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
6
Tag Archives: perception
New Chapbook from Luminous Press
Luminous Press will be releasing my chapbook I Have a Bird to Whistle: 7 Palinodes later this month. I’ll post links when available. Many thanks to editors Iskandar Haggarty and Julia Ortiz for publishing this collection.
February 5th Reading at Texas State University
I’m looking forward to participating in “The Larger Geometry: poems for peace” reading at 4:00 p.m. on Tuesday, February 5, 2019 at Texas State University. We’ll read our own poems, but will share others from the anthology as well.
If you’re able to attend, we’d love to see you.
Glass with Memory
Glass with Memory
When I remember you
glass comes to mind,
but nothing so transparent
as an unclothed thought
or warmth trickling in
through the pipes or
under the haze of
the second night’s sheet,
no two alike except
in appearance, but under
the lamp’s unconscious glare
I find warmth spreading
across the hard surface,
telling me all is
not lost, that smoothness
persists beyond our reflection.
“Glass with Memory” made its first appearance on the blog in February 2017.
What Happens Next
What Happens Next
Another night with the frost,
she says, and you’ll know
the half-life of cold.
Which is not to say enjoy,
or pity, or pretend.
It is the sheath of God’s
gaze, an unsuspected lump.
The harvested curse.
You grasp what happens next.
“What Happens Next” first appeared here in November 2017.
Icarus
Icarus
the answer is
not the history
of flight but
a question of
wings a notion
born of desperation
and fright each
quill ruffled by
the delicate tongue
of air can
only reflect this
fortune a dream
but never a
tragedy the gift
of gravity’s denial
Written probably in 1985 or 1986, this is the first poem I titled “Icarus.” After lurking in a drawer for decades, it made its first public appearance here on the blog in December 2017.
A Brief History of Babel
A Brief History of Babel
Borders, windows.
Sound.
Trudging up the steps, I am winded after six flights,
my words smothered in the breathing.
The Gate of God proffers no favors.
When the spirit gives me utterance, what shall I say?
Curiously, no direct link exists between Babel and babble.
A collective aphasia could explain the disruption. One’s
inability to mouth the proper word, another’s
fluency impeded by context.
A stairway terminating in clouds.
Syllable by twisted syllable, dispersed.
Separated in symbols.
And then,
writing.
To see the sunrise from behind a tree, you must face
east: higashi, or, a discrete way of seeing
the structure of language unfold.
Two characters, layered. One
thought. Direction.
Connotation. The sun’s
ascent viewed through branches
as through the frame
of a glassless
window.
Complexity in simplicity.
Or the opposite.
I have no desire to touch heaven, but my tongues reach where they will.
Who can know what we say to God, but God?
And the breeze winding through, carrying fragments.
* * *
My poem, “A Brief History of Babel,” was drafted during the August 2015 Tupelo Press 30-30 challenge, and was subsequently published at Bonnie McClellan’s International Poetry Monthcelebration in February 2017.
Forgetting Charm (with recording)
Forgetting Charm
Even your bones remember what you’ve long discarded.
This field of stone grows beyond sight.
In our house the tang of burnt sugars.
You say I love you in four languages I do not speak,
but never in the one I claim.
We light fires with stolen paper.
Douse them with stored rain.
Fragmented memories fill our cupboards.
Did I once know you?
Take these words from me.
Bury them in daylight.
* * *
“Forgetting Charm” was published in The Icarus Anthologyin August 2017.
Music: “Crypto” Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)
Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 License
http://creativecommons.org/licen
Bamboo
Bamboo
the ringing in
one’s ear is
not desire but
language the song
of another mouth
moving in a
different wind the
music is nothing
it is all
and has no
substance but that
shaped inside beyond
thought like growth
in a seed
there simply there
* * *
Something written in the 80s. My, how time has flown…
Poem Up at Kissing Dynamite
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.
O at the Edges 