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.
Tag Archives: poem
Perspective
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.
A Good Place
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.
Cognitive Drift
To come awake in ice
and long for stillness,
one could sleep forever
blanketed in snow.
One for Tracy
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.
Toward the North
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?
Reduction
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.
Fog
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
Cold Counsel
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.
Careless
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.