(first appeared in “The Lyric”, Volume 73, No.1 – Winter 1993)
Poor me, we cry, then wash our hands;
this world of ours makes such demands
and no one knows just where we stand
and so we stand for nothing.
For now we hold, as science shows:
that nothing is and no one knows.
Our course is cast upon the flows
of, from, and back to nothing.
We build our castles by the sea
and conscious of the irony,
ignore the tides of destiny
as if we thought them nothing.
These days are cold, and crisp, footsteps
fade behind me dusted with snow.
Ahead is a canvas of white,
untouched and untrodden, that waits
or not for the fleeting traces
of boot and paw to mark my passing.
[First appeared in The Avalon Literary Review, Spring 2016]
Some days, usually in summer
when the light is right, and my mind is quiet,
I’ll pass a street that looks familiar;
its straight trees plotted in parkways,
their trunks just wide enough for a boy to hide behind,
and think of my grandfather.
Before the hospital gowns and ice chips
when he remembered my name
and every walk was an adventure—
before he grew small.
“What is it that the sign says, Markey?”
“Words can be weapons or keys.”
An honest, “please” could buy a Chiclet
or a gum ball. A careless curse
could cost the balance of a day.
Open books on park benches,
breadcrumbs for birds.
I listened in as David took the giant
and read aloud as Odysseus took to sea.
“With a word, God spoke the world into existence.”
Doubt is death and I was very much alive.
I’d seen Ali Baba speak an entrance to a mountain
and climbed Olympus before I’d ever seen Spot run.
(first appeared in “Shooter Literary Magazine”, Volume 1 – Winter 2015)
A kid, a toad
A car, a road
No pause, no stop
A splash, a pop
A senseless kill
It haunts me still.
(first appeared in “Shooter Literary Magazine”, Volume 1 – Winter 2015)
Upon a light barked limb of birch
a sparrow and a robin perch.
The robin shifts, the sparrow cries,
tilts his head, takes stock, then flies.
From an oak not far away
comes a bluebird and a jay.
The bluebird there to poach a nest,
the jay, simply to taunt and test.
The robin ready to give song,
protests briefly, moves along.
While hidden in the leaves above,
caws a raven, coos a dove.
Short time for long words—
bullets scream articulate,
painting naive walls
with red meaning.
No interpretation needed,
no conversation—
this is declaration
despite a loud rebuke of tears.
I saw my shadow in the light of a low sun.
It appeared a great thing
covering miles of grass.
My eyes filled with tears
and I lost myself to wonder.
In the absence of perspective
I thought the ground a mirror.
This is a good place.
The ground is cold and puddled,
ice still skins the shady spots,
the sun low, but rising.
Tomorrow maybe,
or a week from now,
I’ll return to this very spot
and find it foreign
if I notice it at all.
To come awake in ice
and long for stillness,
one could sleep forever
blanketed in snow.
No idiot gods or platonic blackbirds
just solid stone and old shoes—
another walk to work.
The sky is the gray
it’ll stay all January,
the cold, slow to arrive.
There are barges on the river
long arms, cranes
to lift stuff up.
Today I tried to count them,
the bridges repaired
the buildings born,
the union men
smoking in circles—
too many for the task.
It all seems so normal
till you look up
and the sun itself
is dwarfed by structure—
mundane creations,
magic works of man.