On days such as this you’ll find me reaching
into every nook and cranny, tidying up as though
I had it in me to put things where they belong.
On days such as this you’ll find me reaching
into every nook and cranny, tidying up as though
I had it in me to put things where they belong.
Whatever the purpose of childhood beyond learning
to read and count, to say please and thank you,
it is this: to persist in playing long after Dada says
it’s time to go home, until, cold, wet, and hungry…
“The last temptation is the greatest treason: To do the right deed for the wrong reason.” ― T.S. Eliot, Murder at the Cathedral I have accumulated much, living this life: gadgets, garments, souvenirs of a desire briefly sated, denied, unrelenting. […]
I had a dream where from an impossible height
I took in all the splendor and all the pain
we’ve learned to live with.
Every poem is a love poem, even one about plastic rain.
Why else bother to save anything—rainforests, whales…
The winter was mild by New England standards.
We stayed indoors, set the thermostat to 70, and
when the energy bill arrived—late, because, lest we
one day forget this epoch, the mail, like so much else
about our lives, was being sabotaged…
I breathe in the air that happens to make it through my screen
door and imagine what the particles contain—mist from Katmandu,
Dead Sea salt, dust of meteors, ground-up dinosaur teeth…
hail flattens the grass
not all bruises blister blood
each blade asks why me
I’ve come to master just one magic trick— not conjuring rabbits, not sleight of hand— but to make time disappear, to stop its tick and gab, at least a moment. Yet I stand alone, on stage, unsure of when it […]
Mom has been cleaning the house I grew up in;
she’s mailed me a stack of old poems I wrote
by hand, back when I wrote by hand and carried pen and
paper at all times—just in case. The poems are no good…