Self-Portrait with Mandolin
Being
the afterthought
of wood and
steel, I accept
the phrases
allowed me.
Limitations
frame our days;
working within,
we grow.
Almond to tree,
sound in time.
Chords
by implication.
I root among
the falling
leaves,
gathering
their tunes.
When I cannot
see, my hands
find the way.
Here’s a recording of my poem “Runaway Bus,” which was featured on Postcard Poems and Prose Magazine in January 2017 and is included in my chapbook, From Every Moment a Second, available for order via Amazon.com and Finishing Line Press.
Runaway Bus
Wishing for pristine airways
and unfeathered dreams, I lie
on my right side, and wait.
Again, the bellows flex and pump.
The relentless tickle, exploding,
another round of gasps and mucus retained,
one droplet among others,
spread across the night.
Comfort’s runaway bus never slows,
and I watch it pull away, shrinking in time.
Wait, wait, I say. I bought a ticket.
My poems “Scarecrow’s Wealth” and “Cells” are live at The Big Windows Review. Thank you to editor Thomas Zimmerman for supporting my work, and to Charles Payne for sponsoring/inspiring the scarecrow poem.
Unwinding
As in a day’s long
thread
or with cold drink
in hand,
glass sweating,
ice
shrinking, a little
sweet,
some salt, her
smile saying
relax, put up
your feet,
I’ll take care
of this,
don’t worry,
tomorrow’s
a full moon
away.
“Unwinding” first appeared here in January 2017.
My poems “Do Not Retain Me In An Urn,” “Pinot Noir” and “Hotel of my Future” are live at Salamander Ink Magazine, a Nigerian publication. Thank you, founder/editor Salam Wosu for taking these pieces.
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Blackbody
1
It is a house. A small house.
A small dark house perched on the edge of town
near the river.
The river is constant.
A man enters the house, closes the door behind him.
Nothing emerges. We witness this daily.
No one emerges.
The house is dark.
A man enters.
The river is constant.
2
A pebble pierces the water’s surface.
I awaken to imperfection.
A blackbody allows all incident radiation to pass into it,
absorbing all, reflecting none.
The tensile strength of water decreases as temperature rises.
Hakuin said if you doubt fully, you will awaken fully.
Before sunrise I unshutter the window.
Angle of reflection, angle of incidence.
My doubts reinforced with coffee, I pause.
Perfect blackbodies do not exist in nature.
Opaque box with a hole.
3
There is a house. A small house.
A small dark house perched on the edge of town
near the river.
Nothing emerges.
A man enters.
The river is constant.
“Blackbody” was first published on Aubade Rising in May, 2014, and appeared on the blog in February 2016.
As Breath Defines Constriction (Solar Wind)
The snake swallows itself, integrating the opposite. Or, illustrating the
nature of earthquakes, encourages conjecture.
Wind meditation. The practice of circling mountains, of emptying oneself.
Matter accelerating away from the sun. The prickly pear on the roof.
The Tendai monks of Hiei run 40 kilometers each day for 100 consecutive days.
Only then may they petition to complete the thousand-day trial.
Coronal mass ejections temporarily deform the Earth’s magnetic field.
I sweat while driving to the store for cold beer.
The heliopause is the point at which the solar wind’s strength is no longer
sufficient to push back the interstellar medium.
No matter its destination, a comet’s tail always points away from the sun.
At which point does one hear the sound of sunlight entering stone?
They must complete the thousand-day challenge or die. To this end,
each monk carries a knife and length of rope on his journey.
A map is simply paper. Solar wind, cord of death.
Stones in the path, quivering earth. Eyes focused ahead.
***
“As Breath Defines Constriction” is included in The Circumference of Other, my offering in the Silver Birch Press publication, IDES: A Collection of Poetry Chapbooks, available on Amazon.
At Sunrise We Celebrate the Night’s Passage
And discuss not the darkness of crows, but the structure of phonemes
embedded in our names, the gratitude of old fences, of broken
circles and extinguished flame.
Two weeks ago he poured wine and declared himself Dog.
There are roosters, too, who cannot crow,
other speechless men, and lonely burros guarding brush piles.
What letters form silence? From what shapes do we draw this day?
Light filters through the cedars and minutes retract,
as the bull’s horns point first this way, then that, lowering themselves
through the millennia, becoming, finally, A as we know it.
With my tongue, I probe the space emptied of tooth.
Barbed wire was designed to repel, but when cut sometimes curls
and grabs, relinquishing its hold only by force or careful negotiation.
Symbols represent these distinct units of sound.
My name is two houses surrounding an eye.
Yours consists of teeth, the bull, an arm, the ox goad.
Originally published in Prime Number Magazine, one of my favorite online literary journals, in 2013, and posted here in September 2015. Cantinflas the donkey makes a cameo appearance in this poem…
May I Be Familiar
Do we find you in what you’ve left or where you’ve gone.
In words you could not form, or forgot long ago.
Missing the pastels, the shades, all nuance.
With moistened hands, I pat rice into a ball and wrap it in seaweed.
By my reckoning, the word who no longer implicates.
Ritual accumulates significance in memory.
Forgotten fruit on the sill. A whisper nailed to the wall.
Honor and pride line your earthen home.
Though you never did, I pickle ginger. Make takuan.
The transparent house reflects no gaze and contains no one.
Gathering your absence, I coil it around my body.
* * *
“May I Be Familiar” is included in my mini-digital chapbook, Interval’s Night, published in 2016 by Platypus Press as #10 of their 2412 series.
My poem “The Inside Twitch” is live at Exilé Sans Frontières, a new international publication. Thank you to editors Daniel Nemo and Pryscilla Hebel for taking this piece.
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O at the Edges 