LONGING AS ECHO

One by
one, the strong dark oak
leaves go falling

softer
and more slowly—
onto sheets

of obdurate
concrete. Sometimes, we
have no choice.

INVINCIBILITY POEM

Listen. Even this
is a distraction—

just words,

like hailstones disturbing 

the surface

of the ocean.

It won't be be until
every sound finally stops

that you'll finally be able 

to hear the song of grace—

the source of those swelling 

and melancholy waves—

that faintest music 

of a planet slowly turning,

its only lyric transmitted 
as an undulation 

of paralyzing insight—

an impassable question:

what is the real shape
of your face?

VESTIGES

I might as well
tell you, I'm
a funereal flower.

I am beautiful—
and very proud
to be so

complicated on top,
oblivious
to having been

severed forever
from my simple,
mundane roots;

roots which were made,
in another place—
dark and wild as the permanent night,

fermented
from milder elements,
clean water, quiet starlight—

but also made
of something more
even less complicated—named mercy.

But over days
and many nights,
these particles drew together—

mercy hardened, deepened
in form and in color
into something meaner

which is no longer
useful—to me or to any beholder, yet it's
still there.

DAYLIGHT SAVING

On the street,
wan light beginning

to seep
through stained-
glass at evening vespers—

is enough
to de-confound the fogged
and profoundly
time-logged mind.

Where time unteathers, no longer
is measured,

all at once, cascading like water from a shower:
mounds of shimmering questions
linger,

remain unanswered;
and there, in the dark
and cornerless mind

of the newest
recruit of Quixote's—
the daylight fights proudly,

each old thought is new again, like
every single redundant moment,

heroically endeavoring
never to end.

INFERNO

Just now—all I crave is

muteness.  Or 

do I? 

Does it count 

still—as 

mute

if I spoil it 

by telling you? 

This must be hell.

To speak of silence, 

I emerge 

from silence—

but no, that's the right word 

for what I picture

when I hear it.

After all, the movement 

is not the problem; 

what I'm after 

is silence, 

not stillness. 

Things must still happen.

And for anything to have happened,

it must 

have happened to someone.

It's like how—even 

the god-damned
must still have one.

CONTRIVANCES

Invisible wind
winding through the
old elm leaves—stirring dull memories

you seem to have
but never
have lived through:

you see eternity
meandering on on forever,
even though

you also recall
with certainty that
it all started somewhere—

you've felt the earth move,
crawl and writhe, but watched
the sun retreat and die

twelve or thirteen
thousand times.
By now,

absolute stillness
and perpetual motion
feel like same thing;

and fear, when turned inside-
out, becomes what you
call—wonder;

and confusion
always waits in the darkness,
at the center—not a black hole,

but a huge, heavy whetstone
which you use to sharpen
your truth.

TRIAL POEM

Neatly, I have been given
an entire

ocean to drink;
I've got

nothing to say,
but all I can do

is speak—but don't
go confusing

the lowly-
bowed head with

the naval gaze.
Yes, I think

poetry
is pretty great—

at confronting all the problems
it creates.