Luminous Press will be releasing my chapbook I Have a Bird to Whistle: 7 Palinodes later this month. I’ll post links when available. Many thanks to editors Iskandar Haggarty and Julia Ortiz for publishing this collection.
A Brief History of Edges
This road leads nowhere. I live at its end where breezes
wilt and the sun still burns my darkened skin.
I’ve sailed to Oman, but have never seen the Dakotas.
My friend searches for the concealed parable in this truth.
An early clay map depicted Babylon surrounded by a bitter river,
and an island named the sun is hidden and nothing can be seen.
Fitting the limitless within boundaries, she remembers no one.
The lighted sign says boots, but I see books.
Venturing from the shadows, she offers an accord: intersecting borders,
we must retain ourselves, deliver what calls.
In our place between the hidden and the invisible, consider
that neon gas possesses neither color nor odor.
What lives in creases and at the periphery? The isle called beyond
the flight of birds has crumbled from the lower edge.
Where I stand defines my portion of the spherical earth.
Crossing lines, I look to the sky, its bisected clouds.
“A Brief History of Edges” first appeared here in April 2016.
My poem “Maps” is live at Riggwelter. Thank you, Amy Kinsman, for taking this piece, which was originally drafted during the August 2016 Tupelo Press 30-30 Challenge. I owe its existence to Ken Gierke, who sponsored the poem and provided the title (which I changed) that sparked this piece.
I’m looking forward to participating in “The Larger Geometry: poems for peace” reading at 4:00 p.m. on Tuesday, February 5, 2019 at Texas State University. We’ll read our own poems, but will share others from the anthology as well.
If you’re able to attend, we’d love to see you.
Glass with Memory
When I remember you
glass comes to mind,
but nothing so transparent
as an unclothed thought
or warmth trickling in
through the pipes or
under the haze of
the second night’s sheet,
no two alike except
in appearance, but under
the lamp’s unconscious glare
I find warmth spreading
across the hard surface,
telling me all is
not lost, that smoothness
persists beyond our reflection.
“Glass with Memory” made its first appearance on the blog in February 2017.
On Air Conditioning
The man who owns everything wants more.
Another offers his sandwich,
accepting grace with a smile.
Like vapor condensing in a coil
to remove heat from the air.
Difficult to comprehend.
Harder to live.
Even the Light
You look out and the sunbeam blinks –
a difference in brightness
on the drooping seeds.
Some days nothing gets done.
We live with the unwashed,
with stacks of mail, the unfolded,
the incomplete. Phrases pop out
only to crawl away, and later,
reincarnated in other forms,
embed themselves just under
the skin, calcifying. Scratch
as you might, no relief appears.
Your tongue grows heavy
from shaping these words.
Even the light subtracts.
* * *
“Even the Light” was published in the May 2017 issue of La Presa.
by Stephanie L. Harper and Robert Okaji
I remember what I cannot say
in the moment before
I somehow say something else,
instead,
but like a river reversing course
seeps its brackish warmth
into crisp mountain runoff channels,
my backdraft, too,
threatens
to stifle the resident cutthroats
along with their prey.
Nothing will remain safe for long
from the toxic sediments I bear
upstream, resisting
the current’s translucent
promise to rush me past the crest
of undulant reeds between
the salt marsh and open sea;
for no twist in the shoreline,
nor cloudburst’s surge could un-speak
the daylight
from its collapse
into the ocean’s black throat.
“Flux” first appeared on Underfoot Poetry, and is one of several pieces (with more to come) written during the past year in collaboration with Stephanie L. Harper, whose wisdom, patience and good humor enrich my life daily. Thank you, Daniel Paul Marshall and Tim Miller for taking this piece.
After Reading That Dogs Relieve Themselves in Alignment with the Earth’s Magnetic Field, I Observe and Take Notes
Perhaps Ozymandias is an anomaly. He shows no
preference for the north-south axis while pooping,
and may hedge his bets slightly to the east when
urinating, especially at twilight. Clara the miniature
Schnauzer, ever Germanic in her manner, preferred
true north, always, while blind, deaf, humpbacked
Maury pointed his rear right leg forward, to the south.
Jackboy the cattledog was an omnidirectional reliever,
as is the Chihuahua, Apollonia, although she twists and
snaps at blinking fireflies in mid-squat, never connecting
with the dancing, lighted beetles. I do not recall the
bulldog’s habits, but Scotch trended towards the untidy
in all else, and expended as little energy as possible,
often leaning against the house while peeing on it. I
cannot say which direction my next scientific inquiry
will take, but I will, as always, follow the dogs’ lead.
This poem last appeared here in December 2017, and was written during the August 2016 Tupelo Press 30-30 Challenge. Many thanks to Susan Nefzger for sponsoring the poem. She is NOT to blame for the title or the contents of the poem…
Waiting for the Shakuhachi, I Practice with What I Have
The tone feels round on shorter bottles,
which more closely resemble my shape.
Longnecks pitch lower, while the emptied
pinot requires more controlled air flow.
My grooved fingers fumble in their
search for meaning. I know this silence,
but that one requires more study.
Cool air stumbles in
through the trees.
Ah, autumn’s return.
This first appeared on The Zen Space. Thank you, Marie Marshall, for publishing my work!
O at the Edges 