Poetry and About Poetry

Filing Papers in December Walls creak at night, talking to one another in the voices of those who've lived here. That same wind bends around the same corner of the building, howling something about night shadows, pitch-crazy in the back and forth light of green streetlights swaying. And I have no hands for it all. My fingers ache from empty grabs at empty places where a voice had seemed flesh enough to touch. Walls just go on cracking. Even in the corner, wrapped in an old man's blanket, laying out dead years in pages of a manuscript blown into disorder by the furnace wind from the rushing duct, even in the grey shelves where I lay my eyes out evenly, even in the cold-sheeted barebed, ghosts of all the brave days dance. No; don't let the brain go hot. They're just green shadows from dancing streetlights gliding through streaked windows. Just walls creaking cold. Just a wind, not a spirit, answering its own not-call, while the furnace in imitation rushes warmth to a cold...

Oregon, 1972 Tall pines, bed needles beneath, ash below the rock precipice: He has come to an end of denials, and flows with the cold stream of melting ice. He cuts deep with the rivulets. He molds crevices in mud. He tears with the falling water and leaps rapids of rock and time and dives for the valley. Surrounded there by sorties of mosquitoes, water wrigglings of snakes, he drifts thru the swamps to waterfall, and midair dances. He becomes mist He powers the small generators. He runs to the city and becomes a lake, upholds the children swimming, and the sailboats highing to the wind, and he reflects fireworks by night. He sleeps there one night awaiting the change to peacefulness and deep moving. Original version published in The Free Lance (1978

Drifts Becalmed in springtime, tides out, sandbars in, and lost from it all. The scent of coming summer touches, then blows away. But even summer comes down to thunderheads and long days and the humid heat of Michigan. Out on the lake some sailboat drifts, having lost it all, upside down: In remembrance of snowdrifts, other white sails in wet undulations. And someone yells, and starts the dream again. Published in Stone Country (1985)

Back to the River Back to the river, though the time is cold, the night old, but clear, the wind making waves that speak darkly shore to shore. Back to the river, sit beside a smoky fire, eat roast corn, blackened potatoes. Watch my insubstantial shadow flicker ephemerally in the tall trees. Black waves of the river break across the rocks, make music with the shore. The winds that brought the waves are done. Sit in cool grass with river waves behind, with the orange heat of the snapping fire in my face, on my arms. Wait out each wave for the one that turns a morning free, and me back to the river. Published in Ripples (1985)

I’ve posted some exerpts from my poetry reading in fall of 2007 on YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EDy75A1OW-A http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yyXSQP16q50 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5VsYLxIhWl8

I've posted some exerpts from my poetry reading in fall of 2007 on YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EDy75A1OW-A http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yyXSQP16q50 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5VsYLxIhWl8

He Reconciles The Scientist And Poet Bent on quarks and omega mini, eyed by the cosmic bits that you eye on a photoplate [spy into infinity), you might deceive yourself Breaking worlds into worlds, banging clocks together in infernal time till the gears spill like guts in streaks of white, you might spy yourself peering back; or spin a beam around the rim of universe and see the back of your own head bent over a retreating horizon. Backed inside the whirling particles, you watch your watching in a gas darkly. Each time you break something, it only makes something, and the journey spills your guts like gears, and tells you stories in different words. You might receive yourself coming back another way. Published in Great River Review (1978)

We Almost Caught the Turning We had the time to motion a part of the edge to stop its wriggling. Obeying, it ceased, and the beginning was that edge. We took a quasar’s pulse and wondered if it would live. There was the question of life at all, until we discovered ourselves. Beside a nightstand, the unabridged prayerbook opened itself to an astronomical page when the six numbers parted a red season. We almost caught the turning. Then the pulse quickened, faded, and the edge reappeared, unopened again. Published in Great River Review (1978)

