My poem “Nothing to Fear” is live at Tipton Poetry Journal. Many thanks to the editors for taking this piece.
Poem Up at Tipton Poetry Journal
9
Tag Archives: relationships
Privilege
Privilege
Every hour becomes another.
Surrendering minutes, accepting
gain, which gravities restrain us?
Strong coffee, books. A smile.
Such imponderables – the measured
digit, starlife, an unmarked sheet of
paper fluttering to the floor.
Sometimes the lights go out
and we wonder when they’ll return,
not if. Or the laborer misinterprets
a statement and stains the carpet.
There but for the grace…
Anything can happen, and frequently does,
but we open the door and step out, unhindered.
“Privilege” is included in my chapbook, From Every Moment a Second, available for order now via Amazon.com and Finishing Line Press.
No One Knows
No One Knows
There, the dream of flying
cars, and the next,
tumbling through soft
glass, inconsiderate and
hopeful as a child
on his birthday,
hands outstretched, waiting.
Unsmiling. You might ask
where this story turns,
whether the glass reconstitutes
or the car crashes,
reminders of a childhood
reconsidered and the simplest
truth, which is no one knows.
“No One Knows” was first published in The Pangolin Review in March 2018.
Living in Lines He Carries Nothing
Living in Lines He Carries Nothing
The man you knew is fading,
withdrawing into memory’s
specimen jar. A fatal flower. One
dried scorpion. Another late glass
of pinot. He carries nothing with him
but words. Living in lines on the page,
he listens to the sotol stalks rasping
sad farewells at night, their peace
interrupted by cicadas droning in
the trees. He wants to be seen
before he dies. Thinking hurts, he says.
I depend on pain that won’t vanish
or forget its purpose. I do not want.
“Living in Lines He Carries Nothing” was published in fall 2019 in the print anthology Through Layered Limestone: A Texas Hill Country Anthology of Place. I am grateful to editors d. ellis phelps, Lucy Griffith, Darlene Logan, Donna Peacock and Mobi Warren for taking this and three other pieces.
Forgotten
Forgotten
Is it simply forgotten
or not remembered?
My father coughs
through his days,
asking for answers
only his brother knows.
Some books are better
read from the end,
he says. I don’t know
what to do.
He tries to spell his name
but the letters elude him,
teetering between symbol
and thought and choice.
The chair tips over
when I lean too far back,
replacing memories
with hardwood
and a new bruise
coloring my thoughts.
This word, that one.
A face, the date.
Last Tuesday’s crumb.
The floor accepts us all.
* * *
“Forgotten” first appeared in ISACOUSTIC* in January 2018.
Poems Up at ONE ART: a journal of poetry
My poems “Unwinding the Snake (after Linda Gregg)” and “Water Strider” are live at ONE ART: a journal of poetry. Many thanks to editors Mark Danowsky and Louisa Schnaithmann for taking these pieces.
Ikebana
Ikebana (You without You)
Between frames, between presence and negation, authority.
If your body lies in the earth, why are you here?
Limits admired and sought: the way of the flower.
I pluck leaves from the lower half to achieve balance.
Shape and line detach, yet comprise the whole.
My father, awake in his chair, mourns quietly.
A naked twig forms one point of the scalene triangle.
Starkness implies silence, resonates depth.
Heaven, earth, man, sun and moon invoke your absence.
As you trickle through the interval’s night.
* * *
Ikebana is the art of Japanese flower arrangement.
This first appeared on the blog in March 2016, and is included in my mini-digital chapbook, Interval’s Night, published by Platypus Press in December 2016, and available via free download.
Mother’s Day (with recording)
Mother’s Day
The dog is my shadow and I fear his loss. My loss.
I cook for him daily, in hope of retaining him.
Each regret is a thread woven around the oak’s branches.
Each day lived is one less to live.
Soon the rabbits will be safe, and the squirrels.
As if they were not. One morning
I’ll greet an empty space and walk alone,
toss the ball into the yard, where it will remain.
It is Mother’s Day.
Why did I not weep at my mother’s grave?
I unravel the threads and place them around the dog.
The wind carries them aloft.
“Mother’s Day” was published in The Lake in July 2016, and last appeared here in May 2020. It is included in my recently published chapbook, My Mother’s Ghost Scrubs the Floor at 2 a.m., available now from Amazon.com and Barnes and Noble.
Cantilever
Cantilever
1
Night skitters over the mounds,
avoiding the blue flowers
She bears the horizon’s gold.
2
No one stands alone.
Our sky is of earth, dark
soil packed with the living.
3
I do not seek mercy.
The cliff frog chirps its song
and the fog closes in.
4
Suspended, hope
wraps around her,
one foot on the ground.
Setting Fire to the Rose Garden
Setting Fire to the Rose Garden
Each flower is a gift, a testament to
another morning’s arrival.
I watch you tend the firestar, its
mango-colored petals flirting with
the fire ’n’ ice’s elegant
red, accepting the pink indictment
of the flaming peace, and the
scarlet fireglow’s blush. You are like
a new sunlight crossing the day,
yet when I wave, a cloud passes over
you. Flames differ in this regard,
knowing they exist only as the product
of heat, oxidation and combustible
material, yet sharing their brief lives
with all who care to notice. I inhale
your dark thoughts, holding them
within, but later assemble my own
bouquet — wood chips and diesel
fuel, ground spinners, snakes,
strobes, rockets, candles, shells,
repeaters and a spark timer — and
plant it fondly in the garden. Oh,
how they’ll blossom before dawn’s
first touch. How they will shine.
“Setting Fire to the Rose Garden” was drafted during the August 2015 Tupelo Press 30/30 Challenge, and was subsequently published in The Paragon Journal’s [Insert Yourself Here]: an Anthology of Contemporary Poetry.
O at the Edges 