Tag Archives: poems

Scarecrow Contemplates Pi

Posted on by
27

 Scarecrow Contemplates Pi

At the moment you snipped away
my reticence, I spoke so eloquently
that even the stones wept at your
indifference. As you arranged my
pose and buttoned the shirt
around the wire and fodder
replenishing my torso, I understood
your roots and mine should never
merge: transcendental, and in
collusion with the irrational, we
circles cannot be squared. And
how must I reconcile my unheard
words? The longer I speak the
greater their magnitude – a balloon
expanding in volume retains its
ratio – one day my words will sift
through your filters and you will
at last receive them. I pull this
particular comfort close – that
patterns and frequencies and
tendencies become law, that the
fleshless and soulless, the mute
and misunderstood, the powerless,
the different, nevertheless will be
heard. But what of love? How may I
contend to feel, to know that which
is your right? A nervous system
conducts electrical and chemical
impulses, yet lacking these, my
coreless heart sags at the thought
of your departure. I am no man.
Is this truly not enough?

“Scarecrow Contemplates Pi” first appeared with two companion pieces in Eclectica in summer 2016.

Palinode (birds)

Posted on by
33

Palinode (birds)

Simplicity, as in the cloaca. One aperture for all: eggs,
urine, sperm, feces. The majority of birds copulate
by joining the openings of their cloacae (most male
birds lack penises). Nothing is for nothing.

Nothing is for nothing, but the ache of emptiness
bestows its own reward. That movement from outer
world to inner, to anima, to breath, to flight,
approaching heaven. Birds know the way.

Knowing the way, birds express our envy of the
boundless, testament to the unity of earth and sky,
instinct’s voice. We see feathers not as epidermal
outgrowths, but as emblems of what we forever seek.

As emblems of what we seek, crows exploit man’s
folly, exposing hidden truths. Thought and memory
recede, leaving us foundered. Altered consciousness,
flight, the space to believe, simplicity’s forms in one.

“Palinode (birds)” first appeared in slightly different form in Otoliths in fall 2016.

Two Poems in Steel Toe Review

Posted on by
21

My poems “How to Do Nothing” and “And All Around, the Withered” have been published in Volume Four of Steel Toe Review, available for purchase here.

Many thanks to editor M. David Hornbuckle for taking these pieces.

 

Mother’s Day

Posted on by
27

Mother’s Day

The dog is my shadow and I fear his loss. My loss.
I cook for him daily, in hope of retaining him.

Each regret is a thread woven around the oak’s branches.
Each day lived is one less to live.

Soon the rabbits will be safe, and the squirrels.
As if they were not. One morning

I’ll greet an empty space and walk alone,
toss the ball into the yard, where it will remain.

It is Mother’s Day.
Why did I not weep at my mother’s grave?

I unravel the threads and place them around the dog.
The wind carries them aloft.

“Mother’s Day” first appeared in The Lake in July 2016.

Scarecrow Listens

Posted on by
28

sax

Scarecrow Listens

These silences I hear, are they not
music? Interspersed with sunlight and
air flowing through fragrant grasses,
insects ticking in the leaves or burrowing
towards moist darkness, and my friends
cawing from their perches, if I arrange
their presence in sequence, perhaps
around the day’s bones, will you
know my spirit? And when I interweave
these tunes, independent and unrelated,
shaping them into one separate melody,
will you recognize its heart and shiver
to the beat? Ornette Coleman freed
his playing, celebrating the territories
of the unmeasurable, the unnamed. The
real is, no matter what you call it. Take
this leaf and place it atop three others.
What have you? And what am I if not
a gathering of the unwanted, scraps
melded to serve a thought-free purpose,
another’s need. Fleshless, boneless,
breathless, bloodless, I know only
that I am; having no ears, still I listen.

 
“Scarecrow Listens” first appeared with two companion pieces in Eclectica in summer 2016.

 

 

Two Poems in GFT Presents: One in Four

Posted on by
14

My poems “The Boy Who Wouldn’t Hoe Corn” and “Scarecrow Believes” are included in GFT Presents: One in Four, a semiannual, print literary journal published by GFT Press, and available for purchase here.

Balance

Posted on by
13

star lights


Balance

Navigating
by stars,

one ball
buried,

another
gathering,

the dung
beetle

straight-lines,
maintains

position,
forever

looking forward
and up.

image

“Balance” first appeared here in February 2016.

Palinode (salt, mask, descent)

Posted on by
46

mask

 

Palinode (salt, mask, descent)

Tracing the map to the swaying places, she rises
through the interior world, garnering peace by
syllable. Water, clouds and sand mark her ascent.
The expectation is return, renewal. My friend did not
awaken this morning, and tonight I praise her
passage with drink and song. Matter into spirit,
mountain into sky, redemption, freedom. We bathe in
light, reclaiming the liminal. Our tears evaporate,
leaving salt and untrod paths in our wake.

The paths in our wake delimit the future, but
everything falls. Which do we desire more, the grasp
or its release? That instant preceding fear defines a
yearning particular to its course, a cycle of regression
and progress: ancestors descend into human or
animal form, die, depart to the heavens, and return
anew. Distilled power, a bridge to the spirits, the
mask unshutters and conceals the conscious mind.
Opening my eyes, I release the sun.

I release the sun and observe the results. From sky
to soil, from above to below, to solidity. Spirit
acquires matter, disperses and regroups. Rain and
alluvion, flooded homes, the dark night of childish
laughter. Each to her own path, each to an end. Muting
the string, I touch the harmonic into the world, linking
civility to proportion, lowering dissonance. Everything
falls. Everything. From curve to angle, we resist and
rejoice. In this design parabola, she descends.

 

ascent

“Palinode (salt, mask, descent)” was first published in Otoliths in slightly different form.

Jim Harrison

Posted on by
6

trout

While browsing the Poetry Foundation’s articles, I uncovered this piece from 2016. Jim Harrison has long been one of my favorites. His success at prose has perhaps caused some to forget or disregard his poetry, but in my mind, he’s always been a poet first.

 

 

Recording of When to Say Goodbye

Posted on by
18

dried

 

My recording of “When to Say Goodbye,” which was recently published in Oxidant Engine.