He Reconciles The Scientist And Poet Bent on quarks and omega mini, eyed by the cosmic bits that you eye on a photoplate [spy into infinity), you might deceive yourself Breaking worlds into worlds, banging clocks together in infernal time till the gears spill like guts in streaks of white, you might spy yourself peering back; or spin a beam around the rim of universe and see the back of your own head bent over a retreating horizon. Backed inside the whirling particles, you watch your watching in a gas darkly. Each time you break something, it only makes something, and the journey spills your guts like gears, and tells you stories in different words. You might receive yourself coming back another way. Published in Great River Review (1978)

We Almost Caught the Turning We had the time to motion a part of the edge to stop its wriggling. Obeying, it ceased, and the beginning was that edge. We took a quasar's pulse and wondered if it would live. There was the question of life at all, until we discovered ourselves. Beside a nightstand, the unabridged prayerbook opened itself to an astronomical page when the six numbers parted a red season. We almost caught the turning. Then the pulse quickened, faded, and the edge reappeared, unopened again. Published in Great River Review (1978)

Don’t Go Near The Edge Staggering butterflies blind. Dangerous skytraced motions twist the mortician eyes loose from their instaring; the world takes on fluttering. Don’t go near the edge. You might fall, freefall like your dreamself to a bedspring jingling conclusion. “Don’t go near the edge,” the voices monkey chatter from the repetitious windows in the samed in concrete structures in the same and concrete words: “Creations create… Don’t go near the edge.” But those damn staggering butterlifes, nightdeepdiving skybirds after them, sunset pinking the whole whorl with confusion. Dangerous: you might see your blood in the red mudpuddle, might find your eyes on the wingcolors of a moth. Don’t go near them. Even night’s not safe. Moths bound around streetlights. We hire yellow bulbs to keep them away. The crazy white madness tempts. Don’t go near them. They’ll edge you further into the meaningless plan. They...

Don't Go Near The Edge Staggering butterflies blind. Dangerous skytraced motions twist the mortician eyes loose from their instaring; the world takes on fluttering. Don't go near the edge. You might fall, freefall like your dreamself to a bedspring jingling conclusion. "Don't go near the edge," the voices monkey chatter from the repetitious windows in the samed in concrete structures in the same and concrete words: "Creations create... Don't go near the edge." But those damn staggering butterlifes, nightdeepdiving skybirds after them, sunset pinking the whole whorl with confusion. Dangerous: you might see your blood in the red mudpuddle, might find your eyes on the wingcolors of a moth. Don't go near them. Even night's not safe. Moths bound around streetlights. We hire yellow bulbs to keep them away. The crazy white madness tempts. Don't go near them. They'll edge you further into the meaningless plan. They'll edge you into yourse...

Sonnet: Edward White In dreams I float like Edward White who died in fire, but only after he had lost himself in free fall. Get back inside, they had to tell him. He drifted at the end of an umbilicus, his eyes enchanted by the blackest shadows, the purest specks for stars, and the awe of blue and swirls of clouds from the round place that used to be his home. Get back inside, they say, but I drift in my dream above their voices, filled with the blue and swirling clouds. And in a sudden burst, too near the sun, I flame. Published in Piedmont Literary Review Summer 1987

Sonnet: Edward White In dreams I float like Edward White who died in fire, but only after he had lost himself in free fall. Get back inside, they had to tell him. He drifted at the end of an umbilicus, his eyes enchanted by the blackest shadows, the purest specks for stars, and the awe of blue and swirls of clouds from the round place that used to be his home. Get back inside, they say, but I drift in my dream above their voices, filled with the blue and swirling clouds. And in a sudden burst, too near the sun, I flame. Published in Piedmont Literary Review Summer 1987

Hungry Inside Hungry inside, my father eats his way out of my flesh. When he is free of me, all that is left of him within is a rough, brown scab, like a surgeon’s wound, along the left of my abdomen. Hungry outside, my father tries to cut back in. He cannot. Beneath the scab, the scar is pale, lifeless, but firm and tough. It lets nothing back within‑‑‑ his hunger unable to do more than scratch at my flesh. I love him as I love each wound‑‑‑ They are so hungry to be still inside me. But I remove him from my flesh as I remove the scab, stand back, admire the whitened scar, paled, nerveless, hardened. Sometimes there is a little blood. Published in The Blue Unicorn Fall 1987

