Deadfall
Clouds capture the moon.
The shifting branch cracks,
as if shedding thought.
I add words to the kindling, a few notes.
The tune flares against the wall.
Though I hum, no one hears.
Night muffles our song.
Abandoned, the flame reaches out.
“Deadfall” first appeared at Red Eft Review in June 2018. Thanks to editor Corey D. Cook for taking this piece.
My poem “To the Vase Whose Emptiness Beckons” has been published at Cirrus Poetry Review. I am grateful to editor Hannah Norman for taking this piece.
My poem “A Further Response from the Hornet’s Nest,” which somehow won first prize in Panoply’s first-ever contest, has been published in Issue 11 along with poems by such luminaries as Stephanie L. Harper, Kelli Allen, and AM Roselli. I’m thrilled to have a poem in this issue!
My poem “Inscrutable” has been published in Volume 3, Issue 1 of Ink in Thirds. Thank you, Grace Black, for taking this piece!
My poem “Self-Portrait as Wave” has been published in the first issue of Kissing Dynamite. Many thanks to editor Christine Taylor for taking this piece.
My last five posts of 2018 are reruns of five of the most viewed posts on this site during the year.
Every Drop
Your light singes my roots
even deep underground, where
worms revel in your joy
and all the days’ secrets line up
awaiting their turn to kneel and
unwrap their daily truths in the
comfort of the chambered soil.
If I were a seed, I would wait
for your touch before sprouting,
and only then would I surge
to the surface, swallowing
your gift. Greedy but grateful,
I’d open, drink every drop.
Jackboy’s Lament
We define ourselves in movement,
in the uncertain light and forms
shuddering by: fences, the nameless
wave, odors, dark water.
Look at the hills, their lines stretched taut like
smiles, or voices torn from the earth.
Or the creek below us – how its mouth never closes
yet nothing emerges but a shadow
on the wind. Two questions arise,
leaving only the abandoned to consider.
In our solitude, only my self is missing.
“Jackboy’s Lament” made its first appearance here in October 2015. I started the poem about a dozen years ago, after a drive through the Texas hill country with Jackboy the cattledog, who was quite the philosopher and humorist. This is what emerged after several conversations and much reflection over his circumstances (abused, abandoned, rescued). Jack didn’t talk much, but he thought. Oh, how he thought.
Uccello
the wind is what
the stillness
desires to say
each instant
collapsing into itself
like a bud
returning
to the seed
listen
the birds in my tree
are silent
as echoes
before their brief
lives are
silent
something thrashes
in the leaves
the feather
spiraling
slowly
is not only what
it is
as the candle
is more
than flame
or a moment
curling
to darkness
the question
is of clarity
I built a frame
but placed
nothing in it
the wind
blows through
quietly as if
between silences
there exists
only silence or
light
the familiar embrace
unfolding
Originally published in 1987 in a short-lived publication called The Balcones Review, this is the opening of a longer work. When I last looked out my window at that same tree, I heard the birds, no longer silent.
Tree
where you go
the wind follows
as if no
choice remains but
that of sun
and oak an
attraction such that
limbs curve to
light a certainty
which cautions us
to intrude lest
we lose all
sight and sense
of beauty you
are this tree
Written in the 80s, “Tree” first appeared here in December 2014.
My poem “A Further Response from the Hornet’s Nest” was awarded first place in Panoply’s inaugural poetry contest. I’m still stunned from the news. Many thanks to editors Ryn Holmes, Jeff Santosuosso and Andrea Walker for this honor!
O at the Edges 