Monday, December 9, 2024

READING POETRY

The work is not 
to understand, 

deliberate, or make 
an inference; 

it's not so much 
interpreting as 

staring 
down a word 

until it means 
something—

then nothing—
then everything—

and at last,
if you're lucky, 

finally just 
itself again—only

now with that
explicitly 

unspeakable bit 
of difference. 


Friday, December 6, 2024

WIDE RELEASE

So swift 
and brutal was the nature 
of adversity—

so compressed 
and ruthless-

ly cut 
the montage 
of our troubles

that, stock 
plot or not, sooner 
or later 

it became easy 
to convince ourselves 

we were living 
through a movie. 

First, as protagonists; 
later, as actors; 
and finally, 

as popcorn 
munchers staying 
for the credits

and only just 
now dimly 
trying to summon

the effort to stand 
up and exit 
the theater.


Thursday, December 5, 2024

ACROBATS

What sort of creatures
both expect
and remember? 

It seems
since we left 
the trees, 

the rocks, 
the beach, 
the ocean, 

that some agents 
of destruction 

have been selling us
on adventure;

some reckless advisors 
have been whispering 
at our side. 

Their performances, 
however 

disingenuous, 
have been riveting—
but notice 

how that's no kind 
of answer. 


Wednesday, December 4, 2024

NOTE TO SELF

Just now, feeling heartened
by the clamor 
of December geese 

who scrape the sky 
on their bracing 
dash for sunnier climes—

but wait a minute—
why?

Because they remind me 
of all the others 
out there

who sound
and who look just 
the same in my mind, 

only fainter, 
because smaller, 
farther away, grayer—

but who, in their 
way, first reminded me 
of these.


Tuesday, December 3, 2024

UNFAIR

What sort of creature 
is the opposite 
of habit? 

Behavior as 
digression,

as estrangement 
with the past; 

reason 
as nostalgia,

and motive, 
a best-
dressed contest. 

Before I learned 
of devils, 
I might have been convinced 

that my actions 
were equal 

parts frivolous 
and blessed. 


Monday, December 2, 2024

HALF-TRUTH

As two hands 
draw together,
and each tented finger 

arcs to connect 
with its 
chiral mate, 

old power lines 
tilt inward 
and cradle gray roads. 

How, body 
by body, the world aches
to befriend itself—

how there's no earthly 
way of ever saying 
what it's like.


Wednesday, November 27, 2024

WAITING ROOM

The excruciating 
way the second 
hand of the clock 

stalls 
for its small 
eternities, 

as if resting—
as if catching its base- 
sixty breath 

upon chagrined completion 
of its
herculean task—

then stutters 
forward again 
with a jolt 

as if coerced—
as if enslaved 
to time's accretion 

with no will 
or countenance left 
for revolt—

inspires less 
impatience than 
dismay, and less regret 

than a softening 
to sympathetic amity 
toward death.