By virtue of birth and circumstance I became an untall, unhandsome unfair-skinned, shy immigrant boy and given a chisel with which I can either while away the rest of my years scratching my predetermined epitaph of quiet reservation or take that chisel and put its sharpest edge to my wit, hone my physical form with …
This pillar of Hercules is an unthinking, unfeeling piece of rock with no choice but to hold its ground and jut its granite neck out to ships proud that so many have canonized it as the symbol of strength and fortitude and stability. You stare at this rock with your decades of service to a …
Watch the street’s gutter for movement, look at the reflection against its water, it reacts with concentric circles find low points on telephone lines see if they drip, see the telephone birds not fly away, the larger ones can take it for a while find a moving car turn its wipers on, find a car …
For hundreds of thousands of years, we’ve been trying to figure out how to articulate with our mouths, to build unimaginable machines with our hands, to try and fathom our own existence and the best that we’ve been able to do is scream and fight with each other, fear what is beyond the horizon, and …
Only when I scavenged the bottom of the ocean did I find you an urn, preserved within rust and clay ready to be brought up to surface, cleaned, presented as unique, as timeless, beautiful. And in return, you found a scavenger.
maybe it’s supposed to happen this way. whenever Joe the convict raked leaves within the compound, he would always find scraps that had blown in from the other side of the double chain link fence –a ticket stub to a weekend matinee that young lovers could barely afford to see, a fast food napkin with …
careful where you throw your words of hope. they may fall on rusted steel and cracked cement that make them yearn to be majestic skyscrapers and pristine roads waiting for your magic rain to wash their truths away and careful where you smile to shine a light on wilted petals that turn to your temporary …
show me your pose, your gravity-defying surgery your bonded smile your Clorox hair show me the scars that made wrinkles unnecessary show me the moments they paid for there it is, your egg timer body decomposing with each hustle while your sensibilities go numb with apathy and practice that require five happy hour margaritas to …
the sea made Henry knot a fishline ’round his ring, tie one end to his wrist and throw the package in the water as he stood there, he sang lullabyes to the ocean tugging often at the line to make it sparkle but elusive: “There are no hooks to catch them with There is no …
When the sun shone And the waves subsided And it was safe to wander again, We strayed and tangled rope lines, Forgetting what had stayed us In one place, When the first storms were raging, When we weren’t anchored.
Until the light betrays the way your shadow knows that you are more than shadow, fight Until your skin and bones convince your heart that they are all that is you, fight Until your patience winds up being wound by time’s own limits, fight Until blind luck convinces you that nothing’s left but rolling dice, …
you loosen the binding straps and lay out your heart, exposed to bleed in the bedtime air. let each scar be a syllable. let each wound be a word — in exchange for a hurt, a victorious phrase swaddled by the page while the pain becomes ink dry, and a bit farther away until sob …
Dawn glistened through frost Through a morning window Through a hazy sun, leaning Against the snow on the small mountains. Without paint, I painted By opening my eyes. We drank juice instead of coffee Ate pancakes and strawberries Put our boots on Walked Until the cabin disappeared from the canvas. The wind shifted and took …
As we are: Quixote would stand Surveying the span and depth of the drop. Pick up a stone, throw it nowhere near The other side reaching. Check for bridges and fallen trees, none. A good tail wind to aid a heroic leap, none. A rope, and a team of horses That could pull his side …
Expect my sun to rise with yours My trees to shade My leaves to fade My water quench the spell Expect the grass to live as long Expect the birds to court each song Expect my sun to glow like yours But I’ve a moon to tend, as well.
Even when the fast wind toppled the old and looming tree outside, the one I used as shelter from the days of different sunlights, I noticed the strong double doors of the barn, where I kept the machinery, standing firmly closed–they were held with bolted hinges and metal straps that kept the splinters from happening. …
eleven o’clock at night and it’s time to move the car off the street ’cause tomorrow’s sweeping day when the big truck comes to vacuum along the sidewalk followed by a parking control chase vehicle that gives tickets to guys like me who forget the rules twenty-eight dollar citations written up by uniformed women who …
You were a phone number on a folded piece of napkin wedged inside the bottom of my purse where the matchbooks and chewing gum wrappers fell with all the change and lint and dried, uncapped pens And I watched you float down and almost miss your mark when I emptied the bag above the trash …
The fish swam without making sounds in the aquarium in our bedroom. It was ten-thirty, and you’d unplugged the motor that pumped air for the fish and helped clean the water for the fish, because all that humming, if left on, would keep me awake. And every night this was the ritual. And every night …
Come, Because there’s breath in me Come, I will sing for you, you don’t have to answer…