Again, short days. What else is there to say? Besides all the things a night can be: Clarity of skyline, articulate distance. I love the red of WONDER BREAD, of CITY LIGHT, old neon signs, all heart. It’s no good here in the thick of it, LED bright and still the ankle twists to the gutter. A huddle passes, soft people, shapes only, the very power of suggestion. And then the street empties out, except […]
And here we are, snow come and melted, the same cool gray as ever. This damp feels like the smell of home after a time away, familiar become new, for just a moment, novel, known. And here we are, the year dwindling, eternal northern nights. Breath like a cloud. It isn’t sadness yet, but something more rare. We had a true blizzard once, trees felled by ice. Numbering the days: what was, what will. Turning […]
Cold coming over the pass, cold rain, the steep drop, the silent lake, couldn’t see a thing. And the lights of those first few towns, so warm at a distance– another arrival, and what then? A stone, no other word. Unmoved and unmovable, aloof. Knit a nest for it, feather the den, dust off the snow– or don’t.
Motion doesn’t always lead to rest. An impression of earning, but the statement doesn’t lie. Derivation of softness, clemency. First declension: Feminine nouns only, and pirate, farmer, poet, and charioteer– from the Greek: I do, I lead, I drive. It must be the tether, the bridle, the ties that bind. The statelessness. Whose earth is this? It’s a Man’s Man’s Man’s. James Brown. Epecticus: It is neither wrong nor right to carve the night sky into […]
The dawn keeps on dawning. What was it that I thought I saw? Quickly forget the taste of lime and salt, warmth that lingers like an honest embrace. Cold rain. The gingko piebald, a tree at half-mast. What is love and what is loveable? The vacant building has a gray façade. A gray car passes in the slick gray street, the fallen leaves too damp to lift. A heavy act, to turn away, withholding. Mark […]
Election night, and sick as a dog. Something I ate. Easy to tell when a thing has gone rancid, but hard to tell when it hides what it is. Take the medicine, stay hydrated, wake up to see what’s become of the world, if it has returned to what was great, for some, who could afford it, and looked just right. And then those dumb appetizers, shit on a platter, too seasoned with hate, too […]
Querétaro state by bus, a ripe sunset, pastel trucks, corn fields and sun-bleached rocks. No country has the exact same color of dust. This is already a new life, new eyes. The old highway winds through high desert, fat-paddled cacti, unknown birds, a dark cloud to the North feathering out, the night, halcón, the wistful sky, lindo, listo, ready to take flight
torrents of rain the hour before departure jewel-tone leaves against a wash of gray the sky gives no hint of time or day leaving I am already a little gone already the cobalt jay catches my eye a promise of color color y calor
The day’s calvacade, a clatter of hours– this life could use more sotto, more legato. A thing is more striking given the proper setting: Consider a spotlight in its wealth of darkness. The weight of a caesura. Excursive silence.
The night before a departure, waiting for that balm of Not Here. It’s supposed to come in threes, but between worse, and worst– I mean, I can’t even tell if this food has gone bad– implications are tiring. I’m going to the ocean, to take in the water’s endless rehearsal and the steady, steady shore, to live in the littoral– there’s not one thing that isn’t somehow in motion, just I wish they sometimes weren’t
OPTIONAL POETRY 