Tag Archives: memory

New Chapbook Available from Illuminated Press

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In the Garden of Wind's Delight

I am thrilled to announce that my chapbook, In the Garden of Wind’s Delight, a collection of 22 short poems exploring the ecology of mind, spirit, and music through meditations on learning to play the shakuhachi, the traditional Japanese bamboo flute, is available from the publisher, Illuminated Press. Founded by Laura Rowley in 2014, Illuminated Press specializes in books crafted by hand, featuring handmade papers for elements such as covers and endpapers. This book is hand bound in the Yotsume Toji binding, the traditional four-hole Japanese binding structure. Limited to 300 copies.

Many thanks to Laura Rowley and the Illuminated Press team for bringing this work to fruition.

Creative Nonfiction Piece Live at The Woolf

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xhand

My short creative nonfiction piece, “Ossuary,” is live at The Woolf. Many thanks to editors DB, Kristen and Susan for taking this piece, which first appeared on this blog about ten years ago.

Poems Live at Skeleton Flowers Press

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whale tail

My poems “Another Sunrise, Another Moon,” and “One Becomes Two” are live at Skeleton Flowers Press. I am grateful to the editors for taking these pieces, and to poet-musician Tara Linda for providing the title “Another Sunrise, Another Moon” during a fundraiser for Brick Street Poetry a few years ago.

Stephanie L. Harper’s Poems in The Iowa Review

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Iowa Review Front Cover

Stephanie L. Harper, my spouse, my partner-in-life, my love, my inspiration, my editor, my everything, has two poems in the latest edition of The Iowa Review. This is THE BIG TIME! The list of writers published in the pages of this major journal include the likes of Jorge Luis Borges, Anne Carson, Louise Gluck, Jorie Graham, Kurt Vonnegut, and many, many others we can only hope to emulate. Now Stephanie’s rubbing (metaphoric) elbows with them. I am so proud of Stephanie and so happy for her, because I know, I’ve seen, how hard she’s worked at her craft. One of the two poems illustrates this commitment to the art: “Pelvic Organ Prolapse” is an “in-titled” poem. Created by Stephanie, this form is composed exclusively of the letters appearing in its title, with no letter occurring within any individual word in the poem more times than it does in its title. To say the least, it is a maddening form to attempt. But here it is, within the pages of The Iowa Review!

Pelvic Organ Prolapse

Iowa Review Back Cover

Poems Live at Hibiscus

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treereflect

My poems “Barstow,” “Even the Darkness,” and “As If We Understand the Tree” are live at Hibiscus https://www.hibiscusmag.com/the-poetry-vase. Thank you, editor Jackie Bluu, for taking these pieces.

Self-Portrait as Hoot Owl

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Self-Portrait as Hoot Owl

Who do you think I am, what will
grace serve, where in this moonless
void might you lie, can we echo
through the hours and never attach
ourselves to one discernable tree?
Is query my only song? Is sadness
yours? Wrapped around these
priceless silhouettes, our voices
merge downhill near the creek’s
rustle, below the seeping clouds
and stars yet somehow above the
night and tomorrow’s slow ascent
into more questions, more doubt.

 

* * *

“Self-Portrait as Hoot Owl” first appeared in Issue 125 of Right Hand Pointing. Thank you to editors Dale Wisely, Laura M. Kaminski, F. John Sharp and José Angel Araguz for taking this piece.

 

Yellow, Lost (with recording)

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Yellow, Lost

The forgotten poem, existing in title only: Yellow.

Which is a bruise at three weeks, or memory’s shade in autumn.

In what black folder does it hide? In which blinding light?

I take comfort in primaries, lose sleep at the edges.

Where fraying begins and annotation dwindles to scrawled lines.

Above the bones and flesh of the Egyptian gods. Above my books.

Within these lost minutes. Those moons, bereaved. The hours.

Desire germinates even after our rainless decades. Yellow, again.

