Greeting the Moon (after Li Po)
Wine conceals the night’s approach,
while blossoms blanket my clothing.
Drunk, I stumble to the stream and greet the moon,
thinking of birds, so distant, and people, so few.
The transliteration on Chinese-Poems.com reads:
Amusing Myself
Face wine not aware get dark
Fall flower fill my clothes
Drunk stand step stream moon
Bird far person also few
This adaptation first appeared here in September 2014.
(This first appeared here in March 2014).
Quite the interesting mag back in the day. This particular issue saw the likes of Bukowski, Ivan Arguelles, Lyn Lifshin, Norm Moser, Sheila E. Murphy, and, well, me, among others. I was thinner back then, as was my poetry.
no more than
the slow grace
of light turning
the leaf so
patient in the
air and colder
now that sense
of permanence unfurled
it is not
long to wait
as Wang Wei
said in his
letter I listen
for a sound
but hear none
Waiting for the Hole to Fill
I keep twisting my ankle
in this never diminishing
hole, no matter how much
soil I shovel in. If your eyes
grew wider would you
capture light in a separate
peace? Would this green
turn blue while the dirt
concealed the emptiness
and the wind shuffled
through this hollow form?
The air doesn’t respond
but I await the answers.
* * *
I’m delighted to report that my poem “Waiting for the Hole to Fill” was recently published in two Texas newspapers. I am grateful to poetry editor Jim LaVilla-Havelin for taking this piece, and for his enthusiastic support of poets and poetry.
I was honored to read “My Mother’s Ghost Scrubs the Floor at 2 a.m.” yesterday at a celebration of local Pushcart Prize nominees at Irvington Vinyl and Books in Indianapolis. Read the poem here: The Indianapolis Review.
Patterns
For one who moves in uncertainty, this
flower, the petals of which
gently fade, as if reason
is found in the decline of beauty
and its comforts.
But all you touch remains
touched. If silence reveals the body
of music, what can be said of darkness? Words
appear motionless until they blossom, a
pattern seldom seen yet carried to us in
all manner of conveyance. Listen,
for there is no purer voice.
Let the earth speak.
“Patterns” first appeared here in March, 2015, and again in June 2016. I wrote it 30-some years ago, placed it in a folder and promptly forgot it.
This Turning
what one says
depends not on
words the wind
begins it does
not end but
lends itself to
an end this
turning may be
an answer the
sound of intent
so concealed a
word displayed is
only a word
not an end
nor the beginning
Another oldie from the eighties. It seems that even my poetry was thinner then.
Ghazal of the Bullwhip
Who hears braided tongues lashing the glare still?
The language of pain writhing through white air, still.
Or herding cattle you pop and crack above the horizon,
pastoral and flowing. But sharp, a sonic nightmare, still.
You ask how love blossoms through decades and more.
That look, a caress, the perfect words – all quite rare, still.
Oh to be a larks head knot, strengthening when used.
Delicious hitch, unmoved water, tight square, still.
I fall, you fall. We fall together in pleated silence.
The inevitable loop of the captive’s bright snare, still.
No gods today, but voices trickling through my skull:
Bob, Bob, they say. Not again. Even you should care. Still!
* * *
In response to a comment, Daniel Schnee dared/challenged me to write a poem about a bullwhip. To make it interesting I decided to combine his theme with my latest enthusiasm, the ghazal form.
This first appeared on the blog in September 2017.
The Theory and Practice of Rebellion
Such small lives we’ve led,
diffident, quiet, until
provoked.
Remove our words,
we become steel
and sharp stone,
fletched softwood
splitting the air,
string reverberating,
singing resist,
resist.
Fear not
who we are now.
Consider tomorrow.
“The Theory and Practice of Rebellion,” first appeared in Outcast Poetry, and was reprinted on Vox Populi. Many thanks to editor Sean Lynch for originally taking this piece, and for Michael Simms for reprinting this and other pieces. I am truly grateful for his support.
Year’s End
If I lose myself in breathing,
will the air forgive my forgetfulness?
This oak, too, will stand long after
the last train exits the tunnel.
I worry that my friend may never
clamber past his lowest ambition.
Different and unabated, our words
now stumble over themselves.
Every night forms a morning somewhere:
each year, combined in our shared darkness.
* * *
“Year’s End” is included in my micro-chapbook Only This, available via free download from Origami Poems Project. Many thanks to editor Jan Keough for taking the mini-chap and offering this opportunity to so many.
Celestial Navigation
Even dung beetles
know the stars,
how they shape
destination.
Motion ceases with arrival.
This body attracting
that. The heart
losing itself
to the moon’s
pull, another wave
falling.
Does light descend
or rise?
Subtle yet observant.
Like truth, like
destiny shivering
through the coldest hour,
saying Welcome, welcome!
“Celestial Navigation” was first published in Nine Muses Poetry in July 2019.
O at the Edges 