Poems

Removing the last slice of bread from the wrapper, I think of laying waste, the throw-away world we toss each day, or, out of guilt and the instinct to survive, we sometimes save. The logo printed wrapper, the loaf enshrouding sleeve, would, I brilliantly surmise,...

We came from a star that didn’t care and we shall return to careless stardust once again. In the meantime, the difference between us and our source is that we care. We have benefited from both fear and want, the twin mothers of attention, therefore we care.  ...

Sitting in the Public Library of Manhattan Beach, California several miles south of L.A., I glance up from a biography of Susan Sontag and see out the windows the repetitive Pacific two blocks away. Surfers in seal suits rest among swells , wait upon waves, alert to...

How many words can I learn before dying, words right for an articulate old age? My brain wants to know. My muscles want to know. Also my bones. Also my paper and pen. I want to live – literally. I was deprived of an articulate beginning. As an infant I had no words to...

In a split second looking up, my retina thickens with sunlight, sunlight thickens to vast blue sky, blue sky thickens to black wings swooping, dark movement thickens into an object, the object thickens into a noun: [crow]     the noun disappears into the quicksand of...

So much depends upon gravity; toilet paper spooling off a roll, ice clinking in a water glass, rope-soap hanging from a father’s neck, ink flowing from a pen, a wife falling soft into her chair. Somewhere in the air, a passenger plane defies all odds, works perfectly,...

Sometimes when I turn away from a mirror I wonder if the image of my face lingers in the silvered glass. One time I turned back quickly and was pleased to find my face waiting.

And I, sitting in my car in the parking lot, wonder what went wrong. The weight of years finally catching up? Looking at the unoccupied blue Ford Escape next to me, I imagine them sitting on a love seat in the counselor’s office, a short length of opposition  between...

I get up in the morning, get dressed, get in the car, get a drive-thru breakfast, get gas, get on the freeway, get to my exit ramp, get to the office, get the car parked, get out of the car. It is raining. I get wet. I get inside. I get dried off, get coffee, get down...