The Trains I Know
The trains I know
seek solitude
in darkness,
they wear
wind and cold
with pride,
are never
lonely.
Sometimes they
sing too loud,
or mourn
harshly a
star’s fall, but
they never
deny their
purpose: to
draw between
and connect,
to witness and
serve, to bear
and endure
our unsought
burdens
to the end.
* * *
“The Trains I Know” was first published in RiverLit in 2013.
“In Praise of Chiggers” first appeared here in August, 2017.
Ramekin
I speak when you speak,
say nothing to your everything.
The world is a ramekin filled with bits of ourselves.
It is a recipe for error,
a list of adorations and illusion.
You take my hand and say when I’m gone
there will be others.
The ingredients include vinegar and salt, but no honey.
You hear what I hear, only more.
Teach me to breathe.
Empty this dish.
Tell me.
“Ramekin” was first published in the online anthology Igxante: An Ontology. I am grateful to editor Kate Morgan for taking this piece.
Gruyere
Thinking of speech and the gruyere sliver
balancing on that blade, which nouns push it over,
which hold it in place. How simplicity defies the complex.
Like the hard-crusted bread of flour, water, salt and yeast.
The elemental surge. A little steam. An incantation
born of emptiness: he speaks but says nothing
as the cheese teeters on the edge, suffering
the plight of the incomprehensible. Funny
that adding more reduces the whole, and less
flavors it. A few words, a spice. A syllable.
Milk and rennet. Verbs. A confident tongue.
“Gruyere” was published in Nthanda Review, an online literary magazine out of Mawali, in January 2019.
Scarecrow Contemplates Pi
At the moment you snipped away
my reticence, I spoke so eloquently
that even the stones wept at your
indifference. As you arranged my
pose and buttoned the shirt
around the wire and fodder
replenishing my torso, I understood
your roots and mine should never
merge: transcendental, and in
collusion with the irrational, we
circles cannot be squared. And
how must I reconcile my unheard
words? The longer I speak the
greater their magnitude – a balloon
expanding in volume retains its
ratio – one day my words will sift
through your filters and you will
at last receive them. I pull this
particular comfort close – that
patterns and frequencies and
tendencies become law, that the
fleshless and soulless, the mute
and misunderstood, the powerless,
the different, nevertheless will be
heard. But what of love? How may I
contend to feel, to know that which
is your right? A nervous system
conducts electrical and chemical
impulses, yet lacking these, my
coreless heart sags at the thought
of your departure. I am no man.
Is this truly not enough?
“Scarecrow Contemplates Pi” first appeared with two companion pieces in Eclectica in summer 2016.
Bandera
I offer nothing in return, and in offering, receive.
My mouth is a river
whose current bears no words,
but the silence is not of my making.
Notice the streets and their grey
hunger, the rain and the sun
passing by much
as one passes an unopened door.
That question, unvoiced.
That shiver preceding the icy touch.
You may deny my motives.
You may deny my existence and
the very notion of shape unto form.
I offer nothing, and in offering, receive.
“Bandera” first appeared here in May 2015, and was subsequently published in The Basil O’Flaherty in November 2016.
Not Enough, Too Much
Carved from silence, I return to it.
They say not enough, too much,
never to meet. My tongue craves salt,
flesh seasoned with longing and dust
and the burdens of two separate
exhaustions. They hand me sticks
and say eat. I dip the fork into the
bowl, and looking to the earth
see no roots, only brown feet
refused at the surface. They say
you are the vacant temple. I close
my eyes and sing, become that
unseen pity, that burnt green descent
withering in the lull of the moment before.
“Not Enough, Too Much” was published in the North Dakota Quarterly in February 2019.
Flame
Drifting, she passes through the frame.
Reshapes borders, edges.
The way smoke scribes a letter in the sky with
gases and particulates. Intractable. Impermanent.
But not like a risen corpse
yet to accept its body’s stilling, or
the flooded creek’s waters taking
a house and the family within. Some things
are explainable. This morning you drained
the sink, and thunder set off a neighbor’s alarm.
From every moment, a second emerges.
Picture a man lighting a candle where a home once stood.
* * *
“Flame” was published in Poppy Road Review in February 2019 and is included in my chapbook, From Every Moment a Second, available for order via Amazon.com and Finishing Line Press.
The Boy Who Wouldn’t Hoe Corn
We have always absorbed heaven,
even through these days of malformed
grain and truth pulled dark and low:
variety confirms purpose. This ear
captures no sound. These inflorescences
produce starch. Those
release pollen. You will die one day.
Inaction reflects uncertain intent.
One must weigh frost,
and with their shallow
roots, susceptibility to drought, poor
soils and high wind. Your lips
kiss steel more readily than flesh, yet
I pray that you amend your thoughts
and accept my proffered hand,
that the individual fruits of the cob
may one day fuse into a single mass,
bringing weight to sunlight,
and a greater grain to your table. But
the door stands unopened, a voice
censuring the innocent. I contemplate
converted light, consider
crows, subduction and rags flapping
in the darkness, silent
tongues wavering unseen above the
unhoed dirt, within each kernel’s
purpose, deep into a hollow core,
raging, unmet and shriveled,
hands opened, resolute yet proud.
The title is from a traditional song, as performed by Alison Krauss and Union Station. The poem is my take on it. “The Boy Who Wouldn’t Hoe Corn” was included in GFT Presents: One in Four, a semiannual, print literary journal published by GFT Press.
Take Away
Take away the blackness,
what does night become?
Remove arugula’s bitterness,
the reddened prints on a slapped
cheek, or yeast from leavened bread.
The coroner’s mask denies emotion.
We possess no less now than we did then.
One hand holds the root, the other, a trowel.
Soil, compost. Ash. Water, dreams. Renewal.
The economy of dying continues.
One mother stands alone, cradling pain in
both arms. The second shares her shadow.
“Take Away” is included in my chapbook, From Every Moment a Second, available for order now via Amazon.com and Finishing Line Press.
O at the Edges 