Remember: A Poem

Remember, echo is to laughter

as bronze is to sculptor.

 

Reflection recalls their eyes

but not their eyes.

 

Remember, the echo grows mute, 

all traces erased in time.

 

Unlike the sun full gold upon your face

memory of sun leaves you cold.

 

I remember: 

A memory drawn from grey matter,

ink up a quill, wicking along neurons,

seeping down limbs, 

leaping pen’s synapse with paper,

becoming this poem.

 

Remember,

so much in time 

is remembered

too late in time.

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Photo: tunnel leading to Zion National Park, Utah

Postcard from the Cusp: Poem

Postcard from the Cusp

Take all my springs 

give me the day

buds can’t stop budding

the no turning back day, 

one morning I know 

the last snowfall at dawn.

Take every summer

give me the last

fading rose on the cane.

I want to know 

one becoming gold 

now turning cold day.

Then take all my winters

give me the first frost  

on the pane 

that one no turning back 

sting in the air day. 

Take any day

give me the one

I move two degrees, 

my no turning back 

I’m coming home day.

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Photo: Early October snow @ 5000 feet in northern AZ

An Uneasy Accord

It does me no good; violence has changed me.
My body has grown cold like the stripped fields;
now there is only my mind, cautious and wary,
with the sense it is being tested.
~ October by Louise Glück ~

The moment I knew
wasn’t when my phone
logged three miles
though I had never left the basement,
my notebook crammed
with verse I didn’t write,
or the day I couldn’t make the streets talk.
I don’t know why I demand
the signs tell me where I’ve been.
It does me no good; violence has changed me.

The moment dawned with light.
How long had I been downstairs?
I might have been tinkering.
The workbench lamp, swinging yellow, white.
At my feet, a shattered mug.
I wondered why I should hate the thing
why snails evolved such unlikely bodies
water boils in the kettle
every October day looks like May
my body has grown cold like the stripped fields.

The moment followed the clacking latch.
Between the stairs I saw slippers, one and two.
The way her ankles peeked
below her jeans, how she took coffee.
Are you down there, Hon?
I heard my voice reply
I don’t know.
The moment I knew
where once was whole body and soul
now there is only my mind, cautious and wary.

Some say they fear the unknown.
I read the dying astronomer’s
antidotes to fear of death.
Lying on her back those nights
she would swallow all of the stars
or drift to the beginning,
before space and time, before fear.
How to make such lasting peace
when I wake each day
with the sense it is being tested?

On Wordsworth’s Birthday

Each April, the returning host
won’t be ignored.
I could have opened this poem
with the sonorous croaks
of migrating cranes before
turning to daffodils.

One April morning,
I found myself writing
as I strained to contain
another dreadful headline
until I failed to find
the apt metaphor for a madman
gassing his countrymen.

Just once, let me wake
empty as a cool dry well,
carry my rusty bucket
over the dewy lawn,
shower the violets in rainbows,
turn from their trembling petals
and call it an empty day.

The Beatitudes Remix: Poem

The Beatitudes Remix

Blessed with broken back

he plays the lottery

worries about his wife.

for she is blessed

with HIV

and shivers outside

the clinic.

He doesn’t tell her she is brave.  

Blessed are the lost and hungry

for they are lost and hungry.

Blessed is he

who walks in blackness

afraid to sleep, afraid to wake,

afraid to die, afraid to live.

He is blessed

who is stone cold and stoned.

Blessed are you,

huddled on hard cots in church basements

wrapped in thin bedrolls outside libraries  

curled on cold cardboard beneath bridges.

You also could be blessed,

nodding warm under your downy quilts:

when the owl calls

you from your dreams  

when the owl calls

soft as shadow 

dark as midnight 

do not ask why.

Arise.

Awake.

Say yes.

Immanence: Poem

Immanence

I want heaven above shattered,

I want its silver splinters

pricking my heels like dry grass

among clumps of green clover.

Give me a taste

of salt-in-the-wound sweetness.

I want hell’s madness piercing my soles

like summer dunes above the bay.

Bring the cool sting of gin,

kiss my sunburned skin.

I want to know

what I’ll be missing.

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Photo: desert afternoon near Moab, UT

Nobody Writes Poems

Nobody Writes Poems

The guy on the corner

eyes reflecting the low dirty sky

knows the old grocer’s routine

figures one push buys him 

a bag of powdered donuts –

but tonight he’ll invest one slug for some cash.

I’d like to think he won’t do it

because of this poem.

If the guy on the corner

read this poem he’d know

how this story turns out.

But my real hope is the old grocer read this poem

because maybe he’s read others,

one that told him the sun rose a ribbon at a time,

or how to see a world in a grain of sand.

I know the guy on the corner

has no time for poems

because he never saw the old man’s purple veins

barely raise the fragile parchment of skin

wrapping his clenched fist

as he looked into eyes

the color of a low dirty sky.

The problem is not

the guy on the corner

never read this poem.

The problem is

nobody writes poems

for the guy on the corner.

 

Orion

Hunter and winter’s herald,

how many have gazed

upon your galactic

hunting ground?

Do you roam alone,

the lone commoner

among bright

kings and queens,

goddesses and gods,

mythical creatures

of our night?

It is fitting we should

elevate the hunter,

emblem of Earthly pursuit,

we eternal seekers of

sustenance and light.

Your stance speaks resolve,

your spear, readiness.

As you climb high

where all might see you stride

through our long dark nights,

we hear you whisper

courage.

A Thanksgiving Epistle: Poem

Poem on dreams and memories

John 1:3

If through You
All things were made
And all things are possible

Then I know why
Lilacs smell like rainbows
And antiseptic

Winter wind
Stings like steel
Needles in my vein

I remember one summer
Sweet as lemonade
Sharp as a scalpel blade.

In my dream
I taste warm cinnamon

I kneel beneath
Watercolor skies

Fold my hands
Round this tiny wren

Its injured wing
Quivers

Like its
Trembling heart.

I unfold my hands
I will not wake

Until my dreams
Become memories

And I keep my memories
To do with as I please.

PHOTO: Panel from Bom the Lot mural, on Middle Avenue, Aurora IL.

The Imperative

The Imperative

I no longer dream the same dream:
My heart sleeps, a tight fist of petals.
How can I live with myself?
At dawn, my quiet heart unfurls.

My heart sleeps, a tight fist of petals.
I recall how we danced in the parlor.
At dawn, my quiet heart unfurls.
When I was young, I knew the answer.

I recall how we danced in the parlor.
The truth is an untamed mongrel.
When I was young, I knew the answer.
I could dance any dance.

The truth is an untamed mongrel –
I discovered this myself.
I could dance any dance,
yet where you go I can not follow.

I discovered this: myself.
How could I remain unchanged?
And where you go, I can not follow.
This greedy thing grew inside me.

How could I remain unchanged?
I nearly erased all trace of myself.
This greedy thing grew inside me.
Now, I must answer the question.

I nearly erased all trace of myself.
I no longer dream the same dream.
Now, I must answer the question.
How can I live with myself?

Photograph by markthegrey, Benton St. bridge over the Fox River, downtown Aurora, IL USA