words

May 18, 2023

IN ABSENTIA

It is, I think
her lips I miss most
their butterfly flutter
across my cheek
then her eyes, almost feline
that see within
behind walls
hastily erected
that fall to her sight.
It is all of that
and the whispered words
linking hearts
that still echo
as she slides into sleep.
I cry out to Morpheus
my words are swallowed
by the drone
of the engines
that fall as rain
into the Sea of Okhotsk
to wash onto the shore
of Khabarovsk.

First Published in The Globe Review, Issue 2, April 2023
https://heyzine.com/flip-book/4f02f9b80a.html

April 29, 2023

GOOD LUCK WITH THAT

The fortune cookies of my childhood
were far more interesting, or so
my memory would have it.
The cookies offered wisdom
of the East, or so it seemed
to a 10-year-old, but perhaps
it was the same mumbo-jumbo
in the bulk print today, now
that the cookies, which once
tasted good, unlike today’s
origami cardboard, were
folded by hand, and there
were no lotteries then, so
there was no need for lucky numbers
nor did they make a foolish
attempt to teach me words
in Chinese that I will
never have a reason to use.

April 25, 2023

STILL

Someone once told me that pain
is a good way of knowing
that you are still alive.
I did want to kill that person,
but thought better of it,
why not simply smile and
leave him in a life of pain.
More recently I was told
that I would get used to
my chronic pain and
over time it would seem
to hurt less if I just live with it,
accept that it is always there.
So now I have an always
angry roommate who speaks
only in single words, who
explains nothing when questioned
but appears when I least
want to see him, jabbing
and stabbing until I
want to scream “I’m alive,
so go to hell, you’re needed there.”

April 15, 2023

I WISH

You probably imagine that
the life of the poet is one of great
excitement and adventure.
There are moments that might
be deemed exciting or adventurous
but those happen just as often
in the lives of those who despise poetry.
And believe me, poetry is not only
not a career, it’s not a job unless you
sit in some city square and offer
to write a short poem for anyone
offering you a dollar, a prescription
for homelessness and starvation.
The life of a poet is setting aside time
to stare at a blank page of a journal
trying hard to imagine words appearing
and organizing themselves into
neat lines and stanzas, then
you put the Journal away in frustration
promising yourself to try again tomorrow.

March 17, 2023

HYMNAL

Open to page 147 of your hymnals.
There is nothing to sing there
for the words of promise once
found there have withered
and faded, carried off on now
toxic winds, so hold your breath
or whatever heaven you imagine
will be too soon be approaching
at a speed exceeding imagination.

You don’t remember how you got here,
things happened around you
when you weren’t paying attention
but, you say, what can you do
about it, it’s not your problem
so you are happy to let someone
else deal with it, you are sure
it will be dealt with if you
stay out of the way, do nothing.

So while you are blindly waiting
perhaps you can join the others
just like you, in your final prayers.

February 14, 2023

UNKNOWABLE

How often have we
sat in pews, on the zafu
and heard an enrobed
man or woman say
“Let me describe for you”
that which cannot be
described, that which
is beyond mere words.

We would be better served
to just sit in silence
and hear deeply what
we need, not empty words
meant to lead, to mislead,
for you God does not speak
and you cannot claim to be
enlightened, for both
are delusion, but both
can be experienced if only
you look deeply within.

February 1, 2023

PRAVDA

If I was in Russia I
would have no problem
finding a title for this poem
for it would be The Last.

I would write that I mourn
the children, men, and women
sacrificed to assuage his
warped need for domination.

I would write that I detest
his disregard of truth,
supplanting it with his lies
to justify his megalomania.

I would write that I stand
with the people of Ukraine
and for that I would pay with
my words, and perhaps my life.

January 5, 2023

WHAT WOULD YOU SAY

I am just wondering
what you would say
if you were called
to testify about all
that you had seen,
all that had disgusted you,
all that you condemned
but did and said
nothing while it occurred.
What would you say
if you had no choice
but truth, no shading,
no mincing of words,
just the harsh light
and you in a chair
in an empty room,
a disembodied voice
asking endless questions?
It is best that you
remain silent, say
nothing at all,
for we have already
judged you, and you
know your own guilt.

First appeared in Literary Cocktail Magazine, Fall Issue 2022, Volume I Issue II
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1VEgeWfNp5SFGSm8nW8QegM1WuNUa_s99/view

December 28, 2022

EGGMAN

When I was a child . . .
God, how many times have you
heard something prefaced by those
ever frightening words, not
scary themselves but what
painful story they promised.

When I was a child we had
a milkman who brought
the glass bottles twice a week,
took the empties and envelope
with his payment from the
shelf built in the wall
just for deliveries.

We also had an egg man
who’d leave a dozen eggs
in a little metal basket
on the same shelf. He
had a great mustache,
almost walrus-like, and he
may have been an eggman
but he was defnitely not a walrus,
goo goo gajoob.

December 25, 2022

RETURN

He arrived today
although none saw him coming.
He had been here before,
been quickly ignored,
despite his pleas and prayers,
they twisted his words
to suit their venal desires,
his message forever lost in translation.
They were not ready,
and in their hate fueled world,
they might never be.