This is a season unspent:
there will be snow yet and storms.
Today’s cold recalled
a mere discomfort
and the bite of this wind, but a kiss.
If I prophesy spring
will you pretend to believe me?
We can blanket each other
in warmth for a time.
With the moment eclipsed
by the cold truths of winter,
will you smile me strong
as I frown toward the north?
It’s not irreducible—
birth, death, the stuff in the middle,
the fluff we focus on, the touches ignored.
I hope to burn some day and feel it
then be lifted by air.
In the gray now a man tries to remember
head pressed to a window
he pulls a finger down fog
deer run in the distance
white-tailed departures
through a slit between breathes
before the close, a hint of color
the flight of a finch, or a leaf mid-turn
Go and be what you are bound to
make what peace you can
with yourself
with the world
with the others around you
keep your wits
keep your warmth
and keep your weapons
close to hand.
She cares too much,
I care too little,
there’s little I can add.
Call her if you care to,
or don’t—
It hardly matters
…much.
In the back yard
under a tree
two dogs lie sleeping
an ear twitches
involuntarily
at the buzzing of a fly
tomorrow
or in a minute
maybe an hour
I’ll shift my gaze
to a falling leaf
or a shooting star.
The soul resides mid-breast;
I know it.
It speaks from there
in a pained voice,
dull and in defiance of reason;
devoid of cause,
it seeks a purpose for the day,
for its place there,
and finds nothing
but a cavity—
meat, destined to decay,
and feels the press of time
upon the bloody lungs of its vessel.
Before us stand the mockings of a god:
Sound shapes and divine invocations,
the sun itself a yellow yawn,
the chaff of a hidden harvest,
a field of golden connotation
denoting bread for the soul.
And grounded pigeons,
too fat to flee or fly
peck sweet sustenance
from saturated air,
awestruck,
wise enough to wonder.
Fools of fate,
fortunate friends of a god.
[First appeared in The Avalon Literary Review, Fall 2014]
My well runs deep and dry;
pebble-bottomed pit,
broken glass among the rocks,
the occasional coin, some sad soul’s wish
left in the company of cold, dry, stone.
I would if prompted recount a fiction
of strangers passing, full buckets, and refreshment;
of the joys of spring, a shaded canopy
and welcome offerings.
Redact the sunlit horror
of spitting children and the piss
of careless parents.
Their monstrous visage increased by time;
lifelessly growing, refusing to die
with fonder recollection; lost,
like meager moisture hoarded,
hidden, then dried.
The park that sold this house
is still there outside my window.
Our kids are grown,
but that patch of ground is never empty.
Each year supplies a new face or two
bold enough to approach our joke of a fence
and greet the great beasts that are their silent protectors,
the latest generation to walk the failing pickets and watch.