dismissed

It’s not that your argument is attacked or

your precious name is so sorely wounded, 

it’s the seat at the front of the class, 

the preciousness of the teacher’s pet, 

ever so smart and the last of 

any given word. Sitting astride 

your simulation riding each

tautology around your ivory tower, 

your booming voice not accustomed to

a fair fight. Accountable to

consequence at your end of

the invective, unaware 

that you never learned to punch

your weight, surprised at how 

heavily the canvass hits you,

canceled by the count.

memoir

Measuring in moon form,

in dog days and worm turns, 

seed husk and beetle dust,

the drought dry procession of

loam to breath held and

spells spilled, this furtive 

yearn spent soil wastes 

wishing for the renewal of

old glories, that ghost 

gone for whenever there’s 

some small thing missing 

keeping the whole ensemble 

at that moment before 

completion, when it isn’t so much

a hope as a habit, stepping into 

the strike, knowing the distance,

the difference from probable

to likelihood, home 

coming and going, the signal

hinted in each incidence,

weed green and spring blue.

uncertain are the words

Seasick with the swing of things, 

I smoke my old emotions in

the cool clear spring and 

startled sparrow morning.

Hands all dealt and bets placed 

I fold without following suit, 

hungers never sated, all save

shadows forsaken in these

figures scribbled deep, 

preamble set to the fine tooth of

first principles, the ladder to

heaven left leaning against 

the eaves, gutters glutted 

with abundant leaves. 

Uncertain are the words that

make up all these wishes, 

a voice only ever ached after, 

conclusion and concussion 

the same in this volatile skull, 

a door slammed shut,

garlands dying upon your altar.

foolish things

Riddled at once full of 

the words your world once

hung from, these ripples, 

death rattles, and dumb 

ricochets enter these dusty 

halls where imaginary repartee 

echoes, rot and ruin endure

fresh hells and blooming 

bruises, Pandora’s Box 

spilling from the trash can, 

the litany of all that is no

longer, catching the short

end of the sentience.

A stone, a food cart,

a big box full of rocks.

The smoke on my lips 

touching the whisky of 

your kiss, a room stuffed 

with want and heat, 

the flavor of a lie savored

long after all the truth was gone.

here and there before

It was never much but once

I’d show up here and there

every now and then, people 

were the places that they brought 

along, awkward sun glasses and

a photo postcard, draped in blossoms 

before some temple, grinning bright

before the snow. That was before 

phones were cameras and

there were a lot of other

things to look at, staring up

through the towering redwoods

at some hinted constellation or

gazing out across the reckless sea

the sun long ago run aground.

Now the loop of ritual and incidence 

erase me every day, the words

unwound as the stylus bewitches

the wax, someone speaking

so close it might’ve been to me.

it would be words

It would be words, undone at last

by your caption, the high life 

loosed like the fire of sudden 

blossoms blazing bright on 

a familiar hillside or nearby field, 

deft and effortless in each 

seam and stitch, the gifts

you incarnate, the skills you

reveal smiling as you sweep

another world aside, 

every blessing burning

sipped softly in frame as

scraps and tatters are lifted, 

the wind rising as if carried

upon your breath, beautiful in

this distance set like a slab 

upon an untended grave.

the cosmological constant

Like the blanket that comes untucked 

clutched closer around the shoulders 

against the looming night or 

the cloud rolled into rain, we go

missing, the intent taking sides with

a direction, the motion alone 

enough to empty the tomb of

every dead end, the once both

phenomenon and constant,

fiddling with the figures until

the equation fits, this touch 

a place where my name filled in, 

a calculation to make the story 

stick together, a back then

coming around again, the moment 

here and there because 

I am saying it to you.