Upon the late hour,
the fog and mist settles in and tucks my bones
into a soft sense of belonging
so I may sleep at once.
But no sooner do I close my eyes
then fantastical bright lights,
the colors that used to dress my body and flow through
my veins and out the cuts in my arms,
are dancing off into some distant masquerade.
In one scene
cutting through the fog that is now a sea
a shark is there.
And he moves so carelessly to and fro
gently cutting the waves. Suddenly he is by me
my hair extended in a hello, and
with an understanding, he passes.
Category Archives: poetry
Confessions (on a rainy day)
Driving rain on the skylight makes perfect music for reading. Have Hawking’s A Brief History of Time and Kerouac’s Book of Blues and I’m not sure that it is such a great idea to read them at the same time…..
Anyways, a confession.
Confessions
What I wanted—
This writhing naked soul.
You, the ancient samurai,
Split in half with your guts spilling
With a sense of duty.
What I thought I wanted was
This blank admission.
You, as a great artist,
Throwing paint in heated frenzy. Desperate
Through the mess to speak.
You, as a lover,
Throwing your arms around mine
And lifting me up, and up,
until.
What I need now—
A quiet meditation,
a hushed whisper and time to think.
Finding an Old Master: Leaves of Grass (The Deathbed Edition from 1900)
One of the coolest books I’ve ever held in my arms, Walt Whitman’s Leaves of Grass from 1900, publisher David McCay. Found when going through my grandparents’ and great aunt’s things. How many have felt that same spark when holding it. Sigh.
Finding an Old Master
The smell of dust, dirt,
years of basement trappings
wafts to my nose
and surprises my brain.
The book heavy in my arms,
the spine aches
when I turn the pages.
It is old but prescient.
With its age it realizes
many things–
among them
a collection of dewy sighs
and fingerprints, some ghostly,
settle into my own
and together us pioneers
continue the story.
ghosts at church point (at st. mary’s college of maryland)
Justin lays frozen
beneath a pile of oyster shells
on the slope of the hill
at the edge of the old graveyard behind
Calvert Hall and the church.
I press my hand
on the cold metal of his name and
continue the walk down gravel
to the frozen river, the shore dressed in white.
At the end, a tall wooden cross
guards the river. I lean against it,
steamy puffs of air rising
up with each shallow breath,
one gloved hand splintering wood.
I hear birds flapping their wings and water
clicking and clacking in a strained attempt
at escape. There, the frozen horizon; it
stretches far beyond my sight.
Spread wide, my arms north and south,
face pale and cold, cheeks ruddy
from light river breezes.
The songs of the Sunday
church choir come floating in my brain,
the ghosts on the hill with
their soft waves of whispers. I walk
closer to the water; I am now
closer to that compelling
that led Justin quiet from this life.
(Rip, Justin, April 30, 2001)
Goodbye Sassy Cat
Seriously all over the place today, thinking about mortality in all ways. My parents got me a grey cat for my 11th birthday. She was the best~ and now, age 19, she is gone. For those animal lovers out there, you know how I’m feeling. Thinking all sorts of things. It is the end of an era. Goodbye Sassy cat.
Writing an Obituary
It is a clinical process:
I take the facts and look at them in their structure,
their organization.
I try to remember newspaper etiquette and to
include full name, date of birth,
date of death,
names of family who are left; names of family who are gone.
I am part of those still here, made especially clear
as I sit typing.
I am alone with my syntax; I am alone with
my gift for turning a phrase or placing a comma.
It is not enough.
feeling careless (wine in the bathtub)
In my bathtub
legs have to bend
under the bubbles
smelling of lavender and vanilla
and fading fast; faster
they float off on some
imaginary breeze
when my fingers skim the surface
and make ripples in the
fading chalky streams of soap.
My head rests on pale
yellow tiles and my one arm
lazily sinks
while the other tips a large
red wine glass full
of tannins and aged oak
and hints of spice and vanilla
to relax the
fading chalky streams of soap.
I finish the wine,
crumple my body,
sink my head
under
water
till it spills over the sides
onto a canary yellow bath rug.
Pine in Bryce Canyon (and i’m back from Jamaica)
Back from beautiful Jamaica… and I’m not sure how I convinced myself yesterday to get on a plane back to Baltimore after all that sunshine and blue salt water and all the friendly “yeah mon”s… And since I haven’t finished processing it all, I went back to an older poem from an older trip, my cross country trip in 2001.
Pine in Bryce Canyon
Stretched between tall
hoodoos of red sandstone
burning hot beneath summer,
a lone pine stands. Its
roots strong
to the dusty red ground,
and its brown trunk growing
up and up
and its green needles bursting
from their thin branches. It
heaves a light swaying sigh
of being ever green in
all red rock and dust, yet
after all, this pine
still thirsts for blue Utah sky
and gazes up longingly.
Vultures
One more… this one less about Zach, more about the city, how violence is weaved into our consciousness until we believe it is natural, normal, and beyond our control.
Vultures
I peek between blinds dusty
On my fingers, nails,
Black with dirt; I watch through slits
The blood from kick after kick
A head on a curb, dirty with
City grime and lost hope and fury.
A body curled fetal around a tire
Desperate to stop the pain.
I close the blinds
With a quick clip of my fingers,
Flip my cell and make an anonymous call.
I sit on a ratty couch and drink
A cheap beer and think of the time
I saw a vulture
Eat the eye of a dead sea turtle,
the smell forcing my eyes
To take another direction and leave the bird
Alone with its dinner.
Poems to Zach Sowers (9 Months and Decision)
It’s been two and a half years since a friend of mine was attacked in Baltimore a block from his house and a few blocks from where I was living at the time. His name was Zach Sowers, and the brutal attack from three teenagers sent him into a coma from which he would never return. It was a time of immense emotion, waiting, upheaval, anger that rippled across the city, thanks to Anna (his wife’s) tireless efforts to affect change in a city so adverse to it. This profoundly experienced the way I view the city, and the way I view life. You can read the full story at http://www.zachsowers.com/. I wrote more than a few poems throughout the time. These are two.
9 months
At 27,
I was walking home from the bars
late, to the house, to my wife of nine months, to our dog,
and then there were shadowy figures and darkness.
The pain was intense. I floated above myself
for nine long months, waiting. Then the pain disappeared.
The waiting is over. I’m with my ancestors
and my heart beats on
in the breast of my wife.
(RIP Zach 3/25/08)
Decision
You vomited blood like coffee grounds.
And I read these words
of an unexpected setback
in a quiet office that overlooks a long hall.
I wonder
about the statistical chances of God
existing to send you
a miracle; weighing the prayers of those around me
against all of that
Existential philosophy.
Later on tonight,
when I’m sleeping, I expect to see you in my dreams.
I expect you to say,
“Cheer up. It’s my decision.
I’ll either walk the hall back to you
or I’ll go the other way.”
Age 92
92 and you
Bruise so fast, when catching
Your wife who
Dizzy and falling, desperately needed you.
And you were there.
You were there
During world wars,
During depression,
During the birth of two boys and one daughter,
Then seven grandchildren, now six, the
Loss imprinted
On the lines of your face.
This week is 92,
But you say, 38 ½ years have gone by
In a joke that is at least
Twice my age.
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