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.
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.
Shadow
walking,
crushing juniper berries
at dusk
the dog shadows me
in his absence
* * *
“Shadow” first appeared here in April, 2015. It could be considered a companion piece to “Mother’s Day,” which is included in the July 2016 edition of The Lake.
Music: “Thunderbird” Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)
Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 License
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/
Parkland Haibun
What toll, dripping from his fingers? How does he sleep? Which truth
honored? The senator takes millions and offers prayers in lieu of action,
betraying the children, appeasing his benefactor. Seventeen chairs emptied
on this day, alone. He says nothing can be done, that laws are ineffective,
the shooting was “inexplicable.” What do his thoughts weigh? What griefs
will they bear? Can they reverse a bullet’s track or bring laughter back
to a family’s shattered life? Would any god answer this man’s prayers?
even the skunk balks
at Rubio’s empty words
ah, hypocrisy
Empty Cup
I set down my cup, pour
tea and think this day, too,
may never end.
With what do we quantify love? How does grief measure us? Nine days ago I wrote “My father is dying and I’m sipping a beer.” More words followed, but I did not write them, choosing instead to let them gather where they would – among the darkening fringe at light’s edge, in that space between the shakuhachi’s notes, in the fragrance of spices toasting in the skillet. In unwept tears. Everywhere. Nowhere.
Seven days ago I wrote “My father is dead.” Again, I chose to let the unwritten words gather and linger, allowing them to spread in their own time, attaching themselves to one another, long chains of emptiness dragging through the days.
If experience reflects truth, sorrow’s scroll will unravel slowly for me, and will never stop. I feel it beginning to quiver, but only the tiniest edge emerges. I am nothing, I say. I am voice, I am loss, I am name. I am memory. I am son.
I have fifty-nine years
and no wisdom to show for it.
Never enough. Too much.
Missing Loved Ones
You marvel that a simple garment retains so much of a person’s
being. I watch the worm swinging on its long thread
from one side of the door’s frame to the other,
wondering how to avoid it should I go out, but a sparrow
solves that problem. In 365 BC, Gan De detected what was likely
Ganymede, but history records no other sightings until Galileo
in January, 1610. Thus an entity with twice the mass of our
moon went missing for 1,900 years, which helps explain
the parameters of oblivion. But nothing equals the heft
and gravitational pull of those we miss – the dead, the gone,
the lost, the never-coming-back – a friend’s laughter
still echoing twenty years later, a lover’s taste and smell
rekindled with each autumn’s first fire, or the dog’s warmth.
Small wonder that we ever exit the house, leaving these
companions behind. I watch the sparrow snatch another
snack, and consider the mechanics of loss. Ubiquitous, but
generated anew. Unique yet common, unfelt and devastating.
Late at night, you say, I draw comfort from cloth, stroke
the once inhabited trousers or the flannel sheets resting
in the drawer. This scarf, her love. That shirt, my heart.
“Missing Loved Ones” was drafted during the August 2016 Tupelo Press 30-30 challenge, and was subsequently published in Eclectica in summer 2017. Many thanks to editor Jen Finstrom for accepting the poem, and to Emily Bailey, good friend of many years and former office mate, for sponsoring the poem and suggesting the title.
Mockingbird
Withdrawn, it unfolds
to another
voice, like that
of a child lost in the wind.
Or, lonely, it rises from its place
and sings, only
to return and start again.
The pleasure we accept derives from
the knowledge that we are not alone.
Each morning we walk out and sit
by the stones, hoping to observe some
new patterns in his life. What we
see is an answer. What we hear is no song.
* * *
“Mockingbird” made its first appearance here in January 2015. It was written
in the 1980s, probably around 1987-1989.
Shadow
walking,
crushing juniper berries
at dusk
the dog shadows me
in his absence
* * *
“Shadow” first appeared here in April, 2015. It could be considered a companion piece to “Mother’s Day,” which is included in the July 2016 edition of The Lake.
Arthritis
If at night I stray in thought,
dreaming of nimble fingers
and my departed dog’s walk,
will you smile
when I scratch his absent ear
and apologize for the times
I failed him? Even combined,
all the words in these unread books
could never soothe the guilt
of leisure and complacency, nor
match the joy of jumping
for the kicked ball, no matter the
outcome, despite the consequences.
“Arthritis” is included in Indra’s Net: An International Anthology of Poetry in Aid of The Book Bus, and has appeared on the blog as well.
All profits from this anthology published by Bennison Books will go to The Book Bus, a charity which aims to improve child literacy rates in Africa, Asia and South America by providing children with books and the inspiration to read them.
Available at Amazon (UK) and Amazon (US)
O at the Edges 