Recently arrived, wide-eyed and awake well past midnight, dyssynchronous– the ginko here has turned to gold rain plastering leaves to cold windows– it was quite warm still in Tokyo, and mostly green with neon evenings and the unbelievable lightness of being always in transit, mostly uncomprehending, empty as a mouth hanging open in surprise at some novelty, beauty requiring no formal translation, the now familiar clatter of bells at the shrine, claps and bows and […]
Eight-oh-eight in Encinitas surfers hold their place like knots in a net the chipped tooth moon the boldness of Jupiter night comes humid and velvet and matte the ocean all and always the ocean even upstairs in the small corner room with its small open window even in this heat already half asleep as the train rankles cicadas and the coming dark
rolled the windows down at Rocky Reach sweet mineral leach subtle evidence of a brief downpour low evening glow chiaroscuro foothills it never quite gets flat here and the road goes right up the rocks and the rocks come right down on the road the river vermeil and the orchards lush and the long day finally arriving
an abrupt loss of velocity and what is the weather and where is today the durable patterned fabric of seat 27c repeats like a mantra here is here is here inevitably a portable construct and soft cool rain
Flying above the sunset back rows empty a common short flight another Embraer jet probably in our wake ice crystals in the window double-paned, triple? hard to see so hard to say a reluctant goodbye: a begrudging send off and/or unwilling partee what to make of hesitancy? land masses appear below the cloud deck abstract city open to interpretation another stern face unmoved by spectacle
First seen from afar bas relief of steel the edges of Manhattan and proof that it does end and one hot train from Newark is how it begins a car on its rails a needle in its groove a burst of static and the track starts to play
You said it’s still winter, ice sheets around Greenland, while flying, up above it all, hermetically sealed, observing, removed, the ice withdrawing, the ocean stretching to fill a void, although from altitude it wouldn’t seem to be moving at all, there are subtle things you miss from austere heights, giving up detail for the largest panorama, further out, still, with no more borders, strange landforms falling under the very edge of the day, abstract clouds […]
Ungrateful returns. The wind batters the gingko, a cardboard box sails by six stories up. Absence grows familiar, still, unpalatable. There’s a different sort of beauty in these geometric nights, so abstract, divorced from messy life. A light goes on, a light goes off. You wrote from London, it’s nearly dawn there, now. Or then. I still wake and wonder where I am. This sky is toothless gray, no stars for all the light but […]
Untethering in stages– the front door closed the train from work mechanical issues a gate change, delayed, the salmon sky turned black now, it’s beginning to feel late, but when did I leave, or have I left yet? Also a gradient, shades of leaving, and arriving, and still customs to clear when we get there, a man paces, a baby sleeps likes a baby in a collapsible stroller, stasis, the man curses under his breath, […]
I could sleep now in this raft of a bed, or later, or eat an unreasonable dinner, or make something sensible, or wait, getting lost in a book, or a thought, or these small rooms, quieter in your abscence. Another city night, some man sings loudly into the velvety dusk, and it’s not clear whether the high rises are cast in cool blue hues due to this sky or to their glass or if such […]
OPTIONAL POETRY 