It is tempting to be partial to a wicked nation, elated as a worshiper of tilted things. I cover up the margins with a splendid partner who aches for glinted wings. Forever tossing between lightness and weight, plunged through painted waterfalls, my armor slips off my body and I am prodded. I am stuck. So, … Continue reading It Is Tempting
Tag: poetry
It's in the space between the notes that you go caulking up. I fear it is the only thing you truly know to do. You fill in every nook and cranny. The air is trapped inside. Be careful as you do your thing. The whole thing could implode. And yet, there is a fire in … Continue reading Caulk
When it rains, I can hear children cry when can we go outside and play? When it rains, I see the shipyard's masts gone from their aching sails. When it rains, there are mudslides, but not where I'm from. Where I'm from, the fields go thick with ponds, spreading. When it rains, the bales of … Continue reading Summer In the City, Now
So this is a marriage! Lightness and darkness intertwined with caustic wit, erasing all that dangles by a golden thread. So easy what is thine to duck into a world of mimes never singing at all or even nodding along in time. So this is October! Leaves slipped from once-green canopies drifting down from their … Continue reading Autumnal
It is irritating to recall my hometown. Like a cause and effect puzzle-- Where were you when, and then What happened? Rural Ohio isn't much to discuss. It is open fields of soy and sod, It is gamesmanship with guns. It is a small child, Who looks younger than his age, Learning to shave at … Continue reading Rural
For the sake of my Father, certain things must be done in a certain way. Certainly not carefully. He was never as careful as he could be. I make it a point these days to be so. But I can only be careful for so long. In intermittent droves, my canceled plans go drifting, and … Continue reading First Lines
Oh, with fantastic shivers, run Beside a candle dripping upon The table 'neath the shelf above A chair you sit, too dear It's backward, yet sincere And for the forgotten, it's been said There's nothing more to distinguish in it A portion of reconciled air Of putrid soil and debonair Stares You whittle off a … Continue reading To Havens Racked
Tripped up, forgotten, begotten all plumes for a way into a sinister land of lagoons, to be placed in preparedness, caustic and choosing no hope for a handgun--peace is our rule. And laughter is switched by a birth of insanity playing about a version of Sean Hannity. Plucked and bruised is my thoughtfulness, plain. You … Continue reading A Trick of the Mind
Waltz with high periphery beside no faded fantasy, as rain befalls no pretence on your lawn. And as you pass a blind man on the road speaking in tongues to no one, just don't look and he won't bother you. He is simply well involved in something else. And what? is not your problem. So, … Continue reading Doctor of Deliverance
Distracting no difference to mean in the shade or deliver cold shadows through heavens abiding no distance from Babylon, tried and be true, like the canvas I notice is yellow and blue, and the worm in the soil can't think thoughts I am sure, but you are no different and I'd tell you if you … Continue reading North Facing
I am an old piano Born in Manhattan. And with barely 70 keys, I still sit grand But not a Grand Piano. I'm ornate, it's true, And one-of-a-kind. A gift for a wealthy child at first But he never played me. I just sat in the corner of his room and looked pretty. Over the … Continue reading 1858 Steinway Square Piano
And I'm still half asleep as the morning bell sounds. I shower, shave, and make coffee. Forty-five minutes on the train to Union Square, where there are too many people sleeping on the ground. I take myself inside and the store's still in shadows-- And I'm going down stairs masked from the bit of daylight … Continue reading The Strand Shelving Shift
Our life is not a movie or maybe. Beyond what contrives to be able to be a cold wreck of dawn when the cities were towns. Just forget what's begotten aloft and brought down.Unless it's kicks you gave me. Unless it's tricks you played me. Unless it's patter with the crowds. Unless it's mixed to shame … Continue reading The Greatest Album of All Time: The Stage Names by Okkervil River
Work might get in the way of resting on your laurels. Work might take your hangover sideways toward illness. Work might play with its guns as you've cleaned out the sheets. Work might pace around screaming "more socialist seats!" Work might leave you in stitches, and cry out, "you fool!" As you waltz passed the … Continue reading What Work Might To Do You
It's March and you can't find your sunglasses, but it doesn't matter because the sun isn't shining. It's midnight and you're awake and you don't know why, but the moon is out and smiling and the street lights are on and it all makes you wish you had your sunglasses. Frozen in time, the world … Continue reading Midnight Without Sunglasses (after Frank O’Hara)
