OPTIONAL POETRY

It’s not finding a voiceso much as honing it; a mouthful of stones will sharpen a tongue.  

I wish these finches would get to the point.  Mismade the coffee in a haze of sleep. Resembles creosote, not to mention the taste.  A flock of finches is called a fancy, pairing well with the flights of swallows, but I prefer a knot of them; once again drawn to that shifting shape, an illusion of depth as they hurtle small bodies at one another, the cliff, the ground. Why do they do it? Does […]

I think it must be Kenmore Airthat does the run up here, flying right over the house;it’s clear today, and everyone is packing up as he rattles the panes.  I’m staying in this heat until the last possible moment. Have been thinking about the vagrancies of sound; how if you go fast enough you travel before it, how thunder is only closing a gap.  It’s still too cool for heat lightning, but when I next return it may have […]

This has turned into a sort of bout. Not a title fight but I’ve certainly gone the distance: 185 miles and several days; the best I could do at such short notice. Tomorrow I’ll work I say, I’ll right the ship, not write it; a pity for it to end this way, in a desert beside a thin lake but the water here is deeper than I imagined you couldn’t reach bottom if you tried. […]

Still going.  The hills were plywood tonight, rolled in from offstage and heavy on pastels. The rain passed with alacrity; the clouds that were left were dumb sheep things.  They say the coyote came as close as this deck, more brazen in winter, a prouder pariah. I’m not there yet, feeling little delight as a photographer shoots a wedding across the lake, flash after flash ricocheting from the water. In those hills are mountain lions, fewer now, […]

Kubler-Ross, I’m going out of order. Ended up in the weeds, under the grape arbor in the lightest of rain, pulling clumps of them out by hand, sending rocks hurtling to my dog’s great amusement. Although the kitchen metaphor is apt — so far under, I’m standing on the bottom; Metis a major oceanid, myself, feeling salty.

But if you think you can swallow me with grief, remember Metis:  I too could start hammering. No stars tonight, not even that; I suppose we have our answers. I think it was Hephaestus who split Zeus’s head open, saving him from the headache of the woman he scorned. And thus Athena was born, goddess of wisdom. And war.  

Still going. That brings us back to the stars and space-filling models.  It’s one thing to fill a void, another entirely to feed a mouth: your absence is voracious.

Now the neighbor’s voice rises in an aria, a shaky tenor, I’m loathe to do work; at some point, everything has become tiring. A stick -brown lizard startles as the AC shudders to life, resurrected from its former frozen state, strange, ice forming in the heat of the day. I am half hoping for a similar result, pushing past all natural stopping points, tired of rambling towards trite collects, tired of resting, tired of tired — […]