The clouds went one way. Black birds went the other. Why must we bother to record the days when all that comes and comes undone goes forth without any aid. Calendars of other years were torched and set a-sailing. This should be the way of all yesterdays. This could be the way to the […]
Read more "PATHFINDER"The flames remained all night from fiery leaps at twelve to secretive coals at dawn. I slept off and on, like the fire. Once I tried to wake for a sip of your beer but all I could see were Your foot soles and hear the painful scratch of your pen. You Wouldn’t have […]
Read more "SECOND MORNING ON MERMAID AVENUE"Capillaries. Organelles. Multi-nucleate fibers. These are a few of our favorite things… And a few of the things we’re made of. All of us. Every single last one of us. That is, if you’re human. A miracle. That’s what it is. Aorta. Ligaments. Microvilli and villi. Lymph ducts. Scapula. Stratum germinativum. Biology. It’s the […]
Read more "IT’S ALL THE SAME"If I could trace it out full and sure— an index finger’s worth— I most assuredly would. If I could call it out in an opera of elephants, gray and wide— I certainly would. To dribble it out, to dabble about on the viola and let it hang its whites on a […]
Read more "OTHERS DENY IT"There! that sound (yes, I hear it) comes on a column of air. We are caught in the act of too much thought (I wonder what we missed in the midst of it all) That sound (clear)— maybe run through rocks honed, polished— Is an aria (magnificent) of monumental proportions. It […]
Read more "SILENCE IN THE GARDEN"You are brown as acorns. Trees change beyond your door. Trees bend beside your door. You are old woman now. Fat old cat sits in the garden Below the tree and the hanging begonia. You hear the wind as smooth as powder. The cat never moves: the cat is in visions. Papayas, […]
Read more "YOU ARE OLD WOMAN NOW"I would bring you this and that if only it would last. But this is this: saying goodbye where the grass grows highest. The orchids dead below our feet, like tombs we weight their brown and black. They’re dead you say. It’s more than that. It’s all the plans we […]
Read more "DETAILS"All day a clear sky. And then suddenly (it seems) at four o’clock— A fleet of thin, white clouds trespasses from the north. Stealthy and silent—ethereal submarines in the sky— They slowly, steadily head south. Slow-going, more keep coming. Infiltrating the vast blue. Gathering gradually—and in no hurry—they pass under the radar. Underneath the sun. […]
Read more "LOW THE COWS"The crabgrass was sunk under the bayou dew. Imprinted about were lazy logos: brown blooms of the orchid, puttyroot. Somewhere, far off, sang a child trapped in a woman’s body. She sang of a God in another land. But her song was lost in the call for fish: “Spadefish for frying! Get […]
Read more "A DEPOT OF DAYS"[With apologies to God and Jesus Christ] I swore I wouldn’t swear. Swear to God. I swear I did. But then…something happened. I tripped…or dropped something…or who-knows-what. And expletives blew forth from my mouth. And, like bullets shot from a gun, I couldn’t catch them. Nor bring them back. Remorse set in. […]
Read more "I SOLEMNLY SWEAR"