My poems “The Body Gives,” “Drawer of Possibilities,” and “Riddle, Dollar, String” have been published in The New Reader Magazine, which is available for free download here. Many thanks for editor Dominique Dela Paz for taking these.
Bottom, Falling
Through that window you see another bird
rising, unlabeled, unwanted, yet noticed.
A limb’s last leaf. The boy’s breath.
Like the morning after your father died,
when temperature didn’t register
and heat shallowed through the morning’s
end. Still you shivered. Glass. Wind.
Night’s body. How to calibrate nothing’s
grace? Take notes. Trace its echo. Try.
“Bottom Falling” was published in Into the Void in October 2016, and is included in my chapbook, From Every Moment a Second.
(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
The Ecstatics
Divisions and separations, a summing of consequences,
the brother whose ashes remained forever lost. Two cities
and their survivors’ shame. The loud, kind young man
whose words fell to the restaurant’s floor, unbidden.
What came next in the drift, untoward and misspent,
in the grammar of between? Darkness, suppressed.
Smoke. Pleasure and fear, unclothed.
“The Ecstatics” first appeared here in January 2016. It’s an odd piece, part of a larger sequence that I put on hold several years ago. Perhaps I’ll return to it someday.
Thoughtful, proposing not end, but process.
In this noon’s grayness I disclose my need.
Which is a lotus floating in your pond, a clutch of zeros
blooming in moonlight. Last night’s missing sleep.
An ending, by definition, concludes.
But what occurs in a circle’s body, or infinity’s border?
Imprecision acknowledged, I sip wine and gauge distance.
Take comfort in the disorderly.
Starting at the top, the brush moves down and right,
clockwise, then rising in opposition, halts.
Drifting, incomplete, I step back.
Some leave a gap; others do not.
* * *
This first appeared in Posit: A Journal of Literature and Art in September 2017.
This Island Is a Stone
Raking the sand, I leave only the infinite
trickling behind; our first bed bore your
parents’ memories. This one grows weeds. The
heavenly bamboo (a shrub and not a grass)
issues white petals and inedible red fruit. My
fingertip callouses have softened from disuse;
coyotes no longer answer my yips and howls.
Who replies to liars anyway? A snail’s love
dart impales the object of its affection, but
often inconveniently. This is not a metaphor
for bad sex, but a means of transferring an
allohormone. Today the overburdened creeks
erode their banks and 492 seconds after
departing the sun a ray greets my lawn. I snap
the towel at the fly on the door, but miss
again. The once sacred now lies open and
emptied; a few months ago my father could not
remember my birthdate although he recognized
the season. Some totals may never satisfy.
If I collect my life’s accumulated wastings, will
that sum temper me or merely accentuate the
fool? Nothing is as it seems. We mark our
remaining days with unread books. These
waves are plotted creases, this island is a stone.
“This Island Is a Stone” was published in MockingHeart Review in September 2017. I am grateful to editor Clare L. Martin for publishing this piece.
Overlooked
How immemorable, he thinks,
drilling into the wall.
Another hole, another day.
Fill them, and still others
beg creation.
Say mouth. Say void,
followed by tongue and burden,
by orifice and bland. Say
invisible. Empty. Say forget.
That we plan is given.
But who writes the manual
to our lives? The hammer
does not shiver at the thought
of itself. Take this board
and remove only that portion
the screw will occupy.
Level the hook. Admire
the work. Adjust.
Do this twice.
“Overlooked” was published in Mantle in August 2017.
My poem “No One Knows” is live at The Pangolin Review, an interesting little journal out of Mauritius. You’ll have to scroll down to find my piece.
And if you don’t know what a pangolin is, picture an armadillo with scales and the ability to emit a foul odor reminiscent of a skunk.
Some Dogs are Larger Than Others
How he stares
at you,
relentless
in his desire,
offering
belly to scratch
and head to pet
just when you most
need them,
even if
you don’t know it,
then curling
against you, saying
in the language
of warmth and fur,
this, just this.
* * *
“Some Dogs are Larger Than Others” first appeared here in January 2017.
Dobie’s Desk
Sitting at this desk, I wonder
whose words will emerge
from the stained wood,
its whorls and cracked surface
detailing a specific language
of the inert and precious.
Earlier I rapped the cistern
to verify water level,
and a week ago startled
a cottonmouth sunning its lengthy
self at the crossing. The door
just blew open, perhaps,
or a ghost wished to offer its
voice, neither malice
nor approval imbedded
in the gesture. History
shadows me despite my best
efforts. I walk, drink water,
write, think of friends left
behind or gone ahead,
reading between the grains
and dark spaces, looking for rain
in the blue, for light and benediction
and the secret poetry of furniture.
O at the Edges 