Hungry Inside Hungry inside, my father eats his way out of my flesh. When he is free of me, all that is left of him within is a rough, brown scab, like a surgeon's wound, along the left of my abdomen. Hungry outside, my father tries to cut back in. He cannot. Beneath the scab, the scar is pale, lifeless, but firm and tough. It lets nothing back within‑‑‑ his hunger unable to do more than scratch at my flesh. I love him as I love each wound‑‑‑ They are so hungry to be still inside me. But I remove him from my flesh as I remove the scab, stand back, admire the whitened scar, paled, nerveless, hardened. Sometimes there is a little blood. Published in The Blue Unicorn Fall 1987

On The Pavement The only monument to the careening weep of car was bled in black on pavement. It washes in the warm rainshower, glistening streetgrease; it will leave no pain, no remembering in the street. Streets forget no more than remember. Streets simply never sense the images they might forget, recall, or distort. The faces of streets soon take their character from the things they wear, in black tar, in rubber remnants, in the sprinkle of glass flickering in mobile streetlight. So the consuming crunch of car body in red paint against the wall is rouge for a dark face. Streets wear the makeup mute, and protest only to the jackhammer. Published in Great River Review (1978)

On The Pavement The only monument to the careening weep of car was bled in black on pavement. It washes in the warm rainshower, glistening streetgrease; it will leave no pain, no remembering in the street. Streets forget no more than remember. Streets simply never sense the images they might forget, recall, or distort. The faces of streets soon take their character from the things they wear, in black tar, in rubber remnants, in the sprinkle of glass flickering in mobile streetlight. So the consuming crunch of car body in red paint against the wall is rouge for a dark face. Streets wear the makeup mute, and protest only to the jackhammer. Published in Great River Review (1978)

In Any Season Trout— rainbow; bass— small or large mouth; pike, walleye, and bluegill; he fishes them all from their water in or out of season. He stands above them on the dock, at the shore, careful that the sun not shadow him across early water. He baits hooks, selects lures. He wades into running streams with hand-woven flies and casts loops of line into the very spot where the trout mouths bubbles, waiting. He walks on ice, cuts two holes, drops a tripline into each and waits in winter winds for a bell to ring, signaling. And when the fish is beached, panting on the sand, pulled into the boat, netted from the stream, lying on the ice, he slips the steel loop through its gills, out its lipless mouth, and snaps it shut. In every season, under any sky, he passionlessly pulls fish from their water, locks them by the gills, and lets them down in the clear air he himself must breathe. He may admire the silvered flesh, the arc into the air, the splash of red-stained water at su...

In Any Season Trout--- rainbow; bass--- small or large mouth; pike, walleye, and bluegill; he fishes them all from their water in or out of season. He stands above them on the dock, at the shore, careful that the sun not shadow him across early water. He baits hooks, selects lures. He wades into running streams with hand-woven flies and casts loops of line into the very spot where the trout mouths bubbles, waiting. He walks on ice, cuts two holes, drops a tripline into each and waits in winter winds for a bell to ring, signaling. And when the fish is beached, panting on the sand, pulled into the boat, netted from the stream, lying on the ice, he slips the steel loop through its gills, out its lipless mouth, and snaps it shut. In every season, under any sky, he passionlessly pulls fish from their water, locks them by the gills, and lets them down in the clear air he himself must breathe. He may admire the silvered flesh, the arc into the air, the splash of red-stained water at sunset, t...

