My poem “Something Felt” is featured at Vox Populi. I am grateful to Michael Simms for his support, and am thrilled to be a regular contributor to this lively publication.
Poem Up at Vox Populi
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Tag Archives: relationships
It was 10 A.M. When the Angel Said You Have to Go Now
It was 10 A.M. When the Angel Said You Have to Go Now
Forgive me for seeking clarity, but do you have a specific
destination in mind, or are you saying, with a little less
force, get lost, go away, I’m done with you, or might you
merely be suggesting that I go forth? And what exactly is
your position on, oh, let’s just say the afterlife and the
journey there? As for turning, you certainly did,
offering both in sequence, again and yet again, to my
great appreciation. Butter. You must explain your fetish
and how the room exuded pale gold and sweet after
one little death, as if a honeyed light had oozed in beneath
the door, and, in kissing the carpet, released endorphins
and cool warmth, and love-moths frantically flapping
to dry our sweat without the slightest chill. It’s the little
things, my mother always said, never considering size,
but meaning those thoughtful touches, the fresh flowers,
a plate of cheese and fruit, and yes, the tenor sax moaning
in the alcove. I’ll go, but you know this is my apartment.
“It was 10 a.m. When the Angel Said You Have to Go Now” was originally drafted during the August 2016 Tupelo Press 30-30 fundraiser, thanks to d. ellis phelps, who sponsored and provided the title. It was subsequently published in Atlanta Review in May 2020.
Black Lilies
Black Lilies
Flensing words, slicing deeper: all, nothing,
red to redder. Their skin, paling to nothing.
I speak today but you hear yesterday.
Black lilies in the chill of nothing.
Drifted apart, the two halves reconcile.
Yellowed, whitened. Older. Both stitched in nothing.
How many words have we lost to morning? Shredded
syllables sparring for sound. The nothing of nothing.
A coated voice, turquoise and calm, spreading across the room.
Buttered light. Pleasantries, unfolding. You, being nothing.
The language of night sleeps unformed in my bed.
I remember your hand on my cheek; flesh forgets nothing.
* * *
A near-ghazal, “Black Lilies” first appeared in ISACOUSTIC* in January 2018.
Flinch
Flinch
Set it aside, regret, heal. Grieve
till the soil’s ebony heart
devours your secrets. Believe,
in agony, what falls apart,
disintegrates at your feet. Art
rends your flesh: nervous I transmit
false signals, flinch when I should start,
weep when I should wave, counterfeit
my life’s lessons. Mosquitoes flit
through the unscreened window. Do I
ever claim this life as misfit,
as hopeful dupe? Watch the man lie
and conspire. Swat at the bugs. Lift
the mottled spade. Accept this shift.
* * *
“Flinch” 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.
Lace Cactus
Lace Cactus
Small, they grow in the lee stones,
invisible except when blooming.
Just as the vulture’s wings blot the sun
and the moment blinks away
in the bottle tree’s glare.
An incidental flick. A distraction.
Like every unspoken word
tumbling down that long hill.
“Lace Cactus” first appeared in Tistelblomma, a publication out of Sweden. Many thanks to editor Jenny Enochsson for taking this piece.
Helsinki (with recording)
Helsinki
An editor said never start a poem at a window,
so instead I’m looking at the door,
which is made of glass. We are to avoid rain,
too, but it streaks the pane in such delicious
patterns that I can’t help but pretend to be someone else
in a foreign city, perhaps Helsinki, sipping black coffee
with a mysterious woman younger than my daughter
(who also does not exist), whose interests
in me are purely literary, although she straightens
my collar with lingering, scented fingers. Garden
memories and birds must never populate our lines,
but corpses are fine, as are tube tops and bananas
and any combination thereof. I finish my coffee
and wander alone through cobblestone streets,
stepping over clichés when possible, kicking them
aside when my hip joint argues, or simply accepting
their useful limitations when nothing else works.
Unknown and lacking credentials, I shrug, go on
past the closed doors behind which unseen bodies
perform the most bizarre and sensual solo dances,
or not, and shadows cook sausages over fire
and the grease spattering onto the tiled counters
issues a fragrance that awakens neighborhood dogs
and maybe a dozing stall-keeper at the market
where cloudberries are sometimes found.
I know little of Finland, and less of myself,
and then there’s poetry, which remains a blank
frame, a frosted pane I’ll never truly unlatch.
* * *
My poem “Helsinki” was first published at Panoply. It was inspired in part by a Facebook thread on which editors commented on what caused them to instantly reject poems. One said beginning a poem at a window was cause for rejection. Hence the first line.
When Shadows Hide
When Shadows Hide
I breathe when you breathe,
and watching me,
you capture each lost molecule.
This book blinks whenever you turn the page.
I see you between the words, between the white threads.
You are the adored chapter, the one I read in bed before
sleep, and after I wake, before the first wren announces
dawn, then in the afternoon’s highest point, when shadows hide,
and later, as they emerge to stroke your bare shoulder.
What’s on the other side, you ask. What do you hear?
Your breath, I say. Your name.
“When Shadows Hide” was first published in the print anthology Epiphanies and Late Realizations of Love in February 2019.
Self-Portrait as Two Halves
Self-Portrait as Two Halves
No epiphanies in these woods,
no prayers yanked about,
currying favor from the loneliest
god of a fruitless tree, its DNA
unraveling at thought’s speed.
Never having greeted us,
the other world waves good
riddance and this one turns its
back, both torn in equal measure
yet admitting no guilt through
their narrowed eyes. Oh, to be
whole in this splintered self.
“Self-Portrait as Two Halves” first appeared in The Dew Drop in November 2020.
While Blowing on the Shakuhachi I Think of Birds
While Blowing on the Shakuhachi, I Think of Birds
Yesterday’s sorrow
dissipates in joy.
Though you are not here, I hear your voice,
blow a solitary note in response.
Your philosopher bird carries it to you,
two-thousand miles away,
as the wren brings your song to me.
This is love today
and tomorrow,
embodied in birdsong and faith.
Next week I will know your touch
as you will mine.
We’ll follow our lists,
starting with lips, while the universe
surges around us, filling the voids we never saw.
Needs, answered.
Perhaps the world will end.
Perhaps the red-tailed hawk will follow its nature.
Perhaps I will stand on the roof and shout your name.
But today, this little bird nesting in all the unsaid spaces,
is all I have, little mouth flickering, forming moons and
new mornings, new shadows, new light.
* * *
“While Blowing on the Shakuhachi I Think of Birds” first appeared in Voices de la Luna in March 2020.
In Gathering Light
In Gathering Light
1
I sit in darkness
my back to the words
gouged in stone
and wonder what
phrase the stars will
utter tonight,
what wisdom
one finds in dreams
or the widening circles
of the hole that was
there
in water,
in earth, in the common tongue
of all things.
The tree speaks
a different language.
I hear
whispers, a bone-flute’s
whistle, the sound of metal
striking dirt striking
wood,
but nothing, no words
I can gather.
2
I have lost my shadow
among the weeds
of this place.
Somewhere
it wanders,
a thin, grey shape
waiting for light to give birth
to the blackness
I call friend,
itself, shadow.
My fingertips trace
the lines, hoping
to draw something
from the stone –
an unknown word,
the druid’s
small bag of dreams,
the lyrics of the stars.
* * *
Another poem, another artifact from the mid-80s, rediscovered last year.
O at the Edges 