The Echo is Neither Sound nor Hope
empty trees
a darkened
window
the void
between chairs
unchanged
as if you’d never spoken
* * *
This first appeared in April 2015.
The Echo is Neither Sound nor Hope
4
Tag Archives: love
Painting
Painting
But completion
arrives in the most
limited sense,
outlines enriched and
filled with lush
darkness, the red of
an accumulated passion
for texture, for subtlety in
shade, the tactile being
one facet shared with
odor and the black hand
on the wall, the
staircase spiraling
upward, resultant desire,
body of lust, this wall, our
doing, the gathered home.
“Painting” first appeared here in December 2015.
Genealogy Dream
Genealogy Dream
To recall but not recall: family, the swift curve
of evolution’s arc. One moment your knuckles
scrape the earth’s surface, and the next you’re
pinpointing mortar fire by satellite phone. Or,
having plowed the field by hand, you fertilize
with human dung (no swords in this hovel),
only to wake into a dream of high rises and
coffee served steaming by a blushing ingenue
who morphs into an uncle, killed in China
on the wrong side of the war, leaving his
sister still mired in grief six decades later
under the Texas sun. On this end of memory’s
ocean, we know poverty and its engendered
disrespect, neighbors’ children warned not
to play with you, for fear that the family’s
lack of nickels would rub off and contaminate,
that your belly’s empty shadow might spread
down the unpaved streets and envelop even
those who don’t need to share a single egg
for dinner. Years later the son will celebrate
his tenth year by suffering the indignity of
a bloody nose and a visit to the principal’s
office, a gift of the sixth grader who would
never again employ “Nip” to disparage
someone, at least not without looking over
his shoulder in fear of small fists and quiet
rage. Which half measures harder? In one
hand, steel. In the other, water. I pour green
tea on rice and recall days I’ve never lived.
“Genealogy Dream” was first published in August 2018 in Issue 4 of Lost River literary magazine. Many thanks to editor Leigh Cheak for taking this piece.
Reticent as Ever, I Follow the Map (with recording)
Reticent as Ever, I Follow the Map
This old bed, knowing our secrets, our love
for the spiders of the world and their guilty
pleasures, wraps its history around us, says
“go easy, my friends,” and leaves us to our
research. I find the scar on your lower
back, that sacred heart of fusion,
trace the line on the map to the freckle
of grace and its inequities, then up to the left
ear, which requires attention. Speech
can only intrude upon my navigations,
yet I can’t refrain from murmuring the words
again, those never-tiring, never-depleting
syllables which always demand repetition,
wave after wave, an ocean of truth,
mingling and dispersing, accepting, giving,
swelling larger and more complex each day.
“Reticent as Ever I Follow the Map” was published in July 2019 at OPEN: Journal of Arts & Letters. Thank you, Jeff Streeby, for taking this piece.
Down and Away
Down and Away
How soon we lose the scent
of our first love’s
body, that odor of perfume
over sweat and uncertainty
and the overwhelming surge
into what will never again
be new. You shake yourself
back, wondering
if falling stars could choose
to rise again, whether
they would rejoin the firmament
or simply retreat deeper into the
ocean’s black, cooling, sliding
down and away, slipping
free of regret, evading forever
the sun’s long fingers.
“Down and Away” was first published in August 2019 at Trestle Ties. Many thanks to Juleen Eun Sun Johnson and Aaron Schuman for taking this piece.
Your Armpits Smell Like Heaven
Your Armpits Smell Like Heaven
But your breath could melt a glacier at three
miles, she says, and then we might consider
the dirt under your nails, the way you slur
your sibilants, and how you seldom see
the cracked eggs in a carton, a downed tree
branch in front of you, the ripened blister
of paint in the bedroom, or your sister
lying drunk on the floor in her own pee.
Back to your armpits. Do you realize
we could bottle that aroma and make
a fortune? I inhale it and forgive
your many faults. The odor provokes sighs
and tingles, blushes I could never fake.
Ain’t love grand? Elevate those arms. Let’s live!
Never in my wildest dreams did I envision writing a poem about armpits. But the August 2015 Tupelo Press 30-30 challenge, and Plain Jane, the title sponsor, provided that opportunity. This first appeared here in April 2016, and was subsequently published in Algebra of Owls. Many thanks to editor Paul Vaughan for taking it.
Shadow (with Recording)
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/
Poem Up at SLedgehammer
My poem “Persimmon Galette” is live at Sledgehammer. Many thanks to editor J. Archer Avary and team for taking this piece.
Night Smoke
Night Smoke
Incomplete, it rises
only to dissipate
like the griefs we shape,
somehow unnoticed,
beyond reach but felt.
Last night’s moon, the glance.
Forgotten stars, a withheld
kiss, words we never formed.
How difficult to be lost.
So easy to remain unseen.
* * *
“Night Smoke” last appeared here in February 2019.
Lying in Bed I Think of Breakfast (with recording)
Lying in Bed, I Think of Breakfast
The moon smiles and I lie here thinking
of the simple breakfasts I would cook for
us: sticky rice with scrambled eggs and
sauteed peppers, or toasted boule with bacon
jam and a side of sliced peaches. And coffee.
Always coffee, black and bitter. But circumstance
dictates other courses, other time zones, and you
wake in your city as I walk in mine, an early
shopper plundering the store’s vegetable
bins, wandering the aisles in search of a
bargain and that special ingredient missing
from my tired, inconsolable days.
“Lying in Bed I Think of Breakfast” was published in December 2019 by The Big Windows Review. Thanks to editor Thomas Zimmerman for accepting this piece.
O at the Edges 