Poetry & Prose
What A Poem Is Not and Is
A poem is not a decoration. not an aromatic candle, not a bauble or a trinket not an ornament for the tree, not a garland or a wreath. A poem is not décor, not a seascape over the couch, not a window curtain curtailing the view, nor a knickknack on a window sill. not...
Population
It sounds like a lot, seven billion. And there will be more. But this morning, as the sun traveled long from China, in a garden in Ohio, there was only one, one bird singing, one man hearing the song.
A Crisis of Scale
I am walking. An ant is walking too, unwavering, toward my rising, falling shoe. The ant is oblivious to the peril of two scales of the world colliding, mine sizeable, its miniscule. The ant walks on soon to be crushed, three dimensions compressed into two. I, not the...
The Boy
The child in our neighbor’s yard, a boy, ten, their son, unfolding into his father's fantasy, a blue necessity, soon to adulterate into duties and requirements the heft of his body is expected to fulfill. The boy swings; a rope – a boa, a stick – a sword, on a swing...
Six Admonitions
Do not go far from the sea and from the earth. Do not go far from the moon and stars. Do not run, slowly walk, through cloud rain. Do not build thick windowed walls against wind. Do not turn your back on the sun. Do not hide in Edison's light from night's shadow....
Sanctus Spiritus
There are churches where the Holy Spirit sleeps in a vase waiting for flowers. The bells don’t arouse him, neither the fusty hymns nor the sexless sermons nor pious feet shuffling toward the meal of bread. But when a bride comes before her nuptials, tickling him with...
Flora, Fauna, Cosmos
All day far into night, our human work, recognizing resonances noticing relationships, hints, links, overtones, this related to that: milk weed seed, a brown milk cow, the Milky Way.
Unrequited
Nearby, a cemetery of solid selves, hard pressed and handy, interminable practicality, skills and disciplines I had neither attitude or aptitude to be. So I buried them. Instead, a stream, shores, banks, rocks, rapids, rebounding eddies, pooling fractured light,...
Adam’s Name
It is raining. Maybe not. This is a poem, after all, not a weather report. Some kind of report, though, water dropping through sky. Perhaps danger, a slick highway, or beauty, a rainbow, or playfulness, a child splashing mud, a mother questioning a dichotomy, and...
Next
All of my life I have lived with the word ‘next’ firmly before me. An open door, a time and place to go and do whatever comes - next. And now I wonder, as I could have wondered all along, is this the last time or the next time. I will dare eat Prufrock’s peach, I will...