Deep in thought I missed the exit. The hatchback in front of me almost did the same. What a night, with its unreasonable coldness, reunion dinners, and unplanned diversions through childhood towns. Once I saw the church I knew exactly where I was: Still lost, just no longer in the temporal sense— I mean yes, a course can be corrected, but home— The point is, it isn’t entirely a place, and a longer drive just […]
Upstream, they’ve built gardens out of marshland, plots of leeks patrolled by bitterns, the water plate-glass flat, growing brackish in summer, précis: the color of indifference. In town, day-drinkers float in a sea of wicker and ashtrays and flat-faced dogs caught up in their leads. Beyond the quai the church bells toll time, here, another passing hour is only another train that’s gone. Somewhere farther up North, the river dumps out, in memory, the coast was always cold. Even on a sunny […]
I could go or I could stay or stay for now and later, go– these are the dangerous hours, they curl in like something clipped from its life-source, dead leaves, finger -nails– time seems to shorten and encircle but I wouldn’t quite say trap– it’s only a cage if I want to go out, which I might, but maybe not just yet.
It seems unfair to be tasked with motion when all of nature is still and frozen– the first true frost puts pallor on the cedar, slips a chill past the window, blatant warnings I would gladly head if only I could, instead of turning out into darkness ghosted by ice to go someplace I don’t want to be.
Do you remember when we went to Vicksburg? I barely do; it was during a photography phase, I saw only light and contrast. The negatives are somewhere, solo cannons, graceful oaks, field and sky the exact same value of gray when rendered in black and white. But these are Union men, I remember that much, were Union men, and a few Confederates they buried by mistake, and left, resigned to the politics of dirt. The […]
This time of year here my dreams turn to impossible mountains under their soft coatings, meters of snow making unreachable hidden places, everything is coming in now so I am going out, drawn into the thinning woods at receding hours to run a trail cloudy with mud, until my lungs seize up and my skin turns red from iced rain, I see no one else, not even birds are out, just me and the visible exhalations of breath, […]
A routine reversal, hard rain at three last night, then blackout silence with its own brand of guile– a blend of impatience and dread, both long disassociated from anything tangible, also hope and its dampener, prior observation. It seems impossible, the stillness of the night, and what propels me towards the kitchen in search of a glass is a thirst for motion, and not for water.
Last night, the moon, over the lake– we slammed on our brakes, caught our breath, allowed it to swallow us. The storms have passed, with light acting strangely after sustained destruction, its opacity failing to soften the stark delineations of broken limbs. Their cut-back reach leaves more space to fill; a sly fog condenses on the forest floor, rises up to windows and doors, sounding out the double panes; when I woke this house was afloat in it, […]
[Nighthawks — after Hopper] Night renders them toys, people shapes, a yellow glow, how gratifying to see lives in motion– she stifles a yawn, he is looking for something, how safely intimate— there is always a space between all I could say, all that I could love, plate glass, evening air, a catalogue of neon, bent tubes lending a voice to the hours that should not ever have been reached, erratic streetlamps, a passing brakelight ring […]
The courtyard undergoes serial dilutions, the rain making miserable and pooling underfoot. There’s nothing that can’t wait. Or no consequence real enough to blunt this murk; it’s cold by the window but none of us move. Even the geese have long since bailed, a lone crow flies higher than usual, it doesn’t even look alive, but more like a hole, a mobile, missing piece of sky, and when the rain rises the crow goes too, or the […]
OPTIONAL POETRY 