GlennPhillips

On Turning 19

2012-01-25T17:29:00.000-08:00

As professors, we feel older than most people our age. We say that we choose our profession because it keeps us young, but the liver spots, the failing eyes, and our sore backs are constant reminders that though we may feel it, we are, in fact, not young. We are distinguished, aged, experienced, and a slew of other euphemisms that belie our envious souls.

Today one of my students turned 19.

19 is a high school novel to me, picked up once every few years and wedged back on the shelf between Wuthering Heights and The Jungle. A book I never read during those formative years. A story I cannot put down.

19 is an unnamed port i once tasted at a party. It is the hundred bottled I have since had, trying to find it again. it is the color, the weight, the wood, and the fruit. the cup of my tongue, the stem of my throat.

19 is an open field. there are no trees, no people, no animals, and no memories. There is only the affirming reality of the grass beneath me, the open-mouthed imagination of the sky above, and the sweet air I breathe somewhere in between.

Today one of my students turned 19.

I said, "Happy Birthday," with a smile.

But he doesn't know I'd just assume cut him if I thought he might bleed time.

Burn the Stables

2012-01-25T17:26:00.000-08:00

Burn the stables.
Lock the horses inside.

Imagine their eyes
as the fire climbs-

Their heavy hooves
six feet high.

Some will die of smoke.
Some will be burned alive,

but imagine the twisting muscle
dancing in the pyre,

as the flames rise higher,
as the flames devour.

Death-Defying

2012-01-25T17:25:00.000-08:00

I choked on a gummy vitamin today.

Somewhere between fear
and irony, I caught

my breath.

My Best Pick-up Line

2012-01-18T16:30:00.000-08:00

So I said, "Sure,
you bring the clouds,
and I'll bring my
blanket of sky,

and we will lie
down outside of Eden
on the warm sands
of our fathers,

on their backs and
bellies, their bones
and blood, burnt
to a black sand

like volcanic beaches,
that are still warm.
And we can talk," I said,

"Talk about the curves
of rivers and how
from the moon, the world
must look more geometric."

And between angles
and angels and the
mathematics of both,
we may see the

Quaker sun dip into
the responsible horizon,
pushing our silhouettes away
from us like decks of cards,

and I'll say, "Hey, why don't
we stab up the ceiling
with stars, curl up like it's cold,

and talk about what must be
shining on the other side.

2012-01-18T16:26:00.000-08:00

Endymion the shepherd
sleeps comfortably beneath
the heavy Roman moon.

The hill where he lies
is a slow moving wave
in an ocean of light,

and he does not stir,
and he does not wake,
and he is warm as a kiss.

I wonder if in his dreams
he knows that we, the unloved,
are so brutally awake.

Scavenger Hunt

2012-01-18T16:23:00.000-08:00

I found a lock and a key
and a wind and a word
and the gravity of the heart
and the weight of the earth
and the skin of the peach
and the teeth of men
and a grave and a coin
and a hook and a dead bird

and the suicide of a boy
and the bone white snow
beautiful while falling

A Good Enough Love

2012-01-18T16:18:00.000-08:00

I am as in love with you
as I have ever been, which,
I admit, is not much,

but what do you say we spend
the rest of our lives
exchanging lovers' words
and knowing glances.

Let's pull tight the ribbons
of our youth and run short-
breathed into the asthmatic night.

Let's swallow our watches
and walk hand-in-hand
through the painted streets
of this back-breaking city.

It won't be love, but it
will be close, and if love isn't
a hand-grenade,
I don't know what is.

Atlanta on a Thursday

2011-12-30T12:36:00.000-08:00

I don't recognize the language.
it falls from his tongue like
gumballs or pebbles. The words
are round and smooth and
collect at his feet.

He is unusually tall, and his
ankle high boots undermine
his American jeans.

He is Starbucks and twelve
countries that I've never been to.

We're both heading to Cincinnati.
My transfer has been cancelled.
His, I'm sure, is right on time.

Midnight in Dusseldorf

2011-12-30T12:33:00.000-08:00

There are rabbits in downtown Dusseldorf,
small coveys that pour out
onto well-manicured parks after the
gates have been locked.

Walking alone last night, I stopped
to watch a pair run circles around
a bench near the Rhine.

It is a curious infestation but
one that could be expected in this
gingerbread country where clocks
are the broken hands of giants,
where cobblestones are skulls of the dead.

Kayaking in Portugal

2011-12-30T12:30:00.000-08:00

Kayaking along the Rio Montenegro
I saw purple flowers that
climbed walls like ants

and small beaches that
speckled the river's banks
like upturned fish.

The mountains on either
side wore a heavy coat of
green, and small cities

glittered on the mountains'
shoulders like sunlit broaches.

The sun was hot and scraped
its teeth against our skin.

The water was cold and
swept by quickly like a
midsummer Portuguese night.

Kindling

2011-09-07T10:22:00.000-07:00

It is September, and the lake
is several yards from the pier.

The dirty water is mud and
bugs and a reflection of this

bone dry town. The people
are asleep in the dry lake bed,

holding their cracked heels and
dusty children. The trees and

dried up bougainvilleas will
burst into flames at any moment.

Somewhere, there is a cigarette,
a match, or an errant spark.

On it is written the ghastly history
of this soon unforgettable pyre.

Stitched

2011-09-05T22:59:00.000-07:00

Come let me take you
on a tour of this
patchwork campus.

On thin threads
we will bob and
weave through the
fabric of this place.

I will show you
every stitch of a student,
every hem of tradition.

We will walk from
square to square
on needled legs,

sewing our colors,
picking up where others
left off.

And one day,
years from now,
reclining and still,
we will pull
this campus over our
cold bones

and be warmed
by its quilted memories.

DA 1060

2011-08-06T12:02:00.000-07:00

I'm sharing a Dallas-bound
Delta flight with a pastor
and a salesman.

If this were the beginning of a
joke, I am sure that I
would be a rabbi.

The pastor is kind and
engaged and speaks of himself
in muted arrogance. it is
not a fault as much as it is
a hazard of his occupation.
Sheep seldom follow shepherds
that are sheepish.

The salesman is in a unique
balancing act between boasting
and confession. He tempers every
story with a plea for acceptance.
Every jewel he holds up to
the light, he carefully lays at
the feet of the pastor.

I am far from their
conversation, the beard
offering a certain purchased distance
from middle-age, conservative America.

I wonder, if in the same conversation,
I would quickly show my better side.
"I'm returning form a mission trip."
"I've been to your church of 635"
"I also know Jesus"

Or would I tell him that me
Bible is in my checked luggage,
and I carry it around like a weight?

