Friday, June 30, 2006

Words on Writing

In a poem we always seem
to find ourselves in another country
where our world walks down
an alley past shut doors.

We wonder about doors
and the mysteries behind.

Phone calls come and go, aeroplanes
pass overhead and the pool party
two doors away boisterously continues.

W really have no time for doors, for keys,
or other implements which may secure.

Poets are voyeurs looking in for a moment,
describing and ignoring the lifetime.

Tuesday, June 27, 2006

Baffin Island Resort and Spa

Whales

balloons treading sunlight/there’s grace
in fluid lines

we’ve come to watch a window close
and shadows pass/how the ocean’s hollow elbow
holds its children/and memory/and memory

it’s too easy to find sacrificed gods
and blood flowing from sunsets

Saturday, June 24, 2006


By Water Posted by Picasa

Archaeologists look for personal ornaments and art as proof of symbolic thinking

Archaeologists look for personal ornaments and art as proof of symbolic thinking


Wear clouds.
Fly.
Diminish
the importance of
the ground,
the solid anchor—
wear clouds.
Unravel time.
Reassemble events
as a woodpile.
Deny a tree is responsible.
Wear magic.
Express
your feelings for
the side chairs aligned—
like the stars—
in your dining room.
Perceive the persistence
of what is dead
to influence us.
Be charmed by gravestones.
Shed words.
Be silent
and become the novel
you live.
Manufacture your pages
from clouds.
Fly.

Great Blue Heron Posted by Picasa

Thursday, June 15, 2006

Jazz for Candlelight and Wounds

Jazz for Candlelight and Wounds

Midnight is shadow—waits by the corner where buses
never stop. A dog barks through open window
and half-moon rides bucking clouds. Midnight lights
her slender cigarette, exhales the bones of misspent
love affairs. There’s a mystery in that doorway leading
to the grand piano and amber rye. Gargoyles
dance and chuckle in the lengthening hallway’s angles.
Cicadas sound like gunshots—the alley is
a gaping wound. Breathing trickles in the gutter
and footsteps fill the streetlights. Midnight whistles
a monotone tune—today disappears, another page
is turned. The stranger’s secret will finally be revealed.

Midnight and Hammett are trapped in a sultry duet.
Cue the quartet—Coltrane appreciates this music.

Wednesday, June 14, 2006


When Shall We Three Meet Again? Posted by Picasa

Tuesday, June 13, 2006


June 10, 2006. Ready to leave. Posted by Picasa

Thursday, June 01, 2006

Surfacing Into Thursday

The sun’s shining. Yesterday,
it rained.
I’m taking the garbage out—
it’s Thursday.
We need more coffee—
there should be a weekend sale
at Costco.
The paper is late and so
am I.
No time to read emails this
morning.
Life seems so rushed lately,
as though I’m lead-footing it.

If no one touches me at work today,
I’ll survive.
Don’t plague me with your problems,
the fact your life isn’t as perfect
as you tell everyone it is
each and every coffee break.

The Louisiana-humid air hangs;
a coda above
refracted sun. Let
the day unfold with its lines
stolen from a cut-rate porno flick.

I’m driving out of town
and so are they.
We’re the tide,
first trained in the primordial soup
to float, to do the backstroke:
to engineer our survival against
the shore’s wasteland.

Give me my coffee—give me
my morning news. In exchange,
I’ll give you the emptiest eight hours
out of every twenty-four.