wish

October 4, 2022

TWILIGHT

In the twilight of the dove,
that moment when the sun’s
retreat has only just begun
my shadow stretches
ever so slowly into oblivion.

I hear it whisper to me
a promise to return and I
want nothing more than
to believe it, for the grant
of another day is a small
wish granted, one I make
with the knowledge that
the genie of age is growing
ever more tired of responding
to my unchanging request.

Appearing night makes
no promises and the stars
consider me and us all
inconsequential in the
celestial scheme of things

September 1, 2022

SIX FEET UNDER

I remember the afternoon
was cold and damp, with a persistent
drizzle that escaped
the clustered umbrellas,
the sky a blanket slowly shedding
the water that soaked it
as it sat out on the clothesline.

I suspect you would have
liked it this way, everyone in attendance,
everyone shuffling their feet,
wanting to look skyward,
knowing they would see only
a dome of black umbrella domes.

I recited the necessary prayers,
kept a reasonable pacing
despite the looks of many urging
me to abridge the service, but
the rain didn’t care about their wishes
and I knew you wouldn’t
so I carried on to the conclusion.

As they lowered your coffin
into the puddled grave, I imagined
you laughing, knowing in the end
you had this day gotten the last one.

First Published in The Poet Magazine – Featured Poetry
https://www.thepoetmagazine.org/august-2022

August 4, 2022

ON ARRIVING

They arrive after a long flight
from tyranny, from oppression
from the nightmare of endless
fear, from hunger, from faith
denied, from the bottomless
depths of poverty, scarred
memories etched in their souls,
hoping for an ending as much
as wishing for a new beginning.
They have been here, a new
generation, raised on the stories,
versed in the painful history,
still residual anger born
of love for those who fled,
without the pain of experience,
who can forget when it is
others who now wish only
to arrive to the freedom they
have known since childhood

First appeared in Circumference, Issue 5, June 2022
https://poetryatpi.wordpress.com/

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.

October 10, 2021

HUMPTY DUMPTY SAYS

He had long since decided that language was impossible, the English language in particular. He had acquired all manner of dictionaries, and had searched the web, using it as a reverse dictionary. But all too often the language came up short. Words at best approximated what he meant, what he saw, but to get even close, he needed to string adverbs and adjectives to his nouns and verbs until he had an ungodly mess. He knew the solution and set out to implement it. As time went on, he filled notebook after notebook, flash drive after flashdrive (redudency was a virtue in this case, he knew) with the new words. And he was finally satisfied, like Carroll’s Humpty Dumpty. For now when he used a word, it meant exactly what he wished it to because he created the word.

September 19, 2021

ON BEAUTY

As you look at him or her
do you see someone with
a beauty you only wish you had,
or someone you pity
for lacking your beauty?

As they look at you
do they see someone with
a beauty they only wish they had
or someone they pity
for lacking their beauty?

When I look at either of you
I see a person like myself, feel
neither jealousy or pity
for in those emotions
the moment is truly wasted.

August 17, 2019

AROUND EVERY CORNER

They hide in corners, and you think
you can see them, but you cannot be certain
for they are vague and could be no more
than wishes, but belief is sufficient.
As you grow older, the number of corners grow
and a universe of but eight corners
is now itself tucked in a corner of memory.
One corner hides the face of the man
who adopted me, watched for two years,
before departing suddenly, and the only item
I have is his diploma rolled up in a tube
where my own accomplishments are rolled.
In another corner the day I met the man
I now call father is so deeply buried
only his present, increasingly absent
aging face is all I can see.
Memories are elusive, appearing
and disappearing without warning
day by day the oldest evanesce
and that corner is filled
by another memory grown vague.

September 3, 2018

WEB

It has far less to do
with the casting of the net,
far more to do
with the reeling it in.
The spider wishes
to work in peace weaving
her web, does not desire
to be seen.
For her this is work
and it is not until done,
or as done as she chooses,
that she can sit at its hub.
Spiders are patient,
much like fishermen,
knowing time is not
the enemy but
merely a construct
to mark the space
between now and
the catch,
from which both
spider and fisherman
derive life.

May 31, 2018

I AM ODOBENUS ROSMARUS, WHO ARE YOU?

From time to time it sneaks back
into my mind, and once there
is so hard to ignore or dislodge.
It begins softly, “I am he,
as you are he, as you are me.”
It grows ever more present, foreground,
“I am the eggman, they are the eggmen,”
and all to soon, I become the walrus,
but only one chorus and then my egg man
is Humpty Dumpty, not he
of the nursery rhyme, but
the wise one who said “when
I use a word it means just
what I wish it to mean,
neither more nor less,”
and I, like Humpty, in that moment
am the master of words,
and the song fades, but now
what is that song you can’t
get out of your own mind?
Oh, well, goo goo g’joob.

February 26, 2018

I WISH I MAY, I WISH I MIGHT

Tonight, if the sky remains
mostly cloudless I
will go out into the yard
and select a star.
The selection is easy,
dragging it into the garage
unseen is a far
more difficult task.
It will have to be
a rather small star,
a neutron would do
but with my bad back
the weight might be
too difficult to bear.
If I cannot find
the right star, I
will try again
the next night,
and the next until
I succeed and prove
mother right, that I
can do anything
I set my mind on doing.