Would I tell him that I don't
trust him or his designer shoes?

Confessions of a Scaredy-Cat

2011-08-06T11:53:00.000-07:00

I killed a grasshopper.
It was slender and green
and landed next to me.

I was scared of what
it would fel like, its
little legs clawing at
my cupped hands.

So, I killed it
with a shoe.
I collected its remains
with tissue paper and
trashed it next to an
empty box of cookies.

I hope this poem
serves as a proper burial.

On Seeing a Young Ballet Dancer on a Transatlantic Flight

2011-08-06T11:47:00.000-07:00

Long, lithe arms that
hang like windless flags,

shoulders rolled back, set
like teacups on a high shelf,

feet, in first position,
in basketball shoes,

in a body, that for
the first time, makes

me think I'm dieing.

Bauby in Madison Square Park

2011-06-24T11:24:00.002-07:00

It is ten o’clock in the evening,
and I have just finished reading
Bauby’s small kite of a memoir.

The winds of Madison Square Park
have been strong enough to keep the toy afloat,
and now, as its last blinked words are read, the
canvas, cross, and carefully knotted tail
fall carelessly to my feet.

As I look up, I see an art installation,
some decapitated Madonna without child,
French royalty or the American poor.

To my left the carnival lights
of a local dive are pulling in travelers
that leave with milkshakes, burgers, and
a sense of the authentic.

Perhaps more authentic, is the
elderly black man who holds the bench
beside mine like a paperweight,
a bottle cap, or a lost shoe.

He is searching through his belongings
with a flashlight that reminds
me of my grandfather, and I wonder
if he would be as curious as me,

curious why the black man has a shopping cart
and no receipts and a pregnant suitcase with
no ticket out of this New York park.

A mosquito bites my thumb and I
shoo it away, thinking about how
Bauby held on so mummified but
feeling everything. I turn again to
my homeless neighbor, wondering
how he does the same.

St George's, New York City

2011-06-24T11:24:00.001-07:00

The stained glass of St. George’s
has all the jeweled colors of an
Amish quilt, and the wooden pews
sigh psalms as the congregation sits.

The chandeliers that hang are overgrown
hummingbird feeders, and it is not
uncommon to see the quick wings
and hovering of this New York crowd.

At the front of the church there are
two great cities of pipe organs that
rise like reclaimed civilizations on
the left and right of the altar.

In what Catholics would call the sacristy,
there is a cerulean sky with descending
stars. An epiphany hangs in the apse like
a mace, an ornament, an unmoving
pendulum for this great clock of faith.

And not to be missed, in shorts and a
blue t-shirt, I am here in my quilted
skin and woven beard, an echo of those
who have been before, fanfare for
those who will come after.

I am here, a prayer tied with my tongue,
hidden in the marrow of these ribs
that like the heavy wooden beams above me
support this broken but hopeful body.

Solving New York

2011-06-22T14:56:00.000-07:00

For the Gershons

From the rooftop terrace of this Brooklyn apartment
you can see all of Manhattan at once.

At this distance, the geometry of the city
is elementary, a gross estimation like the
Niels Bohr model of an atom or
Empedocles and his four great elements.

It is all sharp corners and great
tables of incandescent rectangles.
It is precise, calculated, and proportionate.
It reads like a novel.

But in the foreground, caught somewhere between
this balcony and the East River, is an old water tower,
perched like a great bird on a neighboring building.

The tower is curved and unbeautiful, its conical hat and
angled legs are a more complicated mathematics,
requiring exponentials, trigonometry, and that most tasty constant π.

And even closer, I notice the people around me,
their asymptotic conversations, the slopes of their speech,
the great equations of their nods, and gestures, and hands,
and hair- the bends of their noble, lithe necks,

and I think that surely these imperfections, these unsolvable equations,
these incalculable calculi are as rooted in logic as the prismic skyline.

And while it is certainly easier to solve the one variable equation
of this city, I hope those attempting to find a greater solution consider

the equation of the tongue, the volume of community, the weight of alone,
the variable of home.

Fireflies

2011-06-22T14:55:00.002-07:00

There are fireflies in DC
that blink and buzz and
amble north of Capitol Hill.

For some, they are warnings,
little Paul Reveres, insect continentals,
who have seen the British of
our child nations, next enemy.

For some they are decoration,
Christmas bulbs or slow neon
confetti used to celebrate the
warm summers of this European city.

And for some they are science,
a forgettable chemistry locked
away in the glowing abdomen
of an otherwise unimpressive bug.

but for me, they are lighthouses,
small fires in this noble city,
not to warn of the treacherous rocks ahead,
but to show us sea-tossed Americans
that among the waves, there still,
is land.

Poet in the making

2011-06-22T14:55:00.001-07:00

For the quiet girl on the DC Metro

She is not a poet
at least not the high collared
suicidal poets of the 19th century.

She does not care for iambs
or the sweet feet of pentameter.

She is a woven girl, who
carries her pen like a
flower. Her stem spins
lines like broken-legged spiders,

and her webs are catching
the small bees of words
that buzz from the hive
of her auburn heart.

She is not a poet.
She is, instead, a windmill
a waterfall, an open field,
a soldier of fortune,
a prayer, a sieve,
a poem.

Close

2011-06-22T14:17:00.000-07:00

Tonight, my niece tells me,
the moon is closer than normal.

A learned seven-year-old, she attempts
to explain some elementary astrophysics,

but her oration on planetary motion
is cut short by my sister’s offer of ice cream.

And while tomorrow’s greatest astronomer
does a quick conical volume calculation

to see if her baby sister has more strawberry
swirl than she, my eyes are drawn back

to the moon and its pock-marked complexion.
It looks heavy in the helium sky, a ball,
a balloon, a plate, an egg. Also, a marshmallow,
an eye, a pregnant spider, those metaphors
with which we are less familiar:

a cup of milk, a snow crab, a blanched olive,
an uncovered knee, a hole, a bald man in prayer.

As my nieces spin and slide on their linoleum
kitchen floor, I step out into the Tennessee night.
I reach my hand into the cool mid-March breeze.
I stretch my fingers as far as they will go
knowing that tonight I am as close as I have
ever been to touching the moon and all its brightness.

And depending on the next steps of sweet Eva,
and the incredible gravity of strawberry swirl, it may be
the closest I’ll ever come.

