late morning, no snow it may have rained but is not raining presently a vacuum cleaner running somewhere, removing the evidence, making it possible to forget. Somewhere near here the tide turns away a gradual recession you have to stay and watch to see but it’s blocks and blocks away and not really ocean, more constrained bay and I recuse myself from all sorts subtlety this morning, bare streets and indifferent traffic, turn over in […]
they say snow but who really knows a word by itself doesn’t mean much joy today like small shards of glass, tulips from the valley, a busker’s hoarse song, coarse threads of sound and color, saffron in its jar closed tightly
and dreaming of artichokes realistically with fine threads and coarse skin otherwise this winter might devour me, at night looking up spreads muhammara, peppers, roasted red, Aleppo, the roughest cut of salt, cumin earthy as dirt, rude scallions, but in just the right amount, tempered, a counterpoint, what lasts? rehearsals for the inevitable, blue-blooded kale and enough lemons to drown out the world, citrus affront, oil and pith, shock, doctrine, if life gives, you make
Does an emptiness attract more space or manufacture it one or the other such a nice day after all, cold, clear elevator affability and sunlight drawing in everything except those cherished words not anymore through unthinking neglect or something more willful one or the other and would it even matter it may snow tomorrow a line is drawn never benign no, this much but not a breath more a love gone asymptotic
infinita tristeza again and again on the radio a soft rain walking up the hill llorar, he’s singing about the sea a slow walk with too much time to think viento de Washington he sings as if he knows you’d roll your eyes like you always do so stingy with words I’d disagree Manu en cuanto a la tristeza it’s a desert only and dying of thirst but yes, slowly
cold clear morning and nowhere to be morning to noon more sun on the patio hors place hors de combat curling on TV all yesterday and today watching a rock go and then come to a stop and then go again when another rock hits it incomprehensible terms but that seems to be the gist of it an object at rest tends to stay at rest unless acted upon by some outside force the sun […]
Mornings up North the roar of central heat drowning out the creek a sign of life in a sleeping house. Light rain, the snow all melted three days ago, it had lingered a while. A drab bird turns and turns in the holly, but nothing else stirs. Read the news but then thought better of it. The same evergreens here as home. Sometimes a small distance is sufficient, and preferable. Sometimes rueful, cold, intractable. Some […]
Winter, continued tea and quince paste on toast, hard rain all afternoon weariness, dilutional a taste of Spain the label says I’ve never been a dream dredged up on a cold mid-week day in an empty break room in this damp gray state
This morning, walking, a welder’s sparks falling inside a building frame, a cage of flames and empty space, of noncommittal sky. Sactum sanctorum, with its quietest corners, a heart, too, is made from many rooms: antechambers, foreparlours, endlessly recessing, a heart has no heart to it, it is a door that opens and shuts. Passage defines it, existence demands it, a place of access, and egress, that hue of regret. Somewhere along this way, honeysuckle […]
a border is a boundary or a perimeter that defines a place in physical space but in gerund form bordering implies proximity to a dangerous extreme each sense topical timely but also ominous its antonym it’s hard to name exact shades of gray winter sky suitcloth ashy ashen censer censor one is smoke the other smoke and mirrors what is implied implicitly can still be false scarier is complicity best to clearly state a border […]
OPTIONAL POETRY 