night flowers
how strange that line of night where dreams flesh and dance to inner rhythms where all seems consequential bits and pieces of here and now fall on waiting soils to seed and bloom and flourish night flowers whose long shadows tease in quibbling irritations day lit hours Wild Transitions...
Read MorePossibilities
In the first parallel universe I took my father’s advice studied pharmacy at the University of Buffalo moved to New Jersey to work for Pfizer and have lived here ever since. In another one Sister Emiliette managed to convince me during the eighth grade retreat. Now I awaken each morning at six, put on the white and black, go down to chapel take my place at the organ. In May I’ll make my final vows. In the next I came of age amid the lilacs of Christ Church Meadow watching the spring regatta. After one year of walks among the domes and spires I decided to stay. Now I live...
Read MoreA Neighbor’s Death
They fall like toy sentinels, one by one, before the entrance to the battered door that traps in heat and keeps away the hoar frost of impending grief. Youth’s taped rerun of first bliss is worn. Spring’s warm, schoolmarm sun now sports the wan demeanor of a store clerk. Life grants me just enough light to pore over receipts before the workday’s done and the store closes. Former bustling streets are empty and their neon signs torn down along with delis selling ice and sweets. Grown kids have moved their own kids out of town. I’m at the crossroads where the graveyard...
Read MoreTonight’s the Night We Begin!
From tar roof tops people lean and watch in the soft summer afternoon heat below them I crusade in full-color 3-D through the holy land of NYC St. Mark’s Place across town I am a warrior bound to take back CBGB’s from the unbelievers I am a warrior bound (and there’s Mojo’s the scene five years later of our last fight ever, when for your birthday I bought you for your birthday I bought you What the hell was I thinking? I bought you a cheap Chinatown red dragon night light and it only got worse from there) The sidewalk grate cuts loose a roar a...
Read MoreIsraeli Morning
On us the fervent sun set on my 6 weeks of edenic knowing the eastern loss of our new mourning, a disc eclipsed by the Mount of Gilboa (the place of ancient dying– that of Saul, not Ruth) you and I sharing of the M’sheekha, of liberation and rebirth, but our friendship closing, lost in wine and straw in the shallow draw above Kibbutz Sde Nahum ——–a temptation lurked, a warm drink, and a bedded look– thankfully not to take; In the last night for the...
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