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May 12, 2023

EDITOR

The problem with having someone
edit your writing, particularly
if you are a poet, is that
the moment they go beyond simple
punctuation or obvious grammar
they are writing their own poem
and to some lesser or greater extent
the poem you gave them no longer exists.
There may be something to be said
for allowing that, for when they
return their poem and you edit
their edits, you rewrite it again
and it is yours once more.
But it is better to read it to them
for then their rewrite is transient
and fades as you walk from the room.

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.

March 22, 2023

STATUS OF LIBERTY

Do us a favor
hold back
on your tired, your poor.
We’re no longer real hot
on those yearning to be free.
We left it on the plaque
but no one’s supposed
to read them anyway.
Take the hint,
we closed the Island,
made it a museum
that ought
to tell you something.
Emma’s dead, get it,
and Lazarus, well
just read your Bible.
We closed the sweatshops
and shipped out
all those menial jobs
to Mexico and the Far East
so you’re of little good
to us now.

So stay home
at least until you’re fluent
and can speak at least
one Scandinavian language.

First appeared in 45 Poems of Protest,Eleventh Transmission, 2019
https://waxpoetryart.com/eleventh/2019/faber.html

December 24, 2022

BUT

On more than one occasion
someone has come up to me
after an open mic reading
to tell me that they love my work.

I am honored and tell them so
but curious as well, since I
only read two poems, which
hardly counts as my work.

I offer to sell them my book
at a substantial discount,
but they inevitably tell me
“Thanks, but I don’t read poetry.”

December 9, 2022

WORDS, WORDS, WORDS

My mother surrouned me
with books, “read, read”
she would endlessly say.

And if I had a question,
“Look it up, it’s why we
bought the encyclopedia.”

I became a voracious reader,
skilled at finding answers,
never stopping to think.

Now, years later, I know
why I had to read, why
I had to look things up.

What she never said, but
what she clearly meant was
I can’t be bothered now,

can’t be bothered most
ever, so be self sufficient
so I don’t have to mother.

October 18, 2022

UNANSWERED

There are so many questions for which I have never gotten an answer. What, for instance, does one who is lactose intolerant cry over? If the rest is history, can’t we just stop now and read it later? And if every cloud has that silver lining, it has been well seeded, so why isn’t it raining? If you sleep on the left side of the bed, do you always get up on the wrong side? And when I answer your next question, I will start by saying “to be dishonest with you.” What will you do with that, Epimenides?

October 8, 2022

SLEEVE

I wear my heart
on my sleeve, he said,
so you know what I’m
feeling at any given moment
and I am an open book
so you can read my thoughts
whenever you wish to do so.

His smile said he was
proud of this state,
and he did say it set
him apart from most people.

She laughed and said
to him, “But you know
by being so transparent
no one needs to spend
any time with you, they
know your story. And, he
added, “If I ever have
a heart attack, they won’t
ruin a good shirt when
they apply the defibrilator.”

August 9, 2022

ALL THAT JAZZ

The magic of jazz
is not what you think,
there is nothing random
even in the wildest, in
the acidest of solos.

Cacophony is randomness
and the key to jazz
is to see the
invisible logic,
read the mind,
be the mind
of the musician.

It is zen, but only
if you stop searching
and just be in its
moment.

July 30, 2022

WORKSHOP

Grace settles into the chair,
less an act of sitting than
of floating down onto the seat.
She has borrowed my grandmother’s
smile, kind, gentle, inviting.
She pulls a book from her bag,
its pages or most of them
dog eared, and I glimpse
some annotations in the margins.
We sit around her like children
awaiting presents on a holiday,
as acolytes seeking knowledge
from a font of poetic and prosaic
wisdom, or so we think.
She reads in a voice that is
at once soft and loud enough
to reach the back of the room,
opening the book to a random
page and diving in, then after
what seems like a minute and
an hour, she stops and asks
for questions. We sit dumbstruck
for a moment then fire at her
like machine gunners on the range.
She answers each, claims she is
a simple grandmother who writes
but we know better, know we
are in the presence of a true master.