4. Shall We Three Meet

again to discuss cinquain, how
trains meld with forests and
the web wine spins widdershins
around the minutes of a
conversation?  Like rhythm in
a song, or perhaps drumbeat,
a cartel of lyrics supporting love,
the flavour of decisions, the
sounds when an argument dies —
shall we three dissect  the
meaning of each motion when
our bodies interject?  I love
the way your eyes reflect
the past, the manner of your
hair, your smile, your memories
a plucked guitar, so sharp and
clear one moment and the next
distorted heavy steps across
the graves of all our actions.


On a good day, we walk the trail
by the river; on a bad day, we
wait in an empty railway station. 

3. Speak What We Feel

Dissection is a medical practice
for the torso and extremities —
dissect and learn — apply and save.

Perhaps leaching would be better than
this search for such an exact knowledge
relying on the observational art
of speculation.

Separate from the view and reaction,
then apply principles, how the heart beats
when it is still, how two people love
when they are apart, how an arm catches
a ball when no ball is present.

Which is correct, the pain, or its denial?

2. The Envious Moon

I heard the moon tonight
and she seemed sad.  Zephyr voice
cut into the dark like a first
cut into grapefruit.  There was
copious blood and pain.
I thought of motorcycles
and trains, the hour of departure,
Odysseus, the urgent drop of oars
into Aegean sea.  My only journey
was to the corner store — more
cigarettes, a magazine. They
don’t sell poetry,  they sell
other genres of dreams —
copulin-drenched, testosterone-fed —
that frenetic moment when
the neocortex chooses to fail.  

1. To Be Or Not

Witness to what disappears
as though finally even life is
a burden and each breath
cascades across the rocks
of unchangeable past —

and to wait for stone to
morph into sand is too long
too hard and harsh
too like all that life ever was —

a topography of thorns
of crevices and not scaled
heights — the forever cower
from effort that is too
intense — too dear for youth

and with age impossible.




  The challenge for May, now that cruel April has gone, is to write twelve poems which originate, in one way or another, from the works of William Shakespeare.  Where do Bill's words take you in this modern word of tweet and twerp?  How do they define where you are in life?  Are they for all ages, or just for one?  This first attempt comes from Hamlet.  Does the procrastination of youth exact a price in old age?

In the Absence of Words

Without new words
it’s a dead place                                though old
words still linger putting
                                in time or overtime
more dust than                 a warm memory

or conversation’s echo                  more
                                water dripping
from a dying eave            before sunshine

sweeps away the rattling             bones
                                                of a summer storm
more the sound of                          paper
                and pen               when we still
did it that way                                   or
                                                stone when stone
was all                   and the events we
                created were as ethereal as
a rainbow            a greeting by      the stream

a jumping fish                    spraying time onto
the roof of another world            another graveyard

For WS

Perhaps your voice
hasn’t changed.  Though,
everything seems
alien today.   It’s
comforting to know
that bricks are
still bricks.  Skin as well
is familiarly skin,
still covering
the caverns of half-heard dreams,

like small crabs
scuttling in and out of
their crab holes —
pulse.  I still
wake at dawn,

still ponder the universe,
still love, still find
comfort in the aspirations
of my small madness’s,
still ask the moon dark
questions, am still
separated from you by
a rising ruin of words.