Writing

A selection of short poems. (list)



Whisper Wish


This
whisper wish
falls short, as when

my singing voice
or violin
melody unfolds, almost

Almost
like music
to your ears


January 10, 2017







The Lou Harrison Shelf




Last night, across
a dusty street corner
I reach
a junk shop—
the sort whose racks & shelves of
old tools & metal signs
are dragged daily outside—

& eventually
realize
I’m perusing Lou Harrison’s bookshelf.

The owner
walks up
& explains he
once’d been hired
to clear out Lou’s home

In the middle of one side
of the shelf
there’s a staircase
which I follow
up & into
a modest
concert hall mezzanine
inside the house
I find myself casually
in the presence
of Lou’s friends
who seem not to know he has died

—perhaps, an earlier time, before
he’d gone


September 14, 2021







What Is Written


Leaving work,
prison
in a sunny   little rush

I savor this warmth
on my back

&
what is written

But more
the play of light

&
chain-link shadow—

ripplings
upon the page


January 22, 2024







Probability Puzzling


The other night
I fell asleep wondering
if any future
or past tenant
of this house we rent

would ever keep their bed
in the room
we use as the living room

How bout a bed
in what serves as our dining room?

I don’t hate these possibilities
honestly,
I find them kind of appealing,
refreshing

*

I have always loved nights
spent in the common space

with friends, from out of town.

As a kid, sleepovers
were a birthday or weekend treat
Or
with just my siblings
on the living room floor,
sleeping bags
by the fireplace my dad mostly tended,

cartoons on tv in the morning.

My parents sometimes
would use the foldout sofabed,

five of us ending up
in some combination of these placements

*

Our couch pops
so easily out
It’s a signifier
of our lack
of fealty to the coming morning

We have no roommates
to contend with, or to irritate
—just kids
who we could share this with, but haven’t yet
They still are learning
to get to sleep

I’ve always loved slumber parties
& adamantly insist
the inability of grown people
to make a habit

of socializing
without time constraint

makes much the loneliness
of adulthood

An easy, affordable joy
we may not realize we miss

*

Would any person keep their bed in our house’s kitchen?

For medical reasons?
Out of obsession
maybe… with baking?

It’d be tight in there… but a cot
or a ‘single’ would fit.

I’ve misheard some principle
from thermodynamics
or cosmology

that given infinite time for wandering,
the elements in a space
will configure in every possible arrangement

*

So then, a thousand times…
Ten thousand…
A hundred thousand times…?

If we re & re-booted the tenancy
of this house,

how many tries

until
some person puts a bed in the kitchen


May 1, 2024







Too Lonely For A Mansion




It could not be congenial—
even with some
magic windfall

to live
in luxurious isolation

I am too homey
(of a person)
to guard
any fortune

I am too lonely a person
for a mansion


October 4, 2021







If I Should Play At All


Glad to see you all here—
Hello!

Earlier
I asked the universe
& it told me it doesn’t care which songs I play.

It doesn’t matter—
the ones I think you’d prefer
you think you’d prefer
the ones I think I would prefer
Just get up there & do something

—covers, originals; played well,
played badly;
loved or loathed
or ignored

& thank you
it said.

*

Thank you


January 21, 2024







Hoping It Was Thunder




I was hoping it was thunder I was hearing
& soft joy when I was certain
Then   a few assuring flashes signal
more   to come

—Sudden recollection
as of a voice that was forgotten
or the morning’s dove cooing from Maryland
Could it have been years since I noticed this...

Night
pattering   on the gutters
& trees & roof
& even the steady drip through the ceiling
onto two attic steps

makes me want to be silent

To give   all the space
to low rumblings


March 18, 2021







Summer Evenin’




A swattin beauty,
battin—
your paws outstretched,

Like a cat
boxin ’n’
wearin backward
the unbuttoned
summershirt’chu gave me

It keep yr tummy warm
this evenin’,
beige-to-blue ombré
I would not
’ve likely chosen.

Goldenhour sun
’s glowin’ up
yr tan arms ’n’ cheek skin,

Shinin’   Vy’s braids
you done today
like some Swiss summer girl’s, out

for pickin alps-
meadow wildflowers,   but

in a dress—coral-pink
with highlighter-luminous tufting,
& tough black
gloves, fingerless

*

Up schoolyard’s hill
old gnarled
maples tower

& watch us,
vaguely menacing

We walk
past ’em, post-picnic,
on our way back home
’cross the street

*

You two   in
a pre-bedtime bath routine

—sweet,

Till Violet’s
expression
twist deep, disturbed

Misheard   us
discussing

whether or not
it is “time

to take out her brains”


Shakily, she ask now
if we’re goin ta need

ta remove “Robert’s brains, too?”

