Poetry & Prose
Ontological Riddle
There can be no category of nonbeing. Being is nothing until it is something.
FALL
When writing of the third season of the year, why say autumn when we could say fall? Leaves fall, temperature falls a toddler falls with first steps, an old man falls taking his last, we all fall asleep at the end of a day, we fall in love, fall for a scheme, not to...
BACK
In the back of the house now summer is where winter has been, I sit in the sun where for months water was ice. Blossoms on stem sticks, shadows under leaves. earth working worms squirming through loam. I have lived in spring’s uproar of green fire, in autumn’s...
The Shadow Side of ‘Love Me’
Love me. Make me compulsory in your life. Feel hollow when I am absent, ache when I am angry with you. Care enough to get angry with me. Show concern with my attire when I head for public spaces. May fear grip you when I am sick and anxiety when I am late coming home....
The Power of Speech
Adam, gestating in the earth's mud womb, overheard God say ‘let’ seven times. When Adam rose up from uterine clay, he remembered what he had heard. Then he delighted in what he saw. It gave him a yearning for speech.
ALIVE
I stand between my shadow and the sun. My shadow moves. I know I am alive. Or is the sun alive, or both.
Adhesive History
History adheres. The past, sticks fast to the present, as the present clings to the future. The past is not set, it unsettles. Where do you think history goes when it slips over the hill of time? The sun seems to set at dusk only to rise again out of the rut of night...
Card Carrying Believer
He carries the code of eternity in his wallet. Smaller than a credit card, on one side, the face and name of the one who will get us through if we know how to ask. On the other side; how to ask.
MAYBE A GOD
We want there to be something, someone, even better, aggressively benign, both charm and care. A god not strictly defined, yet influential, the kind met, not on a Damascus Road, but walking down from the Parthenon past the Theater of Dionysus into the city....
Wednesday Morning
Our day star has chased the night stars away. I sip first coffee. Caffeine rustles my senses, I hear a bird in the pine tree. So much news I must choose to ignore to briefly maintain this pleasure.