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.
The Trains I Know
The trains I know
seek solitude
in darkness,
they wear
wind and cold
with pride,
are never
lonely.
Sometimes they
sing too loud,
or mourn
harshly a
star’s fall, but
they never
deny their
purpose: to
draw between
and connect,
to witness and
serve, to bear
and endure
our unsought
burdens
to the end.
* * *
“The Trains I Know” was first published in RiverLit in 2013.
Jazz Study in Time: Migraine
How the body expends its pain,
receptors enunciating their message,
all of one pulse: outward then in,
ice pushing through glass,
metal’s red glow searing flesh,
and the moments between
the piercing and acceptance, the
dull and incomprehensible whirl
of lights flashing from midnight
to snowflake, returning, always there.
“Jazz Study in Time” first appeared on the blog in December 2015.
Self-Portrait with Blue
Darker shades contain black or grey. I claim
the median and the shortened spectrum, near dawn’s terminus.
In many languages, one word describes both blue and green.
Homer had no word for it.
The color of moonlight and bruises, of melancholy and unmet
expectation, it cools and calms, and slows the heart.
Woad. Indigo. Azurite. Lapis lazuli. Dyes. Minerals. Words. Alchemy.
On this clear day I stretch my body on the pond’s surface and submerge.
Not quite of earth, blue protects the dead against evil in the afterlife,
and offers the living solace through flatted notes and blurred 7ths.
Blue eyes contain no blue pigment.
In China, it is associated with torment. In Turkey, with mourning.
Between despair and clarity, reflection and detachment,
admit the leaves and sky, the ocean, the earth.
Water captures the red, but reflects and scatters blue.
Look to me and absorb, and absorbing, perceive.
This originally appeared in the Silver Birch Press Self-Portrait Series, and is included in The Circumference of Other, my offering in the Silver Birch Press chapbook collection, IDES, published in October 2015.
Privilege
Every hour becomes another.
Surrendering minutes, accepting
gain, which gravities restrain us?
Strong coffee, books. A smile.
Such imponderables – the measured
digit, starlife, an unmarked sheet of
paper fluttering to the floor.
Sometimes the lights go out
and we wonder when they’ll return,
not if. Or the laborer misinterprets
a statement and stains the carpet.
There but for the grace…
Anything can happen, and frequently does,
but we open the door and step out, unhindered.
“Privilege” is included in my chapbook, From Every Moment a Second, available for order now via Amazon.com and Finishing Line Press.
One Day I’ll Market Your Death
Do not mistake this phrase for one contiguous with threat.
Even its flower knows the theory of attractive quality.
An ideal medium for cochineal production, the prickly pear
shelters a host of creatures we seldom caress.
Which displays greater motility, the cactus or the cochineal?
Life-cycle of attributes, packaging, excitement, the unknown.
In the Aztec language, the word meant prickly pear blood.
The insects’ bodies and eggs yield carminic acid, which mixed with
aluminum or calcium salts yields the red dye.
Reaching for substance is neither metaphor nor effect. Sessile
parasite: carmine. The product of Dactylopius coccus
became the second most valued resource in Mexico, behind silver.
Opportunism unveiling itself, revealed, or, layered greed.
What appears to be fungus is wealth.
One-dimensional / attractive / indifferent. We look together
through the window and observe our separate selves.
This poem originally appeared in a slightly different form in Otoliths, and was included in my chapbook length work, The Circumference of Other, published in IDES: A Collection of Poetry Chapbooks, by Silver Birch Press.
Five
Of odd and even, the figure of natural man.
If an open hand equals five, what, then, is a fist?
The number of fear, of strength and severity.
Pressing the thorn into my thumb, I redeem.
Wood subdues earth.
Of Ishtar, the talisman of magic, the quintessence.
After the fall, the five.
Earth conquers water.
An outstretched body’s form: the pentagon.
Charred flesh, death in the air.
Of perfection and man’s limits.
Five wounds, five mysteries, the pyramid’s representation.
The hamsadeflects an evil eye.
Water extinguishes fire.
I close my eyes and see.
Of cone/cube/sphere/water/ether.
Metal cuts wood.
The staff serves time and pitch in music.
From waves to vibration to nerve impulses.
Nexus of the cardinal directions.
Of balance and harmony; the center.
Product of the first female and male numbers.
The Szechuan peppercorn confuses the tongue.
Fire melts metal.
When multiplied by a factor of itself, the end.
Numbers fascinate me. “Five” was published in the 2018 summer edition of The High Window. Many thanks to editor David Cooke for taking this piece.
My poem “Cracked” is up at Noble Gas Quarterly. I’m grateful to the Noble Gas team for taking this piece.
Self-Portrait as Wave
Feeling limited, I succumb to surge,
disperse, reassemble, return
in the calming swirl. Nothing
resembles me. I relinquish this piece,
retain that, and reinforced,
reside in the whorl, swollen,
winnowed to a point and capped,
roar and rumble, shredded,
whole yet apart, a solitary
fist crashing through another
watery torso in response, in
resonance, again, again.
“Self-Portrait as Wave” was first published in the inaugural issue of Kissing Dynamite. Many thanks to editor Christine Taylor for taking this piece.
Landscape with Jar
(after Wallace Stevens)
What vanishes more readily than the breakable
and transparent? Not here, not now, it says,
never voluble in the morning. I have work.
The horizon exists simply in perception.
Try to touch it – the hill meets the sky
only from afar, offering discordance
up close, no measurement possible.
And among the trees and vines, a glimmer
of spite, twisted open. Moving closer, we see
through. We see rocks, a bird. We see air.
“Landscape with Jar” was first published in Birch Gang Review in July 2017.
O at the Edges 