Bells mark time, warn, call to prayeror action, mourn, stir, enchant the air,warn those on foot of what’s behind,announce real presence,open doors between floors,proclaim, “they’re off!”struck by a tongue,hung from a crown staple,pulled, shocked, rolled, rung.That slant poet Louise Glück,feared, she said, famerendered her like Longfellow,a popular poet, unserious,“a frog . . . to an... Continue Reading →
Bob asks most people to call him Robert.“Bob is gone,” he said to his mother,“he doesn’t exist anymore,”but Jane insists on calling her son Bob,and so I do, too, we’re together so much.Before he started hearing voices,before his illness,in his mid-teens,Bob attended a schoolfor the musically gifted.The clarinet and classical guitarwere his principal instruments.He still... Continue Reading →
“You smell like onions”she’s got her scarf around my neckour lips hold each other’s breathand we separate. “I do not.”There’s a broken letter on my deskback home my brother asks me about her.I sleep with another. “It’s cute.” For a second it’s just us again in bed,hand in my pocket, late night walks,so cold you can see the... Continue Reading →
You are no great kings. Charlatans escapading in a quiet man's affair: I wish snow would fall fasterso my footprints were erasedbut car’s speed on frozen roadsand stay still when on ice. I forgot long ago, my phoneis not my friend who walks awaywho forgets to askwhy my eyes stare through space. Yet it feels, wrapped under winterjackets and... Continue Reading →
about this piece Not all that Glitters2024Oil painting on canvas See More in Art...
If “Songs of Seven Days” is your first poetic encounter with this writer, you might be forgiven if you’d quickly skimmed his bio (the words “Dominican friar” leap to the fore), glued that to the “Genesis/creation” theme of the book and assumed it was a stiff, albeit reverential, religious collection...
(from Japanese 夢 (yume, dream)+ Japanese 折る(oru, to bend, to fold))Water can refresh you orjust as easily drown you.It all depends.And it's the same with fog.You can get lost in the fogor you can dance in it.What do you see when youyou fold a sheet of paper?I see a kite thatcould've been a bird, a... Continue Reading →
I am no longer linearat least not for this momentinto which I seem to have squeezedseveral other moments unexpectedlyI opened a gap I foundbetween my thoughtslike a gate betweena façade of housefrontsin front of an unknown beyondI must have dragged those extra momentspast and futurethrough that gaplike universes wrung indelicatelythrough a giant black holeand wondered... Continue Reading →
What is there to be saidabout the humble foxglove?That the flowers that arebeautiful can be deadly, too?Commonplace. Like life, theweight that we bear.The air is heavy, aching toburst in fire and fury. Waiting onthe bees too fast for the cameralens, flies gorged on a monthwithout rain. Its flowers areheavy too; the sun hazy, alight:electric. Swollen... Continue Reading →
It did not snow,but the jackdaws aregathering noisily,filling themuffled chill.Untranslatable.Are they content toremain frozen, too?With this time in between?To watch the lights,both greater and small?To wonder? But no, itdid not snow. Read More in Poetry
