meaning

March 31, 2023

I WONDER

As a poet I would be
most interested in learning
what you read when you
are reading one of my poems.

I know it sounds strange, after all
I wrote it, but often when I read
one of my poems it is different
in small or large ways
from the last time I read it.

I know that each reader in turn
rewrites a poem, its meaning
held close, their filters personal,
never obvious to the observer.

So I am left to wonder just what
I wrote when I wrote it for you
for I am certain it would be
revelatory to know what I was thinking
when I put pen to paper on that day
now quite lost in my past.

February 5, 2023

WORDS, WORDS, WORDS

They can have sharp edges
that wound on contact, some cuts
so deep they leave lasting scars.

They can get stuck in the throat
until you feel you can no longer
breathe, no longer cry out for help.

They can lie there, an
aggregate always acreting
and yet rejecting any meaning.

Or they can, carefully chosen
present great beauty, offer
hope, promise freedom.

They are the currency of poets
and writers, and they chronicle
our history and our lives.

November 16, 2022

MOVING DAY

In my dream last night
I was moving a matress, queen sized,
probably with box springs but
it was wrapped, from my parents’ home
to my apartment, but not using
a vehicle, just pushing it
along the streets, obeying
all the traffic signals, using
my turn indicators, although
don’t ask why a mattress had
turn lights, just accept that it did.
It was arduous work, and I
hoped I’d soon get to the hill
that led down to my apartment,
for it would make the end
of the journey easier by far.
Unfortunately I never did
get there, I woke up first
wondering what the dream meant.
So if you can help me, I would
greatly appreciate your insights,
and you should definitely know
it was a Serta Perfect Sleeper
for I’m sure that makes a difference.

August 23, 2022

IT IS TIME

It is time they said, but they never said what it was time for, although they seem to know. It wasn’t like he was going anywhere, confined to this chair, a quadriplegic. He was the chair really as he had no way of moving it. He had no way of moving anything except by putting it in his mouth. So why, he wondered, did they tell him it was time. It was gratuitous at best and he had a watch strapped to his chair so he knew what time it was. But time meant nothing to him. When you are a prisoner as he was in his body time was merely your sentence and in his case it was likely life without parole

April 24, 2022

DREAMS

It starts quickly and unexpectedly. You do not know when it will start, why, or what it will bring. There are times when even after it is done, you cannot be certain what it was, what it did, what it meant. Often, though, you forget it before you have time to capture it. It is evanescent, an intense glimmer that can quickly fade to a void, as though it was never there. You wish you could capture it, but you know well that dreams act under their own rules.

January 31, 2022

JOSHU’S CYPRUS TREE

A young child
does not ask for meaning,
all things are
as they are
until they are not.
The foolishness of age
causes men to stare
in search of meaning
they will never find.
It is the blind man
who will find the diamond.

A reflection on case 119 of Dogen’s Shobogenzo (True Dharma Eye) Koans

July 27, 2021

DIFFERENT TODAY

The air we breathe is different today,
and we inhale more deeply
with the energy of our youth.

The tears we cry today are not
solely tears of loss and sorrow,
but also of promise and hope.

The wine that we drink today
will be the same as before, but
now sweeter on the tongue.

The sleep that we sleep tonight
will be deep, nightmares banished,
dreaming of a brighter future.

The songs that we sing today
we have sung a thousand times
but on this day the words have meaning.

February 24, 2021

AT ONE

You need not apologize, for we
do not expect it, and would
not accept it as freely given.

It is not that you have not
done so much it warrants,
for that list is long and replete
with all manner of sins.

It is simply that we are not
in a mood to accept an apology,
denied so long, for hollow words
have no real meaning to us now.

And our mood will not change
until you atone for those sins,
for atonement is more than sorry,
it is the work of undoing

and you have so very much
to undo.

August 16, 2020

SIPPING

I spent much of the afternoon trying
to imagine you, spending a small part
of an afternoon reading this poem.

I have no clear picture of where you are,
but the chair is well cushioned, and
you sit deeply in it, a glass of some

amber liquid on the glass and metal
end table, just within arm’s reach.
I suppose, since it is early afternoon,

it is iced tea, bit I wish it were a fine
IPA or better still a fine single malt,
though that much would give my poem

a meaning I never imagined, but
that might be an improvement, and
I think I’ll stop here and join you.

July 12, 2020

WORDS, WORDS, WORDS

We are, he is convinced,
devolving into verbal neanderthals,
losing are ability to recognize
the linguistic tools that once
set us apart from other species,
or at least so we assured ourselves.
She knows that what truly sets us
apart from other species is the arcane
skill we have at being able
to convince ourselves that
delusion, firmly held, is fact.
Still, she cannot disagree with him,
simplicity is a too close cousin
to inanity, and nuance is the first
relative to be cast out. And so
with ever fewer words, we seem
to have ever more to say,
and speaking endlessly, say ever less.