Dog star, always there, in the dog days of summer, in these winter hours that pass like small lifetimes, secret, still, enclosed. I forget sometimes that being a tide involves wide margins, sea changes, rushing in and reticence in equal measure– never ever there but always moving towards it. Dog star, still there, waiting faithfully at the edge of the horizon. Not a portent. Not an omen, but maybe an answer to some unspoken longing.
Day and night, vise-like, bookends to whatever this is. A return? Or stalled momentum. Pieces of salt, like stars, stud the black ice. This year drawn out to its breaking point– a twist of the champagne cork– anticipation is such a terrible ache. And this cold cuts to the bone. Waiting for a word, a sign, breath suspended in the frigid air, and fingers gone numb, only hurting when they touch something warm– a loss […]
The high was still low. In the shade the cold was bitter, and when the wind picked up– Three arbors of grapes, overgrown, neglected, and some chipped clipping shears. What makes a return prodigal? A morass, deadwood, suckers, shoots the color of rust, dried blood, arteries, and the ashen ghosts of summer after summer. Excise, and find the form inherent. To finish a thing, just one thing, done in its proper season and sequence. A […]
The shortest day gives way to the longest night. Of course. The street, this building, quieter than usual, perhaps everyone gone, travelling home, or just asleep. The hour is late, maybe the emptiness woke me, that big, smooth zero, like a rock of ice. You know it would float. That doesn’t make sense, I know. Of course. But that doesn’t make it wrong, either. Harbingers, suddenly listening to Tom Waits, craving a racket. There are […]
More North than home, this morning-still forest– dull today, awaiting more snow, more sky, more anything– a drowsy forest, half-sleeping under packed-down ice, still dirt where the sun breaks through, on some days, but not this one, no more day now than hours ago, barely more than night, the sun somewhere in its low arc, somewhere under these insulating clouds, very little moves, the lake comes as a surprise, so silent at its banks, even […]
traffic sounding almost like the tide this night spent early a couple laughs so loudly in the lobby there is nothing silence can’t magnify particularly stillness a pipe empties from the loft above even ears plugged blood courses through its vessels
Al pastor with big hunks of piña, a raucous song coming from a band of young drunks, is it Roma, Condesa? These streets run around and around like a race track. Cerveza at altitude. Joven, cinco más por favor, con todo. What warmth and light at this hour of night. And absolutely nothing at right angles, walls coming out like full bellies, pavement in riot, this city sinking down into the prior. Poco que sé. […]
Summer went out like a light, extinguished. Rain now pools on the roof, sounds of passive movement, the day cedes more willingly. Water splashes up beneath a passing car, yes, this city is more beautiful when damp, saturated, it carries more weight, occupies more space. Yes I booked the flights. What hell to wait, sometimes, to inhabit every hour, each a different room, interminable. Some hearts come more even-keeled, don’t yearn while floating through a […]
Rain, finally. As if home was returning from battle– the cold slick road engulfed correctly the familiar treachery of a high mountain pass– prodigal clouds come back as if visitors. Who knew this summer could actually end? A timely progression of seasons, how strangely normal. Still a headache from yesterday’s smoke, but seeing it, belief and then such relief despite white-knuckle driving for hours after
It’s not pretty math one saddled with the remainder one the larger denominator one always wanting more This crescent moon is a quarter this night is one third over this silence a tense zero some bad egg that might hatch
OPTIONAL POETRY 