The color of sulfur (the devil’s realm) or the traitor’s door.

Of cowardice and warning. Of aging and decay.

How to recover what’s sifted away, the residue of our loves?

Each day more bits break off, never to be reattached.

But you, I blend with the sky, perfecting trees, the grass.

 

* * *

“Yellow, Lost” was published in wildness, Issue no. 10, in October 2017. wildness is an imprint of Platypus Press, which published my work Interval’s Night, a mini-digital chapbook, in December 2016 in their 2412 series. If you’re not familiar with wildness, check it out. In fall 2016 Poets & Writers named it in their article Nine New Lit Mags You Need to Read.

 

Flinch

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spade

Flinch

Set it aside, regret, heal. Grieve
till the soil’s ebony heart  
devours your secrets. Believe,
in agony, what falls apart,
disintegrates at your feet. Art
rends your flesh: nervous I transmit
false signals, flinch when I should start,
weep when I should wave, counterfeit
my life’s lessons. Mosquitoes flit
through the unscreened window. Do I
ever claim this life as misfit,
as hopeful dupe? Watch the man lie
and conspire. Swat at the bugs. Lift
the mottled spade. Accept this shift.

* * *

“Flinch” first appeared  in Grand Little Things, a publication that “embraces versification, lyricism, and formal poetry,” in July 2020.

Thank you, editor Patrick Key, for taking this piece.

The End of Something

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The End of Something

I would never pin this silence
to a board, but her anger tempers
sunset, and my response remains
contained. The paper stars
I nailed to the bookcase rustle
when the door opens. She
swallows wine, I sip tea
and offer no explanations.

 

 

“The End of Something”  first appeared in Volume 3 of Lamplit Underground. Thank you, Janna Grace, for taking these pieces.

Lamplit Underground is a beautifully illustrated publication. Please take a look!

 

Letter to Geis from This Side of the Glass

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Letter to Geis from This Side of the Glass

Dear Greg: I can’t help but think about windows, their
function, their meanings, intended and otherwise, how
they block some entities but allow others entrance. A
black vulture feather lies just on the other side of this
pane, but the laws of material and physics prevent me
from reaching through and claiming it. Maybe I’d
sharpen the end, dip it into squid ink and write letters.
Or not. Cephalopods are scarce in the hill country,
unlike carrion birds, wild hogs and scorpions, and frankly,
ballpoint pens require less maintenance. Lately, the
opaque has redirected my attention — no matter which
government agency speaks, I feel surrounded by their
pseudomorphs, those little indistinct clouds of mucus and
dark pigment released to confuse and numb me. A common
occurrence, I hear, and all the more frightening for it. I
think of where we’re headed, collectively and individually,
and even knowing that our destination remains unchanged
offers small comfort. One foot at a time, the steps matter,
and though it appears we won’t share those planned brews
in Bandera, I’ll chuckle over our last meeting there and
dream up a conversation about futility and compromise,
and yes, success. I’ve just spent twenty minutes trying to
help a yellow jacket escape. It wouldn’t leave the glass even
after I left the door ajar, allowing a fly to enter. Instead,
it gazed out at the hazy morning, seeking a way through
refraction’s oblique path. Finally, shepherded with my bare
hand, it reluctantly skittered to the jamb, and I coaxed it
the final few inches by pushing it with the door. Such
are my days. A little faith, some hope, luck and a great
unknowing. This window seems cloudy, or is it just
my eyes? I miss you, buddy, as do the hills and the sky
and everything nestled and bustling between.  Bob

 

 

 

This first appeared in May 2020 in the Taos Journal of International Poetry & Art. D.G. Geis was a friend, a larger than life  poet, and a fellow Texan. We were both finalists for the Slippery Elm poetry prize in 2017, and after learning that we didn’t win, decided to have a “losers’ lunch” in Bandera, Texas, the closest town to our respective rural properties. Much laughter ensued, and we made plans to get together for a beer in the coming months. Alas, that was not to be.