My poem for the final Sunday meditation prompt of the online retreat. Of all the long hot summers passed me by this is the one I can’t reconcile Backs turned, looking down the path an empty road, maybe a leaf blown by the breeze No footsteps The signs of life are few but for the [...]
This is my fifth poem of week four of the online retreat. The New York Times crossword puzzle lives to humiliate me It starts me out easy on Monday morning lulling me into a sense of complacency by Friday, I can barely get a word in cross-wise My seven-week stretch of successful Mondays curries no [...]
This is my fourth poem of week four of the online retreat. Anymore, the subject believes his own press and assumes his once radical stance justifies the new orthodoxy The rotted past meets the rotting present the rotten join hands and breathe deep Plastic cups litter the grounds a puddle of purple forms beneath the [...]
This is my third poem of week four of the online retreat. 1 Trumpet breasted kings tear flesh Purple mouth beaks taste eye fruit rich dark scarlet. orange coronal. potent. The year, solitary, disconsolate down to the garden well peeling death drips great red burrows 2 A mother kneeling Dark, golden scents open, green grasses [...]
The second poem of the fourth week of the online retreat. This is my room now— my furniture my art on the walls my TV in the corner my rugs on the floor Some reminders remain— the old dining room table the clock on the wall the lamps by the window the world’s ugliest shag [...]
The first poem of the fourth week of the online retreat. It’s always one side— or the other The pull the twist the twinge the strain the sprain the spasm the sharp prick of the universe’s voodoo doll A blade held immobile without provocation or recompense All I did was inhale (26 October 2020) Wishes [...]
This is my fifth poem of week three of the online retreat—only a day late. She is the constellation upon which I fix my gaze I cannot call her a goddess— it’s not fair to impose my awe upon anyone that way But I am swept up by the music and the way she looks [...]
This is my fourth poem of week three of the online retreat. I want only to understand Life is filled with trials and tribulations with ups and downs with triumph and tragedy with happiness and heartbreak with good times and bad times Some of them are beyond imagination What is the purpose? Is there an [...]
This is my third poem of week three of the online retreat. I went off-prompt for this one. There’s a cuticle moon tonight Its amber tinge may or may not be the gauze of my curtains That the waxing gibbous has diminished is not a surprise Most of us don’t go that far back but [...]
The second poem of the third week of the online retreat. The keys are cards, blue and green, with icons in white. I assume the one with the lamp on it controls the lighting. I am incorrect. They are only keys. If this studio were a condo, it’d go for $600k, easy. That’s a bit [...]
