Tag Archives: poetry

Self-Portrait with Umeboshi

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Self-Portrait with Umeboshi

Our resemblance strengthens each day.

Reddened by sun and shiso,
seasoned with salt,

we preside, finding
comfort in failure. Or does
the subjugation of one’s flavor for another’s

define defeat? The bitter, the sour, the sweet
attract and repel

like lovers separated by distances
too subtle to see.
Filling space becomes the end.
What do you learn when you look through the glass?

Knowing my fate, I say fallen. I say earth.

 

Ah, simplicity! When I was a child my mother would occasionally serve rice balls in which a single mouth-puckering umeboshi rested at the center. These have long been a favorite, but I admit that umeboshi might be an acquired taste. Commonly called “pickled plums,” ume aren’t really plums but are more closely related to apricots. I cherish them.

“Self-Portrait with Umeboshi” first appeared in the Silver Birch Press Self-Portrait Series (August 2014), was included in the subsequent print anthology, Self-Portrait Poetry Collection, and also appears in my chapbook, If Your Matter Could Reform.

 

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Ghazals

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Steph Burt writes about the ghazal form, in particular Agha Shahid Ali’s “Tonight.” An illuminating article.

And here’s a link to Kazim Ali discussing the poem: Poetry Off the Shelf

Being Neither End nor Beginning, I Look to the Earth

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Being Neither End nor Beginning, I Look to the Earth

Or the sky’s red haze, scattered in past particles,
enhanced. The goings, the matters. The truest lies.

May we roll in reverse towards the future?
This ladder curves into the horizon, blending faith

with history, with solid and liquid. With gas.
I have bled on her rails and taken myself

hostage. I have returned rain to air. I am rendered
like never-turning wheels, fixed in space,

guided by friction and soured prayer; oxidation
consumes me. Sleepless among evergreens,

we pledge vigilance and note the absence of candor.
Somewhere water flows, but not here, today.

“Trem Abandonado” by Rafael Vianna Croffi
(https://www.flickr.com/photos/rvc/29472173566)

The last of three poems launched from this painting.

Trains

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Trains

1

In the marrowbone of night,
your song parts the fog.

I never knew the secrets entrusted there.

I never knew that cinders and steel
could lie so passionately

and still believe that the watchman’s hours
would evaporate and leave us scratching for more.

I have stolen time.

The windows remain closed and shuttered.
Even the wind turns away.

The track narrows.

You call.

Again.

2

Sometimes song seems the only respite,
the rhythm of clashing cars

and moments stretched beyond the next bend
to that point where light winks out.

We both know this lonely tunnel.

Payment is due.

I have always exited alone.

3

Another evening, and red smoke completes the horizon.

Your ribs stretch for distance,
and while I cannot see their end,
I know by sound
their lot.

Sing for me.
It is not
too close.

 

“Trains” was originally published in Lightning’d Press (Issue 8) in Spring of 2014, was reprinted on Aubade Rising in April, 2015, and was posted here in June 2016. It is also included in my chapbook, If Your Matter Could Reform.

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To That Dismal Train Somewhere Near Banff

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To That Dismal Train Somewhere Near Banff

Forgotten, you settle into the earth,
naming stones for each destination missed –
Kamloops, Jasper, Lake Louise – which is worth
each open-mouthed coin laid on the rail, kissed

and reformed into altered currency
no longer capable of carrying
debt or a tourist’s sense of urgency,
only dying days and the wearying

plight of the unmoved. If vines caress your
body, who’s to blame for accepting their
advances? When green subsumes rust, deplore
that too, but enjoy the moments you share,

leaf on metal and glass, the raspy light
tonguing your throat through those long, whistling nights.

The Loneliness of the Last

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The Loneliness of the Last

Always exposed, never sharing the comfort
of between, you see only the departed

diminishing with each second’s passage, blurring,
shrinking, and finally blinking out, all points

erased in the null, an eye closing in the tunnel.
Or, inhaling the fragrance of an unseen orange

grove filtered through coal and thick, black
coils, you accept the limits of possibility,

known only by edges flowing past, lost
to touch and forever beyond reach in the draft

of the inadmissible. Departure defines
you. What lies ahead is not yours to embrace.

* * *

“The Loneliness of the Last” was published as a mini-broadside by ELJ Editions in February 2017.

Loneliness

“Trem Abandonado” by Rafael Vianna Croffi
(https://www.flickr.com/photos/rvc/29472173566)

 

Poem Up at MockingHeart Review

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I’m delighted that my poem “This Island is a Stone” has been published in the latest issue of MockingHeart Review. I am grateful to editor Clare Martin for accepting this piece.

Incongruities

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Years ago, I worked in a library…

Incongruities

so little depends
upon

the half-Japanese
bookman

reading Italian
haiku

in the Texas
library.

Once again, my apologies to William Carlos Williams, whose poetry inspires and therefore often bears the brunt of my little diversions into whimsy. “Incongruities” first appeared here in October 2015. The original WCW poem can be found here.

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Scarecrow Popped Up in Los Angeles

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I learned early this morning that my poem “Scarecrow Calls Out the Man” had been reprinted again, this time by CityWatch, a publication out of LA devoted to politics, perspectives and participation. I’m thrilled that Scarecrow’s voice is resonating…