Prayer to St. Lucy

2011-05-30T11:00:00.000-07:00

Daughter of Eutychia,

let me tear out my eyes,

and with bloody hands,

set them on your painted plate,

Daughter of Eutychia,

let me too be consumed

by flames, my pink flesh,

a trumpet to my enemies.

Daughter of Eutychia,

let my innocence be heavy

enough that when the oxen pull,

I too will be a weight that

cannot be moved.

Response to Ms. Woolf

2011-04-19T22:40:00.000-07:00

To write fiction, Virginia Woolf once wrote,
a woman needs money and a room of her own.

To write poetry, I think, a woman needs
a broken tea cup and some jam.

To write plays, I presume, a woman needs
the silhouette of a snake and an orange balloon.

To write essays, she needs only a long-haired
cat and night's open palm.

To write epitaphs, it follows, she needs
knitting tools and a gallon jug.

And to write fiction, Virginia Woolf
forgot to mention, you need cake,
opium, gorilla fur, and a ball of twine,
unravelling.

Ode to Crawfish

2011-04-19T22:33:00.000-07:00

A forty pound colony of Louisiana
crawfish just arrived
via FedEx in a white, styrofoam Mayflower.

JD spreads the unsuspecting pilgrims
on the back porch of this East Texas lake house.
He cleans them methodically.

As he sprays, the crawfish writhe and spin;
they raise their red claws to the sky.

In poses of surrender or exhaltation, they are washed
and gathered and reboxed in preparation
for their ten gallon death.

Even now, as JD fills the pot with
water, the crawfish reach and stretch against
the sides fo their styrofoam cell.

Soon they will be moved by handfuls into
a spicy pyre where they will be come red and
motionless.

We will eat them with corn, potatoes,
a healthy share of local beer, and a
conversation.

I hope we speak of democracy, peace,
honor, or love- those most dangerous,
most difficult subjects- those subjects
worthy of such a sacrifice.

New England Woods

2011-04-19T22:27:00.000-07:00

The woods of New England
are not like the woods of the south.

In the south, we have large
groves of oaks whose antebellum
roots still sprawl where plantation
homes once burned.

In the south, we have yellow
pine forests whose needled
beds hide coral snakes
and small town teenage trysts.

In the south, we have swamps
whose mix of moss and fog
help ghosts and alligators
both appear and disappear without warning.

But in the north, you have
Irving Washington filling
your bundles of sticks with our
child nation's greatest stories.

You have Robert Frost, covering
your empty acreage with snow

You have Arthur Miller letting
loose witches into your barren woods.

And driving, as I am now,
on the slow road from New York
to Bethesda, I can't help but
see your fictions swirl about
dead branches, like the fall
we wish we had.

Coffee

2011-04-19T22:24:00.000-07:00

for Josh Kain

You drink your vente-créme de caramel-macciato with organic milk and cinnamon whip. Sip it gingerly as you open your books, as you let all the words fall out. Pick them back up and carry them reverently, the idle props of your one-man tribute to ennui.

I’ll have a small cup of stiff, black coffee. I’ll wade into the neighboring river as the sun crawls up the sky. I’ll whip my line back and forth, the whistle of which will be the only sound God did not make.

FOR ALEJANDRA

2011-04-19T22:20:00.000-07:00

In the Upper-west side
my friend has an apartment.

It is a postage stamp
on this envelope of a city,

a grape in this large horn-of-plenty,

but it is hers, and she lives
in it unapologetically.

The light wood floors
cover the ground like
some oaken quilt,
some unsolvable geometry lesson,
or the tessellating rugs of Alhambra.

The walls are vanilla pudding
and the silver radiator drops from the ceiling
like some bizarre utensil
with which to eat it.

Outside the open window,
the purchased symphony of the city plays.

Nigerian nannies push small white
children in rattling strollers.
Students at a nearby school laugh and scream
and lay the foundations of the edificial lives.
The busses and taxis honk and squeal down Broadway.
Wind shakes the leafless branches of this city’s
concrete trees.

Somewhere, church bells chime
with the hour—the little choir, a small
reminder of the God who still dwells
in these mechanical places.

And a woman, long out of the limelight,
competes with this metropolitan orchestra.
She walks up and down vocal scales
as a mezzo-soprano. Her vibrato vibrates
this small, forgotten opera house,

and in our warm vanilla box seats,
we close our eyes, lean our heads back
and applaud,

our prima donna’s most devoted fans,
tasting small thimbles of joy
in this ocean of a city.

OPEN LETTER TO THE WOMEN WHO WALK IN TENNIS SHOES AROUND THE MALL FOR EXERCISE BUT TAKE THE ESCALATOR BETWEEN FLOORS:

2011-01-20T23:31:00.002-08:00

you have fooled no one

MY FATHER'S COAT

2011-01-20T23:31:00.001-08:00

I stepped out
last night after
my family had
gone to sleep.

There was already
frost on the windows;
so, I took
my father’s coat.

It had been
many years since
I last wore his
heavy clothes.

Always a blanket
or tent as a child,
my father’s shirts
and jackets would
swallow us whole.

As I took into the
December night, however,
the sleeves fell short,
the shoulders hugged mine.

And I realized that
it was not the coat
that would overwhelm me
as I grew older,

it was the man.

DECEMEBER 24TH

2011-01-20T23:30:00.002-08:00

it is a heavy night
a metallic blue
a wind that blows like billowing sheets
a cold pocket watch from a grandparent long dead
a still horse
a silver dollar moon

and the trees shake like impatient children

it is a heavy night
a line from Frost
a loaded gun
silence

THANKSGIVING POEM

2011-01-20T23:30:00.001-08:00

I went to the beach for Thanksgiving.
My family, a small band of nomads,
brought popcorn, pop tarts and lemonade
gravy and we sat, as we always do

watching the children as they rise and spin
and tremble with adolescence.

I went to the beach for Thanksgiving
because in the quiet hours I could
sneak down to the sandy shore and
scribble these half-written words,

pulling small pieces of bread out of my pockets
and hoping the small bird of a poem would come.

I went to the beach for Thanksgiving
because it is immeasurable, and I,
artificially large, needed to remember
that I am thankful.

Ocean

2011-01-20T23:29:00.000-08:00

I am, once again, drawn into its vastness,
how its rolling waves are a watery canopy,
how beneath there wakes a still unconquered dragon.

I do not think we are deceived by the
ocean’s great depth of wide stretch.
I think we are afraid, rightfully afraid,
at how something so un-owned can still stir.

Reflection

2011-01-20T23:20:00.000-08:00

At the gym today
I noticed that the
treadmills all face
the mirrors.

