Herewith, the mute page the silent ink, the dumb pixels, devious soundless shapes, making so much noise. Yes, loud! The boom of mountains exploding, reverberations that bring pain to your ears, cause your shoulders to shudder, your teeth to shatter and crack! Then what? The plunge to a cottony hush? A whisper, faint perhaps but solid Read More …
Category: Poetry
Here are many of the poems I have written throughout my life, dating back to high school, so beware. As a poet, I’ve been pretty sporadic over the years, going through periods of high productivity when I was very young, to occasional bursts in midlife and very occasional drips as I’ve gotten older. I’ve found that the drips of my later years are far more appealing than the bursts (sometimes outbursts) of my youth, so I came to an accommodation. Instead of presenting everything here, I went by a standard of “that which is at least forgivable.” There is much in my moldering files, I’ve discovered, that is not. I’m sure you’ll find some of the work pretty engaging. Whether in the process of cataloging my expressions and impressions from across the years, I have weeded out all that indeed is unforgivable I, with some trepidation, leave for you to decide.
Encounter
I never hear them howl. In the movies, their mournful yodel fills the night. In the suburbs, we know them only when our bichons go missing from the back yard. Her I see on a gray mid-morning while out for a walk with Rose, a real dog, 35 pounds of meat packed tight as a sausage in Read More …
Sad limerick
Her best friends turned her tune meant for fun To a dirge with two twists on one tongue. Finding what they were after, She choked on their laughter And coughed up her voice ever on.
Afterthought (‘Hind’ sight)
A hundred thousand children gathered For Explo’ 7-2. They went down there to Save the World But mostly Nguyen Thieu They chanted chants to Jahweh (God) But so few of them know What “Jahweh” means – can’t tell it from Enlil or Enkido. Like acid freaks, they walk in dreams And let the rest all Read More …
Twenty-nine poems
Twenty-nine poems. Why not twenty-eight? Or thirty, for a pleasant rounder sum? Enough? Too much? Not mine to calculate, a magic number; sic oraculum. To woo your breast and breath and arms and mind, I offer heartbeats mounting, unmeasured. While cauldrons, crystals, Tarots, chants divined In mute clairvoyance thrash for magic words, Conjure instead through too-neglected modes Of Read More …
Pants Haiku
Cream cotton pants, new. Tom. Viv. Sunset. Giddy talk. Naive vanity.
For the Queen, Mother
Born: Date Unknown Died: January 23, 2016 Plato could distinguish the dog from the essence of the dog. Stevens strained to see not ideas about the thing but the thing itself. Damn them both. Or praise them, I don’t know. In my mind: the dark face of dignity. Ever calm. Ever pure. The queen, free, Read More …
Pocket Detritus
(From my novel “Within the Bosom,” as envisioned by “narrator” Janis Elizabeth Samson, writing about an afternoon in her father’s memory.) Who, really, can guess what a 75-year-old man will find when he spreads his memories out on the kitchen counter and shuffles them with his wrinkled fingers? First kiss, surely. Prom night? Maybe. The Read More …
The Rage
(From the novel “Within the Bosom,” as envisioned by “narrator” Janis Elizabeth Samson, writing about a dispute with her mother.) Oh, God, the rage. Mornings of hoarfrost. Silent, desolate sighs in icy gulps, a howling wind behind the eyes. Oh, God, the rage. Fire-breathing afternoons. A long, slim, slithering tongue of flame, consumed and all-consuming. Read More …
Sonnet for the Irish
(From my novel “Within the Bosom,” as envisioned by “narrator” Janis Elizabeth Samson, writing about her parents’ love affair.) Love songs write themselves deep where shallow Time’s Intent distorts the light, so all that once Was false bows to request of Truth a dance. Then black washes to red, such minor crimes, And broken hearts Read More …