Poetry

Still Life

And regards me
With no eyes
And chartreuse
Skin, not quite ripe
Whose hands plucked
You before your time?

They say time sweetens
But lift you up and rot
Is already beginning
Beneath
Did the blossom know
What was coming?

Night Sounds

Tonight I will listen
For the call of the dream
It comes in the form
Of keys clacking on a keyboard
The hum of the dishwasher
Footsteps in a dark alley
A child’s piercing scream.
“Rescue me!” my future cries.
“You know it. I don’t!” I reply. “Tell me, and I’ll come.”
But Fate makes no deals
No matter your belief
Or unbelief
I wake up deaf.

Keats and Stones

I live in uncertainty within this stream
not knowing whether the rock upon which I step
will falter or carry me to the next.
I project upon it a measure of trust, if not fully.
I test it with my toe, checking its character.
Will it receive me? All of me?
Faith is only given after my remaining foot
leaves its current station.
And so it goes, cobblestone,
granite, basalt, negative capability
until the path submerges
and I am in the middle of a rising flood.

Among the Pines

For Papa

They call it Sun Valley but tall pines
Obscure insistent light
Above the concrete slab holding you down,
Your body, not your words.
No bell tolls here.
Sycophants lay spare change, pens,
Empty beer cans upon your name
A crow shit on you, sorry.
The world breaks everyone.
Your last wife lies nearby.
I hope the hole you couldn’t fill
Takes note of the steep snowy peaks
Watching over you
And is finally satisfied.

Masonry

Tomorrow we finish the wall
That never should have been built.
Careful now
The mason knows
How to mortar the layers
So it can never come down.