If this poem were awake now it would know it's got a beginning and where its beginning is,
but, if I know this poem at all, I believe it would pretend that it began
not at the top of this page but rather somePlace,
maybe in Pennsylvania among the tall… Read full post »

 

When I put these things down
I know they are not new.
I know they've been said before
By others, wittier, craftier, just plain better
And that they've said even this before,
That it's been said before,
And this is beginning to feel like
Two mirrors staring balefully at each other.

But the sky… Read full post »

 

 

The aluminum lady languishes here
Suspended by hidden cables, arrested
In a mockery of flight for us to leer at like
The Fat Lady or
The Tattooed Man or
The Hottentot Venus.

In this aviary of flightless birds
Visitors show respect for the matte Blackbird,
Awe for the clumsy ambitious…

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Virginia, my dear,
I owe you an apology.
The hateful things I've
Said to you of late
Were hasty
And sourced in mean
Discomfort.

I sit here now in your glory,
All eighty-one degrees of it,
My hair lifted by gentle loving hands of breeze
My lungs filling with gratitude
My face turned up to catch
A… Read full post »

 

There was a morning, daybreak.  I stood on a tiny balcony high in the air and from there I could see something of the wide river, blocked with innocent rudeness by buildings like tall men enjoying a movie before me, short me.

My mind was graveled with indecision and… Read full post »

Be brief my love
my mind is elsewhere

tuned for a moment
to the silent brighting of the stars in their vast societies
to a song made of notes no human can hear

but still I listen for it
as a fish might listen for clouds.

On this lusterless morning
I am a ship with slack chiffon sails
on a glassy featureless sea.
My craft is not a fine dreamy thing, tall-masted, masterfully built,
or captained by proud lonely men.
Mine instead is a little thing, carelessly made, too small for
safety in these waters.

I have come t… Read full post »

 

I say to my love
on a bright summer evening
later in our lives than we'd like it to be

Foresight pays far greater wages than hard work

You should sew that up,
he says,
On a panel to hang
for our kids to read

If we had them
If we have them
I would tell… Read full post »

I am 37 and still struggling to figure out what my Real Talent in Life is.  I admit that there are times when I resign myself to the possibility that I may simply have no talent at all.  Still, in the mean time, I do pretty well at helping other people… Read full post »

I am standing in a long line of people who are tired and dull and irritable, dressed in gray and black unshiny fabrics, prepared for days filled with unwelcome appointments and tasks and meetings.  My unknown friends and I wait to order our morning coffees, wait to pay for our morning… Read full post »