“Trigger Alert” is live at Stone Circle Review.. I am grateful to editor Lee Potts for taking this piece, which is one of a series of hendecasyllabic (eleven lines consisting of eleven syllables) poems written since early September.
6
Today is my birthday. Six months ago I did not think I’d see this day. But here I am, celebrating Stephanie’s smile, the morning’s first sip of coffee, snowflakes (just a few, but hey!), modern science, the wisdom of Snoopy, friendship, love, and yes, my continuing existence. I am a lucky man.
Prayer
Death does not choose you at random
but approaches at your pace, rumbling
downhill or floating in the air,
debris or dandelion fluff,
concealed yet evident.
Listen: a small cloud bumps another,
merging into one larger being —
can you hear its ecstasies?
All the world’s souls, gathered.
“Prayer” was first published in Soul-Lit.
A handful of my poems have been published since January, and in the grip of my illness I did not properly acknowledge the publications. I hope to make up for this, at least in part, by providing links to these journals.
My poems “IWhile You Slept,” and “Surrounded by Myself I Remain” were published at Resurrection Magazine this past Spring. I am grateful to editors Ingrid M. Calderon-Collins and John Collins for taking these pieces.
My poems “Nothing Happening Again and Again,” “What Is the Sound of the Cold Moon,” and “Olive Oil Cake” are up at The Big Windows Review. I am grateful to editor Thomas Zimmerman for taking these poems, and for his generous support over the years.
I learned a few days ago that my poem “In the Stillness of After” has been nominated by Sunlight Press for a “Best of the Net” award. I am grateful to editors Rudri Patel and Beth Burrell for this honor.
A handful of my poems have been published since January, and in the grip of my illness I did not properly acknowledge the publications. I hope to make up for this, at least in part, by providing, at this late date, links to the poems in these journals.
“While Listening to Fleck, Hussein and Meyer, I Consider Children’s Book Titles, Hops and the Ongoing Search for Meaning,” was published at Amethyst Review in January. I am grateful to editor Sarah Law for taking this sonnet, and to Stephanie L. Harper, who provided the title during a fundraiser for Tupelo Press iin August 2016. Little did I know that four years later Stephanie and I would be married. Ah, the power of poetry.
A handful of my poems have been published since January, and in the grip of my illness I did not properly acknowledge the publications. I hope to make up for this, at least in part, by providing links to these journals.
My poems “In the Middle of the Rest of the World,” and “Driving By I See Different Flesh in the Field” were published at Abandoned Mine this past February. I am grateful to editors Jasen Christensen and Robert Grant for taking these pieces.
What the Body Gives, Gravity Takes (Cento)
As if what we wanted
were not the thing
that falls,
as what was given
to answer ourselves with – air
moving, a stone
on a stone,
something balanced momentarily.
Or wheels turning,
spinning, spinning.
The waters would suffer
at being waves,
but nothing of their dream
takes place,
nothing that is complete
breathes. But the world
is peopled with objects.
You grow smaller,
smaller, and always
heavier.
You can think of nothing else.
Credits:
Jane Hirshfield, Gustaf Sobin, George Oppen, Joy Harjo, Alberto de Lacerda, Jacques Dupin, Francis Ponge, Denise Levertov, Jacques Roubaud.
* * *
“What the Body Gives, Gravity Takes” appeared in Issue Four of Long Exposure, in October 2016.
I assembled this cento years ago. It seems aligned with my life today…
A handful of my poems have been published since January, and in the grip of my illness I did not properly acknowledge the publications. I hope to make up for this, at least in part, by providing links to these journals.
My poems “Another Night at the Breach,” “At World’s Edge,” and “Cactus Needle” were published at The Globe Review this past spring. I am grateful to editor Blanka Pillar for taking these pieces.
My poems “Not Language but the Possibility” and “Reduced to Translation” are live at Wildness. Many thanks to editor Michelle Tudor for taking these two poems.
O at the Edges 