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R.E.M.
I had that dream where I was falling the one ubiquitous in us all, that brief REM engagement where we can remember holding onto the branches of ancestral trees – and letting go, embracing our subconscious flexing metaphor for our genetic fractalization. Even when the Australopithecus first walked upright, she remembered too. Remembered the small…
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National Poetry Month: “Joni”
Her voice was strong and husky the effect of smoking a thousand cigarettes over as many nights. In front of a canvas in her gray room a paintbrush in her hands, the palette skewed towards ocher. she dipped it in to make her mark signing softly to herself a song she didn’t write, but loved. Then she…
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National Poetry Month: “St. Augustine in Love”
She was so beautiful. She vibrated with life. I tossed her an apple from the neighbors orchard she reached out and caught it one-handed her skin honey, her hair like burnt offerings. I needed her like I needed reed and ink. Soft belly and taut breasts held high on her frame like melons fresh from…
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National Poetry Month: “Good as Gold”
79 protons and 118 neutrons arranged in a sphere. It doesn’t rust, it doesn’t turn to dust unless you dump it in acid. Its calculable value is far outweighed by the vast sums of human life spent in order to obtain it. Beyond the binding power of rings or necklaces holding fast the cross or…
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National Poetry Month: “New Energies”
Chernobyl had its time as a beautiful thing, until its fragile steel and ceramic tile broke under the strain of concussive rebirth. It had its time when the Soviets came rushing in wearing nothing but rubber boots and cotton sheets. It collected souls. It swallowed them whole. It made its own power a new machine…
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National Poetry Month: “Credulity”
It takes a lot to believe often there is nothing but the desire to believe. I know that the Teacher was a man of God. He healed, I saw it happen. I could smell the festering lepers, but after he touched them I could see their flesh renewed, revitalized. Pink and healthy. I watched the…
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National Poetry Month: “Love Poem”
She asked for a poem. “When will you write one about me?” In my head I know that all of my writing is about her. Or for her, even if tangentially. I know because there is nothing unique without her. When I go to bed, I give her a goodnight. When I wake up, a…
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National Poetry Month: “Leonard Cohen Sees a Miracle”
You see my little darling that the moon and the sun and the stars all fell at His feet. The Prime Mover shaken taken in the flesh of a man. The statue of the Virgin stepped off her perch, bowed in genuflection before proof of the resurrection. I saw the stone rolled away and beings…
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National Poetry Month: “Bob Dylan has a Vision of Jesus Christ”
Its hot in the desert. The air conditioner is pumping in microscopic sand particles. I’ve got the blackout curtains drawn but the light creeps in through the gaps anyway. I’ve drunk 2/3rds of a bottle I’m sweating Jack Daniels and the walls are moving in inch by inch. I don’t remember who I am anymore.…
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National Poetry Month: “Richard Nixon Asks for Forgiveness”
I told Pat the other day that I was a proud man. Too proud. I had many successes. There are events I regret of course. But I do want to say that I seek forgiveness. You know my mother was a devout Quaker. She was what they would call a “true” believer. She would sit…
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National Poetry Month: “Obscured by Clouds”
There was a steady droning in the sky The horizon dimmed by a vast tower of cloud orange and red swirled together, flashes of lightning outlining lumbering sailors in the haze racing through was a silver pill heated and glowing before a strange umbrella unfolded to slow it and appendages emerged to taste the sea…
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National Poetry Month: “Hitler’s Bunker Blues”
Over the Rainbow The gramophone is playing ‘Over the Rainbow’ Judy Garland is singing, turning from sepia tones to full spectrum color in the blink of an eye. The ceiling shakes in syncopation deep within you can hear the machine guns rattling bombs cause the needle to skip out of the finely machined black track of…
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National Poetry Month: “The Plan of St. Gall”
I’ve got that red ink I’ve got that fresh vellum I’ve got all the time in the world to draw this dream. Charlemagne reigns and he’s got the vision we’re restoring the world like Roma Aeterna. I have reading, writing, and arithmancy with which I will create a monastery. Praise be to God – Gozbertus,…
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National Poetry Month: “Napoleon I”
The balloon hangs blazing in the sky its modern sorcery attracts the eye like a billboard in a dream singing praise for the new regime Regalia like Charlemagne restored in glory away from pain Here arrive the guests the aristocracy, the Pope in Notre Dame, bereft of rest they put their hope Her stones are…
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National Poetry Month: “Powderfinger II”
Note: This is meant as a sequel to Neil Young’s song “Powderfinger,” written from the point of view of the gunboat. Powderfinger We were steaming up the big river the captain said that he had a fever and the humidity had him in thrall all because the rain refused to fall. Around the bend, the…
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National Poetry Month: “Buzz Sits through Another Interview”
Buzz Aldrin is asked to remember it again. The footfall. The desolation. Leave me alone he shouts in his mind. Alone where I can be the spectral captain of my own tin-can ship on a sea of moondust. Sailing under the blackest of skies my wake silver diamonds the Earth my polestar. I call as a…
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National Poetry Month: “Walk”
Around the corner past the mailbox and the severed palms I would walk to school. Past the Mexican market and the panaderia the old Bank of America with its Art Deco marble panels riddled with bullet holes. Past the yellow brick Masonic Lodge and the three long blocks of Dooley’s Hardware – the “Largest Hardware…
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National Poetry Month: “When the Future was Real”
When the future was real when warm ocean breezes blew around the Cape in late afternoon giant spaceships trundled through the sand to find harbor in the rust-red arms of home. When and how were questions for the scientists why was the assignment for the writers. Bottled energies in liquid oxygen in machined chambers of…
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National Poetry Month: “Franklin Dies”
He is dead. And bells are rung. Who rings the bell? That upside down bronze cup clanging back and forth. It rings on the hour and for the moments prayers are needed or expected. It rings out in celebration and in sorrow. This thing come free of chains rings freedom for his soul. Mortal once,…
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National Poetry Month: “Fire”
The Normandie was burning in New York harbor. It was a nebulous sensation the question of fire and the man who watched the cork life vests bloom how fascinating, how pure to see the ignition of plasma and watch its growth from birth to groaning metal collapse into the harbor, the water sprays now floes…
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The Numinous Cosmos 