Strange, as most of
us beating the bouncy
pavement are most comfortable
running from reflections.

Response to a Graduate Seminar Presentation

2010-12-11T17:33:00.000-08:00

He drones like so many bees
in and out of my hive of a head,

and I wait for him to sting us
with thought, challenge, or obscenity,

but nothing comes, and so we wait.

We pray that a heavy bear will come
and, seeking honey, bat us out of
this captive audience that he drains
like a machine.

2010-11-28T12:36:00.001-08:00

There it was
in the middle of
the sidewalk-

a broken jar,
once full of
marbles,

a beaded necklace
unstrung,

a camera commercial,
a comedy routine,
a thousand little points of light,

still in this
November sun,

and I was there alone,
like Paris, like San Francisco,
like Rome, like New York,
working up the courage to say
it was beautiful.

A Thanksgiving Poem 2010

2010-11-28T12:31:00.000-08:00

I came to the beach for Thanksgiving.
My family, a small band of nomads,
brought popcorn and pop-tarts and
homemade gravy and we sat, as we always do,

and watched the youngest children rise and spin
and tremble through adolescence.

I came to the beach for Thanksgiving
because in the quiet hours I could
sneak down to the sandy shore and
scribble these half-written words,

pulling small pieces of bread out of my pockets
and hoping the small bird of a poem would come.

I cam to the beach for Thanksgiving
because it is immeasurable, and I,
artificially large, needed to remember
that I am thankful.

2010-11-28T12:27:00.000-08:00

I am, once again, drawn into its vastness,
how its rolling waves are a watery canopy,
how beneath, there sleeps a still unconquered dragon.

I do not think we are nervous about the
ocean's great depths or wide stretch.
I don't think we are deceived into believing
its myths will wake and overcome us.

I think we are afraid, rightfully afraid,
at how something can still be so un-owned.

Brushy Creek Ranch

2010-11-28T12:21:00.000-08:00

It is a breakable November,
and the sun is a stage light
or an ornament, both hung on
the eastern wall of this
cloudless Texas sky.

The birds that are all sewn
together in a small book to my
left are as much an
orchestra as they are
the soundtrack to this
camera-less film.

And there are men filling
the beds and floors and couches
of this ranch style labyrinth,
but they are asleep and
not aware of the jittery butterflies
or the heavy dragonfly.

And I am a prince here,
my castle filled with
mossy chandeliers,

as we are all princes
in these open air banquet halls
of Our Most Benevolent King.

ON PUBLISHING YOUR FIRST BOOK

2010-10-08T11:46:00.000-07:00

for Dr. Kimberly Brown

I doubt it will
feel different at first.

Your car will sound the same
as you turn its silver key.

Your cat will crawl upon
your lap and stretch and sleep.

I don’t know that the
grocery clerks will recognize
you as you sack your milk and bread,

and surely, the neighbors will
think nothing of you collecting mail
or watering the hanging plants.

But the next time you slide
into a bookstore or library
and parade their heavy aisles,

the next time you thumb through
prose, poetry, or criticism,

you will know that you are among them—
a creator, constructor, conspirator, conductor.

You will know that
you are allowed into their secret meetings,
able to knock their secret knock.

And sure, the Toms and Alices of this
one-wheeled world won’t see,

but what have they ever suspected of the
greatness that wells within you?

Not Quite Right

2010-09-27T08:56:00.000-07:00

It was casual,
a side of macaroni,
an orange wedge.

We did not
plan it like a
missiontomars
or an Angolan expedition.

There is no fall-out,
no breakdowns,
no failedattemptsto
fly.

We were already
withoutwings

But I counted on you,
and when I needed you,
you werenotthere.

there was only wind
and wake
and stars
and cummings’s
cornerless sky.

New York, 1910

2010-09-05T23:55:00.000-07:00

The view from this old Dutch port
is not the postcard I will send to my mother
or the glossy photo from my 8th grade history textbook.

The warm New York sun reflects off the bay
and a light fog leaves only a dark silhoutte before me.

It is a woman, arm raised, looking
out on the open waters.

I imagine that without telephoto lens of perscription eyewear
this is what she must have looked like to my great-grandparents
as they rocked like driftwood towards her narrow feet.

Some hovering giantess with glowing torch,
her stern face unreadable.

My great-grandparents standing in many layers,
their silver and good jewelry tucked in waistbands.

This shadowy shape must have been the
first thing they remembered,
their knuckles white around heavy black luggage handles,

coughing up yesses,
thank you's, and pleases
from dry Polish throats.

New York, 2010

2010-09-05T23:50:00.000-07:00

The city is fianlly asleep,
its sinners and street
vendors tucked away,
its prostitutes and priests
both in their small apartments.
Little swarms of street lights
are the only things that still buzz.

And I, of course, still
scribbling away in this
make-shift memoir
am full of awake.

But soon, I will
pumpkin too and wake up
hours later, inches into the sun,
dancing with the day and all
its carnival citizens.

But for now, I open the bedroom window
and reach out a hand into the heavy night.

I grip it like bolts
of dark wool
and pull it around my naked body.

I spin until I
am wild with it.

I sink to the light oak
floor, pull my knees up
and rock myself to this
metropolitain metronome.

Library

2010-07-30T01:24:00.001-07:00

Magda, whose full name
is Magdelena,
is not here.

Across the valley from
La Meige on this
cool summer evening,

she is sitting
at the edge of
a grassy cliff.

The only thing between
her and the air beneath
is a small, unlined
notebook she is filling
with consonant-heavy
Polish.

She will not tell me
what she is writing,
so I guess.

A poem?
No

Something about the chapel I can see in the distance?
No

Your thoughts?
Yes, kind of.

And I can imagine
she is writing something similar
to what we all write,
similar to what I am writing now:

that we are all human,
beautifully so…
terribly so…

That we are all
a great story of many books,
one that I see now,
brown hair, purple scarf,
her twin sister, Paulina, now beside her.

Two slim volumes in Polish
On the wide shelf of the earth.

Learning Polish

2010-07-30T01:08:00.001-07:00

It slides off my tongue
like wet ice, and
my grandfather who
spoke English to my
father and nothing
to me, opens his
heavy immigrant hands
and calls me moja pociecho
which means “my consolation,”
and it is and it isn’t.

I say “Kocham cię, dæiadku,”
as I place white flowers
at his twenty-year-old grave.

Marta

2010-07-30T01:07:00.002-07:00

A young Polish girl
in my poetry workshop
both arrived and left
our first meeting, bewildered.

