Kites
Will viewpoint shift with my spine’s slow
compression, or will this
window admit only true images
in the shortened days to come?
I pencil phrases on bone-shaped kites
and release them to the afternoon.
Call them prayers, name them moans.
Each string is a regret freed, a separate
skeleton, let go. My two selves shudder
in the attempt. I await the perfect breeze.
I’m delighted that the July-August issue of Eclectica includes three of my Scarecrow poems. Last year I bought a book on corvids (crows, ravens, jays), thinking that I’d likely produce a few poems centered on these fascinating birds. But as I started writing the first one, the Scarecrow’s voice eased in and took control. Thus far we’ve collaborated on about a dozen pieces. Such is poetry…
Hummingbird (3)
Arriving from nowhere,
its mouth opens
but what escapes
comes not from within
and is never complete.
Words, too, falter
in this space,
struggling to remain
aloft, challenged yet free,
an exchange
between air and wing,
of sound and thought,
occurring as it must
without design
or desire, simply
there, then gone,
a presence one notices
in its absence.
* * *
“Hummingbird (3) made its first appearance on the blog in December 2014.
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Withdrawn, it unfolds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.
Hummingbird
The thought makes
trembling so
incomplete, a consequence
of knowledge attained. I look out
and see leaves flitting in the dusk,
the air closing around them
like the mouth of an old well
swallowing light. Such
hunger we find difficult
to comprehend. The wind shivers
through our lives and repeats itself,
though differently each time.
Every departure is a return.
“Hummingbird” made it’s first appearance on the blog in December 2014. I wrote it in the 1980s, probably between 1987-1989.
Forever
Our dogs hide under the bed,
escaping thunder.
But the sun shatters
a cloud and I know
we will live forever.
Each hour is the sky,
every day, another
star. Now the trees
join the wind
in rejoicing. This
is what we make,
they say. Only this.
* * *
“Forever” made its first appearance in July 2015.
Palinode (translation, passway, glass)
(translation)
What falters in translation? The dove’s silhouette resides
on the window three months after the sudden refusal. I
observe wingprints, the skull’s curve, a history of assumptions
angled in the moment of impact. And after, residue. Light’s
incident rests. One body whispers another’s shape and the
next rumbles through the narrowing passway. Traitorous,
I call it fact. I name it truth, and naming it, reverse the coat.
(passway)
I name it truth, but considered denial, root of the renegade’s
term. I have a bird to whistle and I have a bird to sing. Misperception
in flight. Betrayal’s gate, unhinged. What comes next? Sunlight
slants through the window each morning, and departs, bending
in reversal. Stones all in my pass. Dark roads. Another naming,
another transition. Trials waged in the grammar of refraction.
The deflected word.
(glass)
The deflected word reciprocates and the sky opens, outlining
its missing form. I have pains in my heart, they have taken my
appetite. Derived from wind, from eye, from hole. Once through,
what then? Mention archetype, and my world dims. Mention
windows, and I see processions and enemies lined along the way.
Boys, please don’t block my road. We select certain paths, others
choose us. Wingprints on glass.
Notes: italicized selections are from Robert Johnson’s “Stones in My Passway.”
This piece first appeared, in slightly different form, in ditch, in January 2014.
Shadow
walking,
crushing juniper berries
at dusk
the dog shadows me
in his absence
* * *
“Shadow” first appeared in April, 2015. It could be considered a companion piece to “Mother’s Day,” which is included in the July 2016 edition of The Lake.
I’m delighted that two of my poems are appearing in The Lake, a poetry webzine based in the UK.
Human Distance
1
Apart from edges, and into deeper darkness,
our scars crawl, remaining aloof.
2
Open windows frame the ache in motion, the
displaced notes between two wavering spaces.
3
Absent light, absent voice. What is the longitude of
grace? Consider errors and their remnants.
4
Navigators measured lunar distance and the height
of two bodies to determine Greenwich time.
5
I study the passing cloud
and its descent, noting the nature of condensation.
6
Desire: the fragmented night and its circumstance.
7
Heavenly form. The moon’s dull glow.
Acquiescence before the body’s silt.
8
Interstellar matter become dust, become
gas, become molecule.
9
Human distance registers no scale.
O at the Edges 