Tag Archives: relationships

Lying in Bed I Think of Breakfast (with recording)

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Lying in Bed, I Think of Breakfast

The moon smiles and I lie here thinking
of the simple breakfasts I would cook for
us: sticky rice with scrambled eggs and
sauteed peppers, or toasted boule with bacon
jam and a side of sliced peaches. And coffee.
Always coffee, black and bitter. But circumstance
dictates other courses, other time zones, and you
wake in your city as I walk in mine, an early
shopper plundering the store’s vegetable
bins, wandering the aisles in search of a
bargain and that special ingredient missing
from my tired, inconsolable days.

 

 

“Lying in Bed I Think of Breakfast” was published in December 2019 by The Big Windows Review. Thanks to editor Thomas Zimmerman for accepting this piece.

 

Poems Up at MockingHeart Review

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KermitNot

My poems “In a Moment of Existential Anxiety Kermit Plays the Banjo” and “Magpie Love Song” are live at MockingHeart Review. Many thanks to editor Tyler Robert Sheldon for taking these pieces.

 

Self-Portrait as Question

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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.

The End of Something

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The End of Something

I would never pin this silence
to a board, but her anger tempers
sunset, and my response remains
contained. The paper stars
I nailed to the bookcase rustle
when the door opens. She
swallows wine, I sip tea
and offer no explanations.

 

 

“The End of Something”  first appeared in Volume 3 of Lamplit Underground. Thank you, Janna Grace, for taking these pieces.

Lamplit Underground is a beautifully illustrated publication. Please take a look!

 

Before September

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Before September

In that before-September haze I knew
the birds’ names but not their language,
I saw green in the distance while grass
grew tall and light never lingered.
Questions cratered my moons. Answers
hid between sunbursts. My lips formed
soundless words and glass crunched
underfoot everywhere I walked.
Nothing sparkled under the skies.
Even gemstones and feathers in morning
dew dulled the day’s arc, printing
their notes of lonesome protest in rock
shade and tree droop, in acquiescence,
in quietude. And then you spoke.

* * *

“Before September” first appeared in The Field Guide Poetry Magazine. Thank you to editor Amanda Marrero for taking this piece.

Self-Portrait as Glass

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hourglass

Self-Portrait as Glass

Find form in chaos, precision
in the random. This door,
this flask, this lens. A jar
on the hill. I look through
and see myself staring back,
thinking of sand and salts
and the durability of love
in this transparent world.
But I am obsidian, a dark
iris of volcanic fire and
debris. Try as you will,
you’ll never touch my light

.

“Self-Portrait as Glass” first appeared in Windows Facing Windows Review.

On Parting (after Tu Mu)

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On Parting (after Tu Mu)

This much fondness numbs me.
I ache behind my drink, and cannot smile.
The candle too, hates parting,
and drips tears for us at dawn.

A non-poet friend asked why I’m dabbling in these adaptations. After all, she said, they’ve already been translated. Why do you breathe, I replied, admittedly a dissatisfying, snarky and evasive answer. So I thought about it. Why, indeed. The usual justifications apply: as exercises in diction and rhythm, it’s fun, it’s challenging. But the truth is I love these poems, these poets, and working through the pieces allows me to inhabit the poems in a way I can’t by simply reading them. And there is a hope, however feeble, of adding to the conversation a slight nuance or a bit of texture without detracting from or eroding the original.

The transliteration on Chinese-poems.com reads:

Much feeling but seem all without feeling
Think feel glass before smile not develop
Candle have heart too reluctant to part
Instead person shed tear at dawn

red_coat

This first appeared on the blog in October 2014.

Letter to a Ghost

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Letter to a Ghost

Had I not dreamed your death, I would have praised this day.
Your name rests in a wooden box on a desk

in a room far away and twice as old as we were then.
My penance in this phase: to continue.

I gather words close and refrain from admissions.
The clock on the wall seldom chimes,

like one whose vows circumvent convenience, or
a shade allowing the barest sliver of light

through the window. That tock preceding
a long silence. Snow blanketing the mounded earth.

Your scent never lingers past sleep, where you remain.
At last I no longer covet those sheets you’ve shared.

Your name rests in a box. I gather words and refrain.

 

ghost

“Letter to a Ghost” last appeared herein 2017.

Acceptance Charm

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Autosave-File vom d-lab2/3 der AgfaPhoto GmbH

 

Acceptance Charm

She’ll take the river’s trace
over curl      and leaf

and the street’s
dead end,

riveting eyes
even as they blink.

The narcotic’s       benediction.

Renewal. Sleep.

That bed      remains unmade,
stripped of purpose: no

caress     a thigh would
recognize

dark fingers      writing in air

 

dead-end

“Acceptance Charm” last appeared here in April 2018.

 

 

Another Goodbye

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Another Goodbye

Look: my windblown self, laid open,
or, another insolent word
like the wing of that crested bird
rephrased and tossed aside, broken.

This hill is a rocky ocean
of thorn and desire, absurd
in winter’s glaze, another slurred
and curtained morning forgotten.

Now lost habitats surround me.
Dead brush and loose skin drape my nights.
Remember, what is past, has passed.

The kettle whistles. I pour tea,
think of who I was. Oh, the delights
of leaving: nothing ever lasts.

 

* * *

“Another Goodbye” first appeared  in Grand Little Things, a publication that “embraces versification, lyricism, and formal poetry,” in July 2020.

Thank you, editor Patrick Key, for taking this piece.