Only later I learned
she thought that poetry
was pottery and became
concerned when she found no clay.

I gave her the option of
changing to watercolor
or photography but out of
embarrassment of manners
she stayed.

Her first poem was a
short reflective piece in English.
The whole poem turned like a wheel
around the word “schemas.”

Though unable to carry water
or display red róże,
surely her muddy hands
have created something worth keeping.

Visiting Poland

2010-07-30T01:07:00.001-07:00

I have not been there
but I imagine the
streets and skies are
filled with large
black birds.

And the storefronts
are dressed with
links of sausage and
thick-crusted bread.

I imagine that the
buildings and statues
are gray and cracked
and taste like gun powder.

And the old women wear
heavy coats and
brightly colored scarves.

And the old men walk slowly.

I have not been there
but I imagine that
the thin threads
of my blood are
still sewn with
a green-eyed needle,

and my family fills
the streets and skies
like large black birds

that wear heavy coats,
that walk slowly,
that do not think of me
or this poem they’ll never read.

Bible Study

2010-07-30T01:06:00.000-07:00

And God said,” Let there be light,” and there was light.
- Genesis 1:3

And let there be heavy
And great weight
And stones
That will sit in the
Small chambers of our
Labyrinth hearts

And let there be mornings
Where our sand-filled
Arms are difficult
To lift

And let there be nights
When the weight of our
Skulls is too much to bear

When the marrow of our bones
Is metal meat
When our blood is slow-moving
Mercury

And in these heavy moments
We will be able
(Finally and without eyes)
To see the light

2010-07-21T23:22:00.000-07:00

A poet's best words
are not
the ones that send
amateur readers
running to dictionaries
to quarry a quick definition.
They are not
the long stings of letters
the literati wear like boas.
They are not
the anachronistic vestiges
of an even-then obscure language.

Our best words are our
first words.
"momma" "ball" "hungry,"
those that have taken our
first steps with us,
those whose meaning is not
learned, but
created.

2010-05-12T18:29:00.000-07:00

I am dancing
but without legs,
without music,
without a floor,

and you criticize
my fourth position.

But did you see
the shape of my arms
during my tour de promenade?

Did you see how
I was both holding
and letting go

at once?

To the Children

2010-05-12T18:25:00.000-07:00

I would give them balloons,
large red balloons that would
pull them, their brothers, their
sisters to teh mountains that
they cannot reach by foot.

There, without machetes to
chop or bundles of firewood
to carry home, we would
sleep beneath the heavy
canopy, drink water
from the hanging gordes.

There in the soft underbrush
there would be quiet laughter,
the strange singing of the
jungle birds, and the heavy
creak of the mile high trees.

But first, we must find balloons,
large red ones, thousands of them
that can carry us all at once,
far from this place with no air.

2010-05-12T18:23:00.000-07:00

Mornings here are
a cut canteloupe.

The dogs and roosters
are silent.

The sun is hung
like a picture.

The metal rooves
sparkle like the waves

of an ocean

in which
these people will surely drown.

Wingless- On visiting a Honduran orphanage

2010-05-12T00:55:00.000-07:00

The children, with their
sweaty hands, run to the
Americans like geese.

They beg to be held, to
be thrown, to be anywhere
but on the abyssmal ground.

They hold on tightly about
our necks and our ears,
sure that suspended here,

eventually, they'll fly.

Tegucigalpa, Honduras--March 2010

2010-05-12T00:52:00.001-07:00

It is dry here
and the forests
are a thirsty
yellow sea.

And the sun
is a sweater
that no one
can remove.

And they say
the mountains
are on fire, but
there is no water.

THe dogs are in heat,
barking like trumpets,
and the cock crows
just after 10 o'clock.

Here, no one remembers morning.

2010-05-12T00:49:00.000-07:00

I am a lover
like I am a clown
an astronaut, a
cold-eyed killer.

And I will love
you with this
starry rebellion,
this painted face,
and these hands
taht will strangle
you in your sleep.

2010-05-12T00:46:00.001-07:00

I thought of you today
while sipping steamy tea
on the cupboard of my back porch.

I thought about how like a
wind you are and how like
so many fallen leaves I am,
all fiery and tragic,
rustling like a hymn.

Scoop me up in your
zephyrous arms, I pray.
I will continue to spin
in this penny ballet--

a brittle thing that only
lives when held.

For Gary Miller-Wyatt

2010-04-28T23:31:00.000-07:00

His hand shakes now
so that he cannot
hold his coffee.

His wife, elegant
and swift, has a thin
neck and holds

his coffee for him.
His students fail
to notice.

His students, queens
and priests, memorize
their lines like prayers

and worship, religious
fanatics that they are,
each night for hours.

He is not their god,
but he is their Platonic
shadow on the cave wall.

He is flawless and moves
the students like furniture,
like lions.

He has seen this before.
And in each young man
he sees a young Tybalt.

In each girl, a Juliet.
And in me, he saw Miller
and Shakespeare and

a promise that my best
was still in the wings.
And it has been years

since I last took the stage.
Both the lights and the
mechanics of the curtains

are strangers. But when
I hear the applause of my
typewriter keys, when I

see an ovation at the end
of every class, I always
look to the audience.

He is there, as he has
always been. A intensely
focused brow above

a widening smile. His wife,
with the thin neck, still holding
his trembling hands.

Born Again

2010-04-20T00:57:00.000-07:00

It is late,
and there is no
black bird to
sing me to sleep.

So I will stay
awake and glass-
eyed in this
great stone church

where the saints have
no heads and the
angels do not
look down.

I will stay here
with no lamps
and open the
gospels in the dark.

I will whisper
the words that I
can read.

I will eat the
bread and not swallow.

I will twist myself
into a prayer.

They will build churches
in my name.

Beneath the Water Heater

2010-04-08T22:59:00.000-07:00

There is a cat.

From her soft voice,
she must be a kitten.

From her persistance,
she must be strong.

We cannot get to her,
not without ripping
the floor of this
cavernous house.

We cannot save her,
or we will not.

Either way, her voice
getting weaker, her

mew that rolls like marbles
in the back of my brain.

And when she is dead or escaped,
I am sure, her soft wails
will haunt my dreams,

I will die there,
you know.

Trapped in an empty wood,
everywhere I look,
cat tails
dissappearing.

Psalm 103:12

2010-04-08T22:55:00.000-07:00

But what of where they meet?
In that directional hurricane
on the other side of the globe,
where east meets west, where
they are the same, is it here
I wear my sins like skins?
Is it here our forgiving God,
still has me by the throat?

