Shadow
walking,
crushing juniper berries
at dusk
the dog shadows me
in his absence
* * *
“Shadow” first appeared here 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.
Music: “Thunderbird” Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)
Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 License
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/
Self-Portrait as Question
Walking hand-in-hand with what,
who presupposes why, and when
huddles with where before skittering
off to its murky corner. Sometimes
I present myself as a shy minute
or a cloud’s effigy streaming across
a scruffy field. Few suspect the truth.
Answers ricochet from the limestone
wall, but no one nabs them. I react
quickly and offer the unknown, the
life I claim, my name, in return.
* * *
“Self-Portrait as Question” was first published in Rue Scribe in September 2018. Many thanks to Eric Luthi and the editors at Rue Scribe for accepting this piece and several others.
Politics
No snakes here,
but a little voice
says the mice
will return,
and which
do you prefer,
the one that
gnaws open
ramen packages
then craps
on your plate
or the one
who takes
its prey
under the house
and swallows
it whole,
leaving
no bones
behind?
“Politics” first appeared here in January 2017.
Icarus
the answer is
not the history
of flight but
a question of
wings a notion
born of desperation
and fright each
quill ruffled by
the delicate tongue
of air can
only reflect this
fortune a dream
but never a
tragedy the gift
of gravity’s denial
Written probably in 1985 or 1986, this is the first poem I titled “Icarus.” After lurking in a drawer for decades, it made its first public appearance here on the blog in December 2017.
Interiors Continue reading
What the Body Gives, Gravity Takes (Cento)
As if what we wanted
were not the thing
that falls,
as what was given
to answer ourselves with – air
moving, a stone
on a stone,
something balanced momentarily.
Or wheels turning,
spinning, spinning.
The waters would suffer
at being waves,
but nothing of their dream
takes place,
nothing that is complete
breathes. But the world
is peopled with objects.
You grow smaller,
smaller, and always
heavier.
You can think of nothing else.
Credits:
Jane Hirshfield, Gustaf Sobin, George Oppen, Joy Harjo, Alberto de Lacerda, Jacques Dupin, Francis Ponge, Denise Levertov, Jacques Roubaud.
* * *
“What the Body Gives, Gravity Takes” appeared in Issue Four of Long Exposure, in October 2016.
Knots
Who you are not seldom rises
beyond midnight’s
sum: one strand thrown over
another, looped through
and pulled taut, achieving
tension and a sour taste
at the back of your throat.
Everyone believes this
doesn’t bleed. I lock the
windows, draw the shades,
twist the cord. Even distracted,
nothing comes undone.
“Knots” first appeared here in June 2016.
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.
“Human Distance” was published in Bindlestiff in summer 2016, and has also appeared on this blog.
Memorial Day
Arriving at this point
without knowledge of the journey,
the slow collapse and internal
dampening – the shutting down, the closing in – lost
in the shadowed veil, my eyes flutter open to find
everything in its place, yet
altered, as if viewed from a single step
closer at a different height, offering a disturbing
clarity. Looking up, I wonder that she wakes me
from a dream of dogs on this, of all days,
only to detect under me linoleum in place of the bed,
my glasses skewed from the impact,
the floor and left side of my head wet. You looked
like you were reaching for something, she says,
and perhaps I was, though with hand outstretched
I found nothing to hold but the darkness.
“Memorial Day” was first published in Eclectica in July 2014, and was, much to my delight, subsequently included in Eclectica Magazine’s 20th Anniversary Best Poetry Anthology.
Article by Stephanie L. Harper:
Story Up at Spoonie Magazine!
http://slharperpoetry.com/2022/08/03/story-up-at-spoonie-magazine/
— Read on slharperpoetry.com/2022/08/03/story-up-at-spoonie-magazine/
A must read! Poignant and illuminating, and so true.
O at the Edges 