*

We all crack up

at the frightful
mistake made

’cause it’s just—
her hair’s
a little tangled


July 16, 2024







No Wonder




It is no wonder
no spirit
& no magic
are alive

In a house
without cracks
in the floors   or folds

in old
upholstery
(for it)
to hide   in  -  side

No wonder


March 17, 2021







[fly on my hand]





Small fly on my hand

white butterfly, wasp

bees   on the mountain mint

& milkweed.


Tall, white-flowered cosmos

bend in the breeze


All the way

All of this sways

All these wave   in the sunheat

end-a-summer midday.



End-a-summer, midday

kalanchoe, sedum.


& coffee grounds, deer shit


What a break, a gift


to be free to see this,

to sleep past eleven,

to sit & watch
this all


—What a freedom

The bee weighing down

the speedwell branch
—Wow…

& then
the rebalance, rebound


So many on the mint

White butterfly weaves
through our backyard junk

Birds are quiet;

the crickets not.



For the first in a long   time
we last night drank a lot

Then had a mix
of good   & bad dreams,
lying beside you

They remind me
you were so tough
to trust

Hard to ask
for honest response.


But earlier
last night

put all that aside,

behind us,

to treat the night like a date.

(& we’ll enjoy   that same treat today)


We were initiated
into a strange room

at our familiar
spot below the street     (—“if ya know you know”)


& wandered over to a late show, late.


I’ve had a lifelong thing
’gainst trying too hard


Complete acceptance, it seems

Couldn’t depend on games,

calculations,


behavior

Guess what I’m askin   & offerin
’s somethin unusual:

to live outside
social valuation



Of all people
knew
you could be different, dude!

& our small olive tree looks good


Pokeweed’s almost contained;

squash vine not.


Wildly, lively   it

has overtaken

the old clothesline post
& bird feeders   hangin there.


Our wood windchimes

would soon’ve been soundless,
engulfed


We had ta move ’em
to that “evergreen” branch.


Now they click/clunk   lovely


It’s my cue
to be quiet



There’re the birds


There’re the birds


words & music
September 15, 2024






Adorenment




Spinning on the heels
of your replacement funny flats,

you float free of the floor
& the long front desk,
where keyboards & telephones wait

for fingers & voice
they do not deserve
to know, or to have
your time

Or to feel
the click of your ring
& turquoise
earrings, dangling

But what
or who does?

I do not know.
I see you,
alone
in your own rugged elegance,
unjustly tethered
to the rest of us


April 18, 2022







“Reading Over Your Shoulder The Whole Time”




After one
solitary yester-
day of observation

this one
is filled   with communion

Mostly unexpected, but
none   more so

than when on the metro
as I star the corner
of a page of poetry

the guy
sitting next to me
says:   wait,

you like that one


July 9, 2021







Transplant




One green wrap
on near-black
backdrop,
twisted
around a barren branch

& another strand
outstretched & swaying,
just an inch
(or two) away
from a second
leafless limb

Watering   the mimosa tree,
recovering in the evening


June 8, 2021







Auggie’s Shining a Small Light




Auggie’s shining a small light through a hole
near the bottom hem   in
the old secondhand t-shirt I’m wearing.

He asks
why there’s a hole there

& I show him the dozen-ish little ones
beginning to form up on the chest.

He says, “oh,
why is your shirt breaking?”

I tell him I wish it wasn’t, but also
it is old.

“You wish it would stay like it is forever”

I do wish that

“But everything breaks,” he says

We agree

houses, & people, & plants
& even the rocks
all break, eventually

Nothing lasts forever & everything breaks eventually
he reconfirms for me

“No one told me, I just knew that.”


August 26, 2023







Half ’Cross The Bridge


Half ’cross the bridge
over swampy Totopotomoy Creek,
a place we’ve never been   or heard of
but come to
driving aimlessly

Now singing
Luke Kelly’s Raglan Road
half ’cross the bridge
August & I, running,   laughing
after chatting with a Scottish man
& his dog   who’d come
from the opposite end of the trail

Incidentally, a Robert (Scot)
Incidentally, a fiddler
whose wife called
at just the same moment as Kate


March 15, 2021







Mountain Laurel Heaven




The moon lit
the far wall of the ravine, full bright
& the falls
were deafening

Mountain laurel
heaven, lush you
knew it happened somehow

& now
I wish badly
we could have let that child be

& better than me

I would cede my place
with you, in this world
that she could grow
more rightly than we grew


September 9, 2023







Our Practice


Don’t need to avert
our eyes, you & I have
a different sight

a special practice—
Of Seeing

what is radiant
                      && troubled   (in the world);

what is both bleak
                           && vital

We, together
don't be down-weighed,
not dull & sullen

These days, I’ve treasured
a feeling in my gut
—like hunger

Don’t want to lose this difference;
keep cultivating
Our Difference

It’s not what is (or how it’s) served up—
It is the bravery;
It’s   the not recoiling.

Look—there is something stirring!,
shimmering
in All of it!   We know
how to look


March 20, 2023








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