Damn this infinite sphere.

The Day the Wall Came Down

2010-03-26T10:00:00.000-07:00

I say go there at night. Go there when the wind is pulling on the galloping flags like so many small hands. I say go there when the lights are holding the statue, ten feet from the earth. Because it is then, in the calmest of moments , you see the horses for what they are—small beginnings of a storm.

When I was a freshman, the horses were new. The old people would come in droves holding their grandchildren like spaghetti, and offer them to the bronze gods. The old people knew the wall before it fell. The old people knew the horses.

Years later, I still go to the statue. A man now in a world of children, I sometimes take them with me. I hold them up to the steady eyes of the stallion, the steady eyes of the mares. I watch the wall fall in their reflective eyes.

I say. Go there at night. Go there when the wind is the only sound. Go there when you can softly hear the Berliners—their maddening cries of victory, defeat.

The Graduate

2010-03-26T09:59:00.000-07:00

Let me walk on the
thin ribbon of your
Möbius mind, and I,
a dangerous kind of
new, will defy the
tired cords of gravity
and stay suspended

here

in the airy jungle
of the unknown—
this lamp, my only
light.

A twisted head,
just the beginning.

Tomorrow, I will
twist your yesterdays
until you find
yourself,

upside-down and awake,
the only un-eaten apple
in a sea of falling ants.

Open Letter to James Earl Rudder

2010-03-26T09:58:00.000-07:00

And what of the wind
that snakes and spins
across this open field?

Do you hear it?

And what of the trees
that bend and gnarl
beneath the singing sun?

Do you see them?

And what of the buildings,
stone comrades,
standing ever ready?

Do you salute them?

And the students
that flood by you
like a slow brook,

and the faculty
that hurry past
in shoes of things to do,

and the other men
and women, just as still,
reflecting the same light,

do you know them?

And are their names,
just as ours, written
on the heavy pages

of the book you always hold?

Pferdwelle

2010-03-26T09:56:00.000-07:00

In German, the word
for horse is pferd,
the word for wave
is welle.

Were we all
drowned in this
mighty pferdwelle?

If so, it must have been
a beautiful death.

unsaved

2010-03-11T23:33:00.000-08:00

how is it that we,
the air, the wind,
the ones destined for hell,

are saved?

if we temper
the fire within
if we cool it
if we cover it
if we strangle it

will it not
on the day of our baptism
ignite and boil us alive?

No, we, the air, the wind,
the heat, the light,
the ones destined for hell.

we are the still magma
bubbling beneath the earth
we are the blue flame
coiled like a snake
we are the unloved

and hell rides us like a chariot.

The Roc

2010-03-07T10:10:00.000-08:00

I've been sitting
in my overstuffed chair,
a dictionary on my lap,
waiting for a roc to come.

I want to see that
mythical bird fly
down, a great pet of
the gods, perhaps
a god herself.

They say she can
carry away an adult
elephant with one
snatch of her claws.

I want to be here
in this chair when
she comes, when the
shadow of her wings
colls the sun,

and we sit in
silent anticipation
for that terrifying and wonderful
first feeling of flight.

Silver Taps Revisited

2010-03-02T22:37:00.000-08:00

The soldier
tight like wire
on my right

has metal bones
that rattle
in this thin air.

He is brilliant
in the moon,
a quiet, unsettling
sight.

These moments
are meant
for the darker
cupboards of
our kitchen

where we
are not fragments

but a whole,
faceless and wide.

My Prayer Tonight

2010-03-01T16:18:00.000-08:00

My prayer tonight,
as our little square
of earth passes
lazily in the lampless night,

is that tomorrow,
when we wake, the globe
will be smaller,

and the next day,
smaller still
until
both nights and
days are just seconds
on a spinning top,

and we would not be able
to put the sun to sleep
without it rising at our backs,

and we, the romantic
would collect evenings by the wagon
and build small castles
out of their hesitant dangers,

and we, the guilty
would collect mornings by the bushel
and finally sleep soundly
in their promised mercies.

January 19, 2010

2010-01-19T08:50:00.000-08:00

The clouds of this
dreary hill country afternoon
are not the cartoonish
cottonballs of children's books
and bulletin boards.
They are not the stylish
manes of zephyrous horses
smeared like Monet across the
bending sky. They are not the
pinkish mountains or a
heavy sheet of grey.

They are, instead, a slow
reaching, the shadow of roots,
the extending fingers
of a dark and melancholy
god whose lightening face
is atmospheres above us.

January 18, 2010

2010-01-19T08:46:00.000-08:00

The large basin
just south of the main house
grows trees like broccoli,
great maternal things
full of braided bark.

ion the summers the
cattle lay and low
beneath its cool branches
and gnaw at its surfacing roots.

The tree, still green
in this heavy blanket of winter
is patient and holds
the sun, the shade,
and a thousand ghosts,

whose bodies and stories
all lay still within
te reach of her river-like roots.

January 17, 2010

2010-01-19T08:42:00.000-08:00

is this Love? Envy? Regret?
is this the three-headed Ceberus
patient at Pluto's gate?

Shall I let it eat me?

No?

If I go on, and I
best this snake-maned dog,
all that waits for me is
Charon's ferry, a lonely voyage.

Even impeccable solitude
is solitude.

January 16, 2010

2010-01-19T08:38:00.000-08:00

There are some things,
try as we might, we
cannot shake off our
dusty boots of progress.

The weights I carried
as an eager child
still slow my gait
as a bearded man,

and the poisoned apple
I peeled with my teeth
still sits, unbruised and
glowing in my passive fruitbowl.

I wonder if the greater
danger of sharing this fruit is
that I might poison the world
or realize after so many hungry years
that the fruit was never poisoned.

January 15, 2010

2010-01-19T08:34:00.000-08:00

In the basements
of the Midwest
there are sewing
machines and ping
pong tables, hot water
heaters and over-stuffed
couches, boxes of
receipts and the good
wedding china. in
the basements of
the Midwest there
are globes and
Christmas decorations,
poker chips and fishing
rods, winter coats and
the grandchildren's toys.

In the basements
of the Midwest, there
are high windows
that look out on the
floor of the world.

Windows
that the Midwesterners
will peek out of if the
tornados come.

Tornados
that will leave only
Midwesterners, their
basements, and the secret
places where they are most human.