Fatherhood There was the valley, the Youghiogheny cutting through rounded mountains, the red clay my father dug with pickax and shovel to force a home from the grudging hillside. The time was new, the clay dark red with iron, the wind warm enough for summer, but not so hot you’d think of death. My father grunted with each heft and swing. He sculpted that clay with the same careful touch he used when he etched our busts in redwood. He showed me the meaning of the red clay, the river in the valley cleft, the rounded mountains. He showed me the tracks of the deer, the shy brown flash of doe between green undergrowth. He showed me how to find wild onions by their leaves, and how to recognize wild cherry trees by their black bark and sweet sap. And with the sunburnt sweat of his rippling back, and with each heft and swing, he showed me how to cut a home from a red hillside. So with a shaping word I have tried to hew a human place from high sun and the hunger within the world’s ri...

Fatherhood There was the valley, the Youghiogheny cutting through rounded mountains, the red clay my father dug with pickax and shovel to force a home from the grudging hillside. The time was new, the clay dark red with iron, the wind warm enough for summer, but not so hot you'd think of death. My father grunted with each heft and swing. He sculpted that clay with the same careful touch he used when he etched our busts in redwood. He showed me the meaning of the red clay, the river in the valley cleft, the rounded mountains. He showed me the tracks of the deer, the shy brown flash of doe between green undergrowth. He showed me how to find wild onions by their leaves, and how to recognize wild cherry trees by their black bark and sweet sap. And with the sunburnt sweat of his rippling back, and with each heft and swing, he showed me how to cut a home from a red hillside. So with a shaping word I have tried to hew a human place from high sun and the hunger within the world's rich ...

Becoming November Stark trees, slate blue background of sky and mist, grey lake, waved, green banks and brown underbrush, a single car on the bridge going north towards the hill, a group of gulls harsh white in the bay perched on stumps exposed now that the lake is low, a single figure standing on the bridge observing, becoming these sensations at the bridge, obeying his sensations, becoming wet with mist, becoming cold in the wind, becoming stark and grey, becoming November. (Published in the Wayne Review , Winter 1987)

Becoming November Stark trees, slate blue background of sky and mist, grey lake, waved, green banks and brown underbrush, a single car on the bridge going north towards the hill, a group of gulls harsh white in the bay perched on stumps exposed now that the lake is low, a single figure standing on the bridge observing, becoming these sensations at the bridge, obeying his sensations, becoming wet with mist, becoming cold in the wind, becoming stark and grey, becoming November. (Published in the Wayne Review , Winter 1987)

Covenantial More rain. Noah’s rain. The yard fills and a river ripples where grass weaved in once dry winds. A new deluge. A new end of creation. When the clouds have cleared, no dove flies, except two mourning doves loosed from the ground below the bird feeders. No rainbow arcs across sunlit sky. No covenant is written in new God’s spell. But there are two of us, three cats, a house that seems still seaworthy. And if God smiles in the soaked lawn, reflecting like sunlight from a lake where grass weaved in a once dry wind, who am I to doubt that some faith has been restored, some balance kept, some momentousness raised like a lost son into the heavens. It may look very like a cloud. It may feel very like the breath of the divine, drying our small and grassy Ararat. Published in The Huirricane Review (2008) with rights reverting to the author

Covenantial More rain. Noah’s rain. The yard fills and a river ripples where grass weaved in once dry winds. A new deluge. A new end of creation. When the clouds have cleared, no dove flies, except two mourning doves loosed from the ground below the bird feeders. No rainbow arcs across sunlit sky. No covenant is written in new God’s spell. But there are two of us, three cats, a house that seems still seaworthy. And if God smiles in the soaked lawn, reflecting like sunlight from a lake where grass weaved in a once dry wind, who am I to doubt that some faith has been restored, some balance kept, some momentousness raised like a lost son into the heavens. It may look very like a cloud. It may feel very like the breath of the divine, drying our small and grassy Ararat. Published in The Huirricane Review (2008) with rights reverting to the author

This book reveiw was published int h Free Lance-Star newspaper: Ode To Gettysburg Falters: http://fredericksburg.com/News/FLS/2009/032009/03072009/450246/index_html?page=1

This book reveiw was published int h Free Lance-Star newspaper: Ode To Gettysburg Falters: http://fredericksburg.com/News/FLS/2009/032009/03072009/450246/index_html?page=1