Moonwalker
The night’s face, pocked with stars.
In the stellar wind, we soar.
From this pale light,
acknowledge insignificance, watch
the blue spinning so far away, so close.
I am that finite point
of nowhere, of nothing, wondering
when the sun will truly darken,
if I will see tomorrow, today.
* * *
“Moonwalker” first appeared in Ligeia’s Winter 2019 edition. Many thanks to poetry editor Ashley Wagner for taking this poem.
Mockingbird
Withdrawn, it unfolds
to another
voice, like that
of a child lost in the wind.
Or, lonely, it rises from its place
and sings, only
to return and start again.
The pleasure we accept derives from
the knowledge that we are not alone.
Each morning we walk out and sit
by the stones, hoping to observe some
new patterns in his life. What we
see is an answer. What we hear is no song.
* * *
“Mockingbird” made its first appearance here in January 2015. It was written
in the 1980s, probably around 1987-1989.
Destined by Gravity to Fail, We Try
Having fallen from the roof not once, but twice,
I verify that it is not the fall but the sudden stop that hurts.
The objectivist sense of the little: the and a, my house in this world.
Galileo postulated that gravity accelerates all falling bodies at the same rate.
While their etymologies differ, failure and fall share commonalities,
though terminal velocity is not one.
The distance between the glimpsed and the demonstrated.
Enthralled in the moment, Icarus drowned.
Rumor has it his plunge was due not to melting wax but to an improper mix
of rectrices and remiges: parental failure.
Thrust and lift. Drag. Resistance.
Acknowledgment of form in reality, in things.
When the produced drag force equals the plummeting object’s weight, the
object will cease to accelerate and will move at a constant speed.
To calculate impact force accurately, include the stopping distance in height.
Followed by long periods of silence.
This first appeared on the blog in December 2015.
Celestial Navigation
Even dung beetles
know the stars,
how they shape
destination.
Motion ceases with arrival.
This body attracting
that. The heart
losing itself
to the moon’s
pull, another wave
falling.
Does light descend
or rise?
Subtle yet observant.
Like truth, like
destiny shivering
through the coldest hour,
saying Welcome, welcome!
“Celestial Navigation” was first published in Nine Muses Poetry in July 2019.
Dragging the River
Knowing the truth of it, he marvels
at the red grape’s resiliency,
how it contains itself even after
a fall. What matters, what doesn’t.
Those simplistic thoughts
dissipating in the coffee’s sad
swirl. And what they wanted,
truly wanted, even more than
that first plunge of lips to private
flesh or the forbidden highlights
in the book of dreams never to
be opened. He looks over the side,
but can’t divine the message
in the brown ripples. A wine bottle
bobs by, followed by an inflated vest
and two snarled branches. Everything
revealed in its time.
* * *
“Dragging the River” first appeared in May 2019 in The Elixir Magazine out of Yemen.
Poem Ending with a Whimper
The best liar wins.
You can’t stop talking
and the truth embedded in strands
frays with each word slipping
from your cruel mouth.
If I tilt my head just so, I see God.
Or what passes for God at the periphery:
a fly stain on the window, the redness
at the eye’s corner, the shrike’s beak.
Silence fills me daily
and trickles out in utterances and sighs
meant only for you.
Who lies best?
I look to the ground for answers.
What replies is a tail between its legs,
a headless shrug, a whimper.
“Poem Ending with a Whimper” was published 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!
Another Goodbye
Look: my windblown self, laid open,
or, another insolent word
like the wing of that crested bird
rephrased and tossed aside, broken.
This hill is a rocky ocean
of thorn and desire, absurd
in winter’s glaze, another slurred
and curtained morning forgotten.
Now lost habitats surround me.
Dead brush and loose skin drape my nights.
Remember, what is past, has passed.
The kettle whistles. I pour tea,
think of who I was. Oh, the delights
of leaving: nothing ever lasts.
* * *
“Another Goodbye” 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.
Why I Hate Mowing the Lawn
The unmowed green reveals its secrets
blade by blade, shadowed and fresh.
Don’t look, it says, whisper deep
into my chlorophyll. Save this blue.
It unveils other nuances, confiding in
contrast and symmetry, employing
your eyes and their measures. The quiet,
all-encompassing and subtle. So true.
* * *
“Why I Hate Mowing the Lawn” was first published at Buddhist Poetry Review.. Thank you, Jason Barber, for taking this poem.
Inheritance
All this is mine and I praise the sky
offering surcease
in the form of vapor and a darkening
of its measure, accrued
in the way of interest owed,
increasing like vermin, circling back
then beginning anew.
I count each drop delivered.
The window’s eye blinks
and a lone flash stitches the day.
Each rumble is a coffin’s lid slammed shut.
Wanting nothing, I demand more
and receive only what I want,
a reckoning of desire and
needs ignored.
I have buried your demands.
I have delivered each counted drop.
All this is mine.
* * *
“Inheritance” first appeared in The Closed Eye Open, a publication focusing on consciousness. Many thanks to editors Daniel A. Morgan, Maya Highland and Aaron Lelito for taking this piece.
Black Lilies
Flensing words, slicing deeper: all, nothing,
red to redder. Their skin, paling to nothing.
I speak today but you hear yesterday.
Black lilies in the chill of nothing.
Drifted apart, the two halves reconcile.
Yellowed, whitened. Older. Both stitched in nothing.
How many words have we lost to morning? Shredded
syllables sparring for sound. The nothing of nothing.
A coated voice, turquoise and calm, spreading across the room.
Buttered light. Pleasantries, unfolding. You, being nothing.
The language of night sleeps unformed in my bed.
I remember your hand on my cheek; flesh forgets nothing.
* * *
A near-ghazal, “Black Lilies” first appeared in ISACOUSTIC* in January 2018.
O at the Edges 