January 14, 2010

2010-01-19T08:23:00.000-08:00

Wind Farms

the arable land
the agrarian hands
planting small seeds
of tornados and

zephyrs to be
tended carefully
by some rosy
cheeked norse god

a harvest too beautiful
for human eyes to conceive

January 13, 2010

2010-01-13T16:28:00.003-08:00

Bob, a platinum blond
transsexual, works the
breakfast shift at an
Arby’s just off I-70.

After roast beef and
curly fries, my friends
and I, on a cross-Kansas
roadtrip, followed her out.

She eased, tight knees
into a white Sunfire
and flipped her long
hair as she checked
for oncoming traffic.

Her braceleted arm
jingled as she pressed
the gas and took
a sharp left onto
the icy highway,

And as we poured
back into our packed SUV,
I couldn’t help but
think how she was

both brave and defiant,
both dangerous and disruptive
both a hero and pariah to
our still-forming culture.

Bob, a strange little cup
of America, speeding down
the interstate, Stevie Nix
turned all the way up.

Matching her note for note.

January 12, 2010

2010-01-13T16:28:00.001-08:00

Driving east from
the rocky mountains
the earth is smoothed
out like a sheet cake,

some uncrumpled portion
of a tectonic plate
still floating lazily
on a sea of fire,

and the wings of
Kansas are those of
the hawk, spread wide
and flat in both directions,

and the pioneering mothers
who wrung their aprons
centuries ago still wring
their aprons now,

wives of thin-lipped
farmers whose snow-
covered fields, they say,
feed the world.

January 11, 2010

2010-01-13T16:27:00.000-08:00

I will adjust your eyes
such that the thick lines blur
and your astigmatic heart sees
me and we are rent free from
this colonial cloth that fails
to warm and no longer matches
the patches we’ve sewn and sown.

January 10, 2010

2010-01-10T10:47:00.000-08:00

Several years ago I went to Colorado with friends. While lounging in the cabin, I wrote a short poem that has now been lost or published in an unread journal. In the poem, I thoughtfully remarked that i had never seen an apple in the snow.

Along my walk today

Just off the concrete path,

I spied an apple in the snow.

It was not shiny or red.

In fact, it was bruised

and half-eaten.

Perched just feet away

were hungry crows whose

black eyes were counting

the ghosts that surely

swarmed around me.

But I, engaged

by the fallen fruit,

looked away from the birds,

curtailed my conversation with

Stevens and thought

about how what has not been

is not at all similar

to what never will be.

January 9, 2010

2010-01-10T10:42:00.000-08:00

I have much to say

and such little time

in which to say it.

Perhaps it will be best

to toss off the modesty

my parents and priests

have wrapped me in,

stand naked at the door

and knock and knock and knock,

and when they see me,

unclothed and brilliant,

they can ask me in or not,

knowing, of course, that

whether their guest or their gall,

I am here, naked in their world.

January 8, 2010

2010-01-10T10:40:00.000-08:00

In these dark Denver nights

where the hawks turn like wheels,

I walk barefoot in the sharp snow

and bend my neck to the sky

that falls around me in dust from

a great God who is sawing the world in two.

January 7, 2010

2010-01-06T23:31:00.000-08:00

My Annual Ski Trip

The young men

who like lion cubs

still dance and fall

upon one another

in imaginary wars

are now galloping

towards the fresh snow,

swaddled in enough

clothes to remind

them they are not

meant for this world.

They hold their skis

and poles in a bushel.

They are by all accounts,

looking to feel heroic,

and I, either an

old lion, or weathered

lioness will prowl

this artificial savannah,

lazily chasing down books

and elusive poems,

crouching in the thick

brush of my king size bed,

eyeing a plump sestina

which has wandered from the herd.

January 6, 2010

2010-01-06T23:27:00.000-08:00

Today the sun set

just beneath a snow swept

mountain peak. The

wall of clouds became

the pinkish-orange

we only see at dusk and

in mixed drinks.

I quickly fell in love

like children or celebrities,

quick and without thought,

but inevitably the gold shook out

and was replaced by a rather

serious purple that did not

understand me.

I spent the rest of evening

mourning my short tryst

and wondering how any

relationship works

with all of us

rising and

setting.

January 5, 2010

2010-01-05T14:57:00.000-08:00

The herds of men

are gone like bison,

like the great forests.

The ground, still

wet with their blood,

is fertile,

and the seeds are deep and mutinous

and the flower is a sickle.

January 4, 2010

2010-01-05T14:54:00.000-08:00

Waiting on a Straight Draw

I've kept my hand hidden

and checked on the promising flop.

The wheel has fallen

without significance.

Now, I am waiting on the river

to either drown me or finally

take me home.

January 3, 2010

2010-01-05T14:51:00.001-08:00

I woke up red

with helium in

my veins.

Untying myself

from the bedpost,

I drifted up,

and finding a window,

poured out into

the early blue sky.

One red dot

against a caecious

collonade.

Some forgotten Rothko

That has wrapped around the world.

January 2, 2010

2010-01-05T14:42:00.001-08:00

First Words

My niece has not chosen

the word with which she

will begin her life-long oration.

Tongue-tied in bubble gun

mumbles, she crawls on her

chubby knees through a smattering

of traditional choices, hearing

"mama" and "dada" like

an oscillating fan.

I'm sure that she will choose

"baby" or "brother" an homage

to her older siblings,

but a secret part of me

is holding out for "Hwaet,"

a traditional prologic fanfare

of Old English.

I whisper it in her ear

as she coos and cuddles

in my arms.

When she does say it,

her parents may not

but 11th century warriors

will bid Heorot be silent

as my darling begins

to weave her tale.

January 1, 2010

2010-01-05T14:38:00.000-08:00

Last Year

I have folded the days

of last year like small

paper cranes.

I have thrown them

by handfuls into

the windy night

and watched them

make starry circles

in the frozen sky.

Since they left, I have

searched bare branches

and open fields

but have found no

paper wing or still-

flapping day.

They must have joined

their brothers and sisters,

perched high

in an eternal tree

whose leafless branches

are white with our history.

December 31, 2009

2009-12-31T19:53:00.000-08:00

Though the dates have been deceiving, I have finally come back on track. My first attempt to write a poem a day failed, but these failures are merely the slab upon which success is built. I will start anew tomorrow and attempt another year of poetry. I hope that you have enjoyed this year, and I look forward to sharing a bit of my life with both people who accidentally stumble upon this blog while searching for the lead singer for Toad the Wet Sprocket.

So for my final poem of the year:

Just moments before the ball drops,
the sparklers light. and our names
are written in the disappearing air,

I am watching the friends I have
pour drinks and sip anxious conversation
in a poorly lit uptown apartment.

