Nocturne (Fall 1983)
Tall weeds block
the view. Remove
sound from sight,
the guitar becomes
kindling. I stretch
my hands toward
the burning wood,
hearing the echo
and the woman.
This first appeared here in November 2015.
Forgotten
Is it simply forgotten
or not remembered?
My father coughs
through his days,
asking for answers
only his brother knows.
Some books are better
read from the end,
he says. I don’t know
what to do.
He tries to spell his name
but the letters elude him,
teetering between symbol
and thought and choice.
The chair tips over
when I lean too far back,
replacing memories
with hardwood
and a new bruise
coloring my thoughts.
This word, that one.
A face, the date.
Last Tuesday’s crumb.
The floor accepts us all.
* * *
“Forgotten” first appeared in ISACOUSTIC* in January 2018.
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.
Somewhere: 28 Rue St. Jacques
Or eating spam fried rice in the courtyard
after kindergarten, and playing cowboys
with Thierry, the kid next-door. We shared toys,
but not comics. Written language was hard
to decipher, unlike the spoken. I
never captured the nuances, and lost
the rest over the years. Today the cost
eludes me, like moths fluttering by. Try
to recall that particular morning light,
how it glanced off the French snow, and the
way our mother smiled at breakfast, no trace
of sadness, yet, the lines marking our heights
rising along the wall, limbs of a tree
we’d never climb, out there, somewhere, in space.
* * *
This was originally drafted during the August 2015 Tupelo Press 30/30 Challenge. I was never satisfied with it, and didn’t see any reason to revise. But those memories are worth sharing!
Ossuary / Arco Felice / 1974
Sometimes the bone man clattered by, his horse-drawn wagon heaped high with the stripped remains of dismembered corpses, a cloud of flies in his wake. I would watch him from my perch on the hillside above the street, contemplating the wondrous creatures that could arise if only one possessed the imagination and ability to assemble and reflesh the various rib cages and skulls, the scraped and articulate bones and fragments stacked on the wooden bed. I never considered a destination, never thought to follow, but instead wandered elsewhere, down to the waterfront, or along Via Domitiana to Lago d’Averno, Hell’s entrance, not far, they said, from the River Styx.
Odd, I think, that I never once contemplated the various paths taken to bring that wagon before my eyes, to that very intersection, on those particular days. Nor did I wonder that it was drawn by muscle and sinew rather than engine, that its wares, while tarnished with dried blood, seemed curiously bereft of flesh and stench, and that its passage seemed unnoticed. Perhaps it was merely a parenthetical statement in the day’s phrasing, and I lacked the proper context with which to read it. Perhaps. But even at fifteen I knew that such sights were not long for my world.
Now, from this Texas hill, I listen to distant gunfire and wonder which bones will come my way, which offerings will appear at the roadside, what the dogs will bring. I have fifty-four years and much patience. The breezeway is lined with antlers. I wait, no destination in mind.
This prose piece was one of my first posts, and last appeared here in August 2017.
Exile
Having abandoned one, I claim the other.
Rain speckles the driveway.
Solitude pays its toll with unmet expectations,
thunder receding, clouds shriveling to dust.
The mockingbird chirrs its cricket tune
before flying to a higher perch.
What you call home I call diminishment.
What you surrender, I bundle and mail to strangers.
“Exile” first appeared here in May 2017.
I Praise the Moon, Even When She Laughs
I got drunk once and woke in Korea
with you watching over me.
Odd, how you spend seasons looking
down, and I, up. If I lived in a cloud,
could you discern me from the other
particles? Perhaps your down is
peripheral, or left, or non-directional. I can
fathom this without measuring scope,
yet I feel queasy about the possibility
of being merely one vaporous drop
coalescing among others, unnamed
and forgettable, awaiting the particular
atmospheric conditions to plummet to my
fate. As if we control our own gravities!
One winter I grilled pork tenderloin under
your gaze, unaware that the grass
around me had caught fire, and when I
unwound the hose and turned on the
faucet you laughed, as the hose wasn’t
connected and only my feet were
extinguished. Dinner was delayed
that evening, but I praised you just the same.
I look up, heedless in the stars’ grip, unable
to retrace all those steps taken to this here,
now, but still you sway above the branches,
sighing, lighting my path, returned once
again, even if not apparent at all times. Every
star signals a departure. Each is an arrival.
* * *
“I Praise the Moon, Even When She Laughs” was published in Sourland Mountain Review in January 2017.
What Edges Hold
By which I mean those lines framed in certainty: the demarcation of sunlight and shadow. Kami signifies not spirit, but rather that force above man.
Never religion, but life itself: the mountains, trees, the rocks. Lightning.
Or waves, thundering off the coast, lured by the moon.
Stirring the water with a spear, Izanagi dripped an island into being.
Separate the ordinary through limitation, by practice, by ritual and space.
Another night in the twisted trees. The god-shelf.
Recognize that wind respects no borders.
Knowing that to the east questions may respond to answers I have long
suspected, I look elsewhere. After the vowel, the consonant.
Though torii differ in style, each retains two posts and a crosspiece.
After the consonant, the winnowed tunnel, extinguished light.
At the gate, bow respectfully, then enter. Ladle water from right to left,
then left to right. Pour it into your left hand, then cleanse your mouth.
Invert and regard the precipice.
I have placed one foot in their sphere. The other still searches.
This originally appeared in April 2014 as part of Boston Review‘s National Poetry Month Celebration.
I’ll Turn But Clouds Appear
You gather and disperse and nothing I do salves my hunger.
Where are you, if not here among the roots of dead flowers
or inches below the window’s opening
in the leaf-filtered light. Or spread across
the ceiling, caught in filaments of expelled
hope. Savoring motion, I look up and address the Dog Stars,
longing to catch your attention. But clouds muffle
my words, and instead I turn
to the fragrance of tomato and garlic and spice
wafting into the night. What could bring you back?
Not love. Not wine. Not solitude, nor the sound of my voice.
I spoon out the sauce, cautiously, and wait.
* * *
“I’ll Turn but Clouds Appear” first appeared in Bindlestiff.
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.
O at the Edges 