No Map for This
She called to say the doctors found a lump.
Hours away, universe dark above us.
Coming home from dinner, what could we say
Poetry
276 works
An Exercise in How Small I Can Shrink Myself
I'll start with the toes,
curling them towards the ball of the foot
in a less imposing pose.
Pathos and Puns, Feeling for Heartache Beneath a Suit of Amore
I had learned not to take gravity lightly; even before the apple fell, it weighed heavily on my
mind. I knew the first couple hadn’t floated around Eden like cosmonauts in the International
Space Station, but I wondered how they came down to Earth. Without a DJ, or for that matter
Just Kick Back, and Let the Wheel Turn
He saw through everything, and so it was he saw nothing – the nothing that is not there, and the nothing that is.
A wise man who suffered from paranoia once wrote that the invention of absolutely safe cars
would allow people who ride in them “to feel immortal for a while.” Perhaps he was being
Imagine
if we assumed humanity first;
if we held our other descriptors,
our demands about where from and why—
The Art of Not Breathing
A butterfly flicks its wings and, somewhere,
across the world you smile.
When I flip through old files, find your handwriting
Meditations on Incarceration
Weed
In the joint, pinhead
joints cost tens dollars, helping
The Insomniac
Stretched out in the back of the bus
a woman twitches in her sleep,
reminds me of a fish.
Hamlet in New York State
Clouds clot the sky, where they break, the retiring sun
pulses through the firmament
draped over the wounded Hudson Valley
Poem for the Collected Poems of Delmore Schwartz
You wobbling cantilever
between the ages
Fitting into circles,
In Our Time
In this ignominious time
I have turned 70.
The world is a sore.
Significance
The most important thing to know about prehistoric humans is that
they were insignificant animals with no more impact on their environment
than gorillas, fireflies or jellyfish.
Pain
“On a scale of one to ten?” the doctor asks. Not good at estimating, I say “five,” since I’d never exaggerate with “ten”
Crows evacuate
their fire-seared Douglas firs.
It Is Important to Understand
Everyone you meet is suffering:
heart breaks, body aches,
the cruel despair of war.
The End of the Week in Me
Dazzlingly authentic first thing in the morning,
this nude scene is justified, if the curtains cannot censor
No red light hangs around here, it is time to recline
Heading for the Flavor Core
No more silken circumstances,
my relations are going methodical, getting credentialed
no future contacts dreamed up,
Just Passin’ Through
Missing:
Old Spice, your beer can collection, hours, tomatoes, my mother’s red lamp,
friends, manzanita, glasses, warm hands: lover-sized.
Meandering Matters
After another duplicate banishment of sunlight,
the courtyard fills with metal cans scraping along the concrete
echoes of the week’s indulgences are now being hauled out
A Pledge to Meet in September
Boneless and beautiful, the equinox morning seems ready
and open for restoring balance, a moment of clarity,
maybe a chance to find whatever health I’ve recently lost
The Second Inning
Spinning, twisting, the curving ball drops to home plate.
The catcher can’t see the signs from the coach.
Anarchy is loose upon the diamond.