standing alone
outside the office
smoke lingers from
previous breaks
head leaned back
to the sun and
across the way
someone is sailing
-
smoke break
-
A Book to Read While Looking for Work (featured essay)
Check out my new essay on E. B. White and my own unemployment journey – featured on Better Living Through Beowulf:
A Book to Read
http://www.betterlivingthroughbeowulf.com/?p=4279
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these boys in my head
these boys in my head
vying for attention
fighting
and pulling me
this way and thatthese boys,
one (maybe more than)
who was meant to be
one who was
for the time being
one who
knew all along
and one…
-
Wide Rivers
From my great-grandmother’s book of poetry, Where Children Live (1958)
Wide Rivers
A small boy has no use for gentle rains —
He watches with a weathered eye and mutters
For rains that come in torrents, flood the mains,
Overflowing streets and leaf-strewn gutters.He sees wide rivers, far as eye can measure,
And, in storm-tossed debris, boats filled with treasure.
-
lightning in the distance
and so it ends
lightning in the distancewe all have brief moments of
white hot
sand into glass
prism light – these choiceswe all are in danger
of ending a
flicker in a sky
between clouds shyly
aware that some
won’t ever hear us
thundering.
-
poetry takes her leave
poetry stalks leggy
head up, blushing,
turns around and slams the door–
“we” laughed for hours
at the haughty exit scene.
-
my first sight of Alaska
glimpes of streams
and teases of
jagged peaks behind
scarves – lace silk –
clouds, some
more like a corset.the road curves ahead…
on either side
obscured mountain impressions
spruce – dark green tall thin –
and rain.[written in 2003 within a sketch that i can’t reproduce here…]
-
we are vampires
I drain your thoughts away,
and then there are the glances and that subtle
flutter when you approach.We crawl the night thirsty.
Desire between the damned is
my need to hurt you,
bite scratch claw you bloody.
And your need to lash out
those few nihilistic times we speak.We know nothing of the other beyond these walls.
But then
in the haze of smoke that hangs down from the ceiling
like electrical wires
and loose panels under construction,
in the only light of green beer bottles and neon signs,
and empty sticky shot cups,
and those not amused by life anymore,
and the ragged dying breath of slow drunken dances,
and good girls sliding down poles,
and bad girls hiding in the bathroom,
and big muscled men and shaved heads singing Godsmack,
in the last hour,When our eyes have adjusted,
you kiss me goodbye.Panic before the world turns bright.
The frantic cramping fear that we have wasted it all.We are thirsty gluttons for punishment.