Among the glass bottles and city lights
there are quick hearts that wait
to see next year's

quick turns and abrupt stops
But for now, we casually await at
station, happily we've arrived together

Hopeful we'll see each other
the next time the golden whistle blows.

July 13, 2009

2009-12-31T19:52:00.002-08:00

Like Coleridge, last night
I dreamed in art,
and if I were wise I
would have had paper
and pen at my bedside
and if I were wise I
would have written on the
walls if there was no paper
and if I were wise I
would have written it with
blood if there was no ink.

But instead, I lounged in
the warmth of awake
and let the story vanish,
just like the great skeletal
eel vanished in my dream
with a wave of her vaporous hand.

July 12, 2009

2009-12-31T19:52:00.001-08:00

I am comfortable
on the carpeted floor
of this country home.

My friend, down for the holidays
plays and electric keyboard
whose un-dampened notes
carry chords about the warm room.

Other friends are stirring
small cups of conversation,
walking in tight circles
like toy trains.

Unbeknownst to them, I
am furiously penning it all down,
a play by play of this
seemingly innocuous moment.

When they wake, they will
have forgotten, but I , having
wrapped it in a ribbon of words,
will remember.

And I will tear off the bow
each time my eyes
open this small present of a poem.

July 11, 2009

2009-12-31T19:51:00.000-08:00

My nephews are asleep,
their hands held tightly

over their eyes. My brother,
more impressive to me now than

ever before, is outside in the
cold, biting carrots left for the deer.

he proudly says that he can’t make deer tracks
because his sons will know they’re fake.

He’ll fall asleep tonight, his arm around
his wife and will be woken

in a nut full of hours by the
children who now so soundly sleep.

Grow as I may, my brother will
always be a giant to me.

July 10, 2009

2009-12-31T19:50:00.002-08:00

I am sitting in my
father’s chair, beside
an orange fire in
the early hours of
Christmas day.

The stockings are
a slow cascade
down the wooden
bannister. The trees

with their little glowing
fruit, hold Dollar Tree
ornaments and shield
unwrapped presents
from an indoor rain.

My older brothers are
beside me arguing about
global warming and unregulated
population, and somehow

the gumdrops that
would have danced some
20 years ago in my
childhood head must
tonight, be sorely unsatisfied.

Their gummy selves
stretched out on candy
couches, significantly
depressed by my brothers’
directionless diatribes.

The candy canes,
bundled like barber shop tinder,
another Christmas faggot
waiting to be burned.

July 9, 2009

2009-12-31T19:50:00.001-08:00

The man in front of me
is socially perfect the way
that men are good dancers
on their wedding day.

I can imagine that he’s
been training daily for this
casual conversation he’s
sparked with his unattractive waitress.

I imagine that when he
leaves, holding his smile until
the door, he’ll quickly exhale
the nervous breath he took

when walking into this everyday
shop, whose clientele and coffee are both
rather unremarkable.

July 8, 2009

2009-12-31T19:49:00.001-08:00

The man in front of me
is holding a tomato slice
like my childhood priest

held the broken Eucharist.
Somewhat papal with his
short hair and pock-marked face

I am drawn to line up
in front of him, open my
mouth for a transubstantiated

pickle chip, take a holy
swig from his chai tea,
confess to him my fabricated

sins, then walk away,
terrified, ashamed, and still
hungry.

July 7. 2009

2009-12-31T19:48:00.000-08:00

In this early morning
coffee shop, the runners
social misfits gather.

Some have just awoken
while others wind down
to a short stack crawl.

It is here, I think,
in this hazy center of
the Venn diagram

that people are most human,
both drunk and aerobicizer
overwhelmed by relief

that they are not the other.

July 6, 2009

2009-12-31T19:47:00.004-08:00

The Christmas tree
my mother insists upon
is over fifteen feet high and growing

The ornaments, our
childhood art projects hang
off the plastic giant only waist high

The top is naked
but for the long ribbon of a bow
that spills down each side like crepe lava

my mother
a hopeful
soul, sees
not waste
but canvas
on which
her giant
grandchildren
will paint.

July 5, 2009

2009-12-31T19:47:00.003-08:00

My nieces and nephews
are a coal burning train
that has run out of track.

Hands high above their heads
and mouths wide open,
they run through the kitchen

on fire. My mother, more stern
in her grandmothering years
holds them by the scruff

and tries to catch them
in a sack of silence,
but there are holes in

that burlap sack and
through the smallest one,
I hear a steady crescendo,

a five-mouthed wail
arriving.

July 4, 2009

2009-12-31T19:47:00.001-08:00

It is late in the house
I grew up in, far later

than I would have been
allowed to stay awake

or sit in my father’s chair.
The half-eaten bowl

of cashews sits in front of me
like some still life, hanging in the Orsay.

The seventeen wounded nuts are
devastated at eh bottom of the

chipped, brown bowl.
The window beside me only

gives me a dark reflection
of the sad painting in front of me.

Behind the cold glass, the
winds stir the short hill country

trees like a cauldron. The rains sweeps
our porch like a crying widow, and I

sit shocked in the melancholy morning
of my childhood home.

To think, I thought my parents were concerned for my health
when clearly it was my soul they were protecting.

July 3, 2009

2009-12-31T19:46:00.000-08:00

I am done buying gifts
for the ragamuffin children

who sport my name and hold
a thimble full of my blood.

I have won their affections
with reptiles and ribbons,

and they have thanked me as
their embarrassed mother instructed.

And the machine look in their eyes
as they threw obligatory arms about my neck

is perhaps similar to the look in mine as
they tore through the thin green paper.

Emptiness given, emptiness received.
The ornaments, older than I remember.

July 2, 2009

2009-12-31T19:44:00.000-08:00

I do not congratulate
us for being smart. No,
our cephaloons are helium
filled enough.

But on the rare occasion
that we use what we’ve
been given, that we open
the locks and latches of our abilities,

these are the rare and beautiful moments
that I stand to applaud.

I will not cheer the gun, but the aim,
Not the violin, but the pull of the bow,
Not the tools, my young friend,

But the machines you have built with them.

July 1, 2009

2009-12-31T19:43:00.000-08:00

In this windswept
college town that has
emptied for Christmas
like loose marbles

I am alone in my
little castle of a house.
The doors, now locked,
stand at rare attention

to defend their one king
whose thrown is made of
half-written sonnets, whose
crown, discarded popsicle sticks.