limits options, I close my eyes.
Becoming urges patience.
The morning after I didn’t die, I took breakfast in bed.
Arrival stamps the difference between waiting and choice.
Expectation, too, extends its squeeze, rendering sleep impossible.
I ride the bike and go nowhere, or walk steadily, covering the same ground.
Which will claim me first? An occlusion, gravity or unchecked growth?
Anticipation replaces one sigh with another: I have three falls from two roofs.
A friend has named me executor of his estate, and now the race is on.
The path to the void seems straight only near its end.
My ashes will one day soil someone’s morning.
“Not Blame Your Pleasure” first appeared here in November 2015.
Mockingbird III
Songs, returned
to their space
within the sphere of
movement, the patterns inscribed
as if to touch the face of every
wind: here one moment, then
gone. This quickness delights us.
How, then, do we so often forget
those things we share? Night
comes and goes to another’s
phrase, yet each note is so precisely
placed, so carefully rendered
that we hear only the voice, not its source.
* * *
Another piece from the 80s. This first appeared here in March 2015, and would likely be a much longer poem if I were to write it today.
Let It Remain
Comfort of name,
of pleasure
freshened in
repetition, unformed
pears falling, and
the mockingbird’s
inability
to complete
another’s song.
I will take no
moment
from this day
but let it remain
here in the knowing,
in the tyranny
of the absolute
and its enforced
rhythm desiring
both flight and
maturation,
the ecstasy
of fruit grown full.
“Let It Remain” first appeared here in September 2015.
(This first appeared here in March 2014).
Quite the interesting mag back in the day. This particular issue saw the likes of Bukowski, Ivan Arguelles, Lyn Lifshin, Norm Moser, Sheila E. Murphy, and, well, me, among others. I was thinner back then, as was my poetry.
no more than
the slow grace
of light turning
the leaf so
patient in the
air and colder
now that sense
of permanence unfurled
it is not
long to wait
as Wang Wei
said in his
letter I listen
for a sound
but hear none
Waiting for the Hole to Fill
I keep twisting my ankle
in this never diminishing
hole, no matter how much
soil I shovel in. If your eyes
grew wider would you
capture light in a separate
peace? Would this green
turn blue while the dirt
concealed the emptiness
and the wind shuffled
through this hollow form?
The air doesn’t respond
but I await the answers.
* * *
I’m delighted to report that my poem “Waiting for the Hole to Fill” was recently published in two Texas newspapers. I am grateful to poetry editor Jim LaVilla-Havelin for taking this piece, and for his enthusiastic support of poets and poetry.
