Even the question marks start to look like contour lines— how good are you with a compass and map? Just when can you call a place familiar? Does your stomach also drop when you step off the trail and make your own alone across faceless rocks? Not in fear per se more weightlessness in walking away from the final constraint and either way is that choice still immediate or is it blunted by practice? And […]
The sun becomes a scarlet wafer just before it dips into the lake and starts to dissolve and stars shine through the theadbare night one unified light made piecemeal too hot to sleep when dreams arive they come on fire from across the water that doesn’t disclose if it is deep or shallow
at the sharp end of the day, the month, waiting for a return, a word, a small fly traces a halo for my head, the open window drawing no breeze, heat settles heavily, I wave it away absentmindedly, small ripples around a fixed point, barely any light left now, the first stars, always up there, it’s just that night removes that doubt, and instills others
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
heart of the city cracked asphalt like fire’s detritus it had to be hotter than they said it was feeling the heat even now late the air crackles against faceless glass infinite expansion manifest destiny new construction no heart no love in the man-made canyon voiceless only noise a bottle crushed under tires a snapping metal wire until a man speaks from his rooftop only five stories up leans over and says this this is […]
Last night finding Jupiter with the telescope its variable moons like hesitations, state a thing and the assumption is it is just what was said– No. What else is behind the bright bold object? Quails in the tall grass a plume of dust when they alight late heat and altocumulus the changing of hours kicks up a breeze two hawks pass high in a straight line did the sky move or did I? Question the […]
Arcturus again nights in the city a bus sighs, idling, sounds of passage, low tide traffic and the distant warmth of disembodied lights from a great enough distance things become clear a deserted rooftop everything coursing below and it isn’t lonely at all, somehow
Preamble, indictment, denunciation– grievance is our provenance civic incivility nobody better take it easy because it never has been
spooked by a shadow the sun came out slowly low voices speaking behind a closed door cautiously, sequestered, measured– oh look at the hour it stays light out so late now you forget how late it really is
the grass outside the federal detention center dry and sharp and hollow as a hypodermic needle doctors in lab coats cloud-bright under overcast skies carrying placards two uniforms on the roof watchful, but less like eyes than the windows below narrow opaque the wall’s blank face and those behind it– On the metro, each stop, more, compressing into the car held soley in place by curved backs and bellies and angular shoulders one large body […]
OPTIONAL POETRY 