Poetry 3/5

March

March, I’ve heard them say, is the last dead month and the least dead month. And it wasn’t even that it was March, but that we (You and...

hard eyes

The hard eyes of a woman whose hair was down, who held herself taller, whose legs were longer and forever outpacing us down rooted,...

Tupperware, like Love

Well, we must die— the reminder tacked on the fridge aired other grievances also —and we ought to ban Alcoholics Anonymous and the...

things which burn but not forever

there is a frantic oblivion we dance all into a madding crowd with gaping swirling the maze of feet gropes the unknown nebulae too many...

Tennessee Ice

and every year with precision this Tennessee ice slides in the coldest hardest skin, too splinters in heartache weather

Resolution

I am not content to stand out (on the hollow timbered tree) and wait (while the forest burns for me) it fell I conquered no one heard no...

Remarkable

and I am beginning to think that I am not remarkable that I am not of note for my face at one glance is ordinary and at a second...

People Are Generally Wonderful

A live-in bitterness Who ignores the coasters And thrusts the jacket to the floor, But not in a good-natured way. She is not...

Metaphors

I cannot recall where I woke up this morning. I am not unused to this. It is a long-held state of affairs, and true, and even a metaphor...

Africa Box

Africa Box rattling, rolling dirt-dried ruckus; regardless, levitating over the impassable, renegade rear-wheel drive. And scorching...

Absurd

freedom is an absurd grandiloquence scribbled by a poet of Pretense (me). freedom and all its very tall comrades slide glistening off the...

Howsoever I Quit

Howsoever I quit it will be magnificent. Wherefore my capitulation? I’m tired as shit and also, I don’t give any that you think my...

Hoplite

I once observed a man turn down a drink with a careful wave and a too-sincere “I’ve fought my way out before;” and he shall again. If it...

I said nothing.

A street boy asked; No, told, rather, “Give me money.” How helpfully explicit. He is seven, maybe. The long pants make him act older, But...

Here-ness

Here-ness is a fear that we all have, Lopsided landmarks that placate the restlessness. Cross-legged now, with a deep laugh: Incessant,...

once again and always

I asked myself (aloud) yesterday, with some bemusement of peace and hope and life sewn of the two and peace was determined to be the...

Two Towering Vacancies

Don’t try to rush me. No, not floating, not aimlessly hoping to scrape the shore of comfortable. Trapped between two towering vacancies...

Writing As Fast As Time

Writing as fast as time Gives precedence To empty rhyme See Time is much thicker, singular, sad Something not to be had But to be And...

It Is Sudden Only For Us

Don’t believe Nietzsche if there’s a woman in your life. If there’s a woman walking untrailed—the wintered wood breathes so soft it...

You Were No Siren

Can I pray for things I cannot do? Can I pray for things like you? Can I ask, bequest, a second chance, A cripple trying still to dance,...