Monday Poem

Confluence of Friends We sit under the stars in wicker chairsOnly the light of galaxies reaches us,that and the spare, streaked flash of meteorsin August. The dust of the Milky Way,a cloud of packed suns separated by light yearsdisappearing behind the house roof southand the trees north at Halberg's garden,looks no more than smudge-likein this…

Monday Poems

Time Loops. “I don’t think I ever was a child.”……………. –Coleman Hawkins, top sax jazzmanJazzman Idon’t thinkI ever was a child WasI a child?I don’t think— IfI ever was a childI’d know. …..Idon’t. Idon’t even know, jazzman saidif a child ever was Child,jazzman said, I don’t just thinkI play jazz man Halberg's Rooster Up the…

Monday Poem

Questions Philosophers Ask:#1-Why Does the World Exist? there might just as well be nothinginstead of the risible sun which makes me laughwhenever it comes up coincidentallywith the punch line of a joke that alsocould not have existed had someunknown condition not broughta comedian to a point in the cascading events of amillion million millenniato imagine…

Monday Poem

Key and Gate Heading out the doorI forgot my keyand time is short it’s latebut I’m going nowherein this keyless state Last night the moonphasing out againwith its back to utter reachesseemed for a secondlike a key or switchneeding a turn or flickto open or startsome thoughtI don’t know what butimminent nonethelessbehind the moon’s backthrough…

Monday Poem

Speed and Trouble Sunday……………… —my head spinssuddenly it’s Saturday again wind whistles through hoursdays are bullet trains yet in this garden long as the space of a light yearcrows drop in to listen for the bristleof worms making way belowthrough a sea dark as biker leathersblack as predator feathers I love these crows……………………… —being sowe-are-masters-of-this-row…

Monday Poem

Storm whips crack over theback of Massamet lurid lightcolor of lime May spits crazycat calls throughthe wet lips of June croaksbig threats groans like distant trainshauling mayhem up slopes sky, a mad gymnast of electricitytumbles and casts boltsthat land like T-Rex bonesupon a timpani drums thump down undercircumambulating blasts of Jericholet-loose spirit uncorked jinnflattens new…

Monday Poem

My breathing system seems to be:these lungs within; without: those trees……………………….. —Inspiration. Conjoined There are mountains in this pic of withered leaves—as from a satellite and voids in shadows they recede but I see brittle peaks bright spinescurling from dead stemsdry as earth desiccated by the practicesof men: light filamentsthat have broadcast life and breath:…

Monday Poem

Easter I should be devotionalin my mother’s waystanding at the mouth of a tombwith its rolled stoneempty as the night sky between starsempty as the space within atomsbecause, they say, a man diedbut beat death and wouldbequeath immortalityto those who believedeath can be beat entirelyso that bodies may embrace in heavenso that what was so…

Monday Poem

Breeze I dreamt I wasdreaming in Chineseso didn’t understand my dreamthough it’s calligraphy was clearas the brushed strokes of breeze. the characters Lao Tzuclimbed behind closed eyes but said as little as they couldmounting nothing hill obliquely vanishingbetween two skies. I came upon a Buddhasitting circular and wise as a pictographwithout a word silentlyloquacious mutely…

Monday Poem

Fresh Brim-Feather Inside the eye of a new stormare you lost? came the question;came as a little nesting tornado, awindy Matryoshka tuckednaturally within another;a wind like the tiny tempeststhat lift street leaves from gutters in fall—a miniscule funnel by standards ofTornado Alley butif you’re small (as smallas a small thought)the small question,are you lost in…

Monday Poem

Alarm Wake up as much as possiblebefore you sleep………………… catchyour breath while the sun’s upwhen……….in February after a snoweverything’s so soaked with lightsleep……… is impossibleand all that’s left is to catch a dayby an hour………………. and dance.. ….in incandescence forget……….. about sleep and dreamsforget……….. the doldrums andwake……….. to what the crows cawcackling over road kill…………………