Sundown, Fall
Fall, everything is turning yellow and golden. No wind, Indian summer, bright day, wind charms with Indian enchantment, last brides before winter snow, grass growth slows down, bushes cut back with chills, haven of the winter, grows legs, learns baby steps, pushes itself up slowly against my patio door, and says, “soon, soon, I’ll be there.” Winter is sweeping up what’s left of fall; making room for shorter days, longer nights. Echoes of a new season. Hear the poet reading his poem on YouTube. An embedded version is...
Read MoreAlchemy
You must remember there is a pair to almost everything. The soft coal pupils, the chambers of the heart, the wild limbs, the teeth and all their brothers the fingers, the toes, the hidden bundles of sinew now, more like strings than cables. I don’t have the memory for the maddening miracles. I got your hair right. Saying its phrase over and over, “She drops her copper into my lungs.” I lost your eyes, your freckles, and myself, having nothing real to cling to sunk through your bones into the dirt, turned to clay. Your lips, misplaced along with a map of the West Coast, showing in the...
Read MoreDinner at the Museum of Fine Arts
…the object is not to make art, but to be in the wonderful state which makes art inevitable. —Robert Henri: The Art Spirit For an appetizer, try olives à la Picasso, ...
Read MoreThe Project
He felt as if he were born to the sawdust and nails of writing, working daily in hours of solitude to construct an architecture which at times seemed like a pointless task, devoid of shelter for any dweller, a paper house easily toppled in a stray breeze. On many afternoons he abandoned the work, meandered outdoors to view the project from afar, somewhat defeated yet relieved once he soaked his head in the light of the sun which cleansed the metaphors from his brain, allowing a bit of respite while the half house toppled in a sigh of wind. He could hear the creaks of settling rubble. Fallen...
Read MoreLeap Away
I have given away a herd. Come to this late, I long for lift and flight and the hard touching down. Barbaro snaps his leg at the gate. What rivets and burns in memory is the image of running on. Yes, he runs on three legs and a heart. Life changes. That fast and gasped, all bets are off, put down. A small death here. A big death there. And there. And there. I have stepped out onto a remote island the sea is reclaiming, bringing the grass to sodden weeds. These horses will all drown if they do not bend and grow armor, hide among the eels. The aging actress cannot play the ingenue. No rescue...
Read MoreColoring Book
There’s something wrong with my coloring book: I can’t see the lines. Is this a cow or a horse? God must need glasses, perhaps a change in prescription, or clean the present ones. Maybe God’s eyes with age can’t see well; looking over all creation is a strain. Maybe the printer mixed up my book at the shop, or it got smudged in the printing process. How am I to stay within the lines, let alone know what color to use? If I could have read more clearly, would I have stayed within the lines, pledging an unobtainable life of purity? You see I strayed out, was called sinful, an...
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