textured like velvet
softer than a pony’s nose
dimpled with shadow and light
a blossom unfurls itself ever
so
slowly
in the midafternoon sun
as dawning dusk paints highlights
and folds shadow themselves rich fuscia,
pink battles magenta for my attention
as an ant balances anxiously on the underside
of a petal,
walking the line between in and
out
of the purview of the sun, unconcerned
with the study of optics but living
topography
that can be rattled by a breath,
and I can’t help but to wonder how
what looks so rich and
feels so soft to me
is experienced by a being
living so microscopically
and then
in what capacity
am I insensate to things
just beyond the horizon
of my own innate ability
or even,
my mind’s curiousity
In his dictionary, Dr. Johnson defined a stoat as “a small stinking animal.”
Republicans’ proposed Medicaid cuts would hit rural patients hard
All the characters are on trial in any civilized narrative. — William Empson
Poetry can do many things. But what I value is a poem’s ability to make me simply reconsider: a single word, an image I see daily, a thought
For Colin
i miss the capers
and the taste of brooklyn
pizza with olives
in your windowless apartment
getting dehydrated
on cheap beer
and thai food
now my pills are new
my brain is different
you wouldn’t recognize
me or my arm
once bearing your scar
now bearing my strength
i won’t forget you
but i’m trying to
I’m in.
A rocking chair on my front porch
The sun has relinquished its reign
To the rain. For a little while this
bad side of town is a poor mans therapy
No couch needed
Just that creaking
Of my chair riding uneven red slats
To no where in particular
June winds that buffalo through the leaves
Of tulip poplars and black locusts standing
At attention under a counterclockwise sky
We are ochim
at the edge of the desert;
it will come true.
Babylon, destroyed; only
silent down stirring grains of sand,
small jaws scavenging
moist corpses. It will be
for us
2
behold — the horror
this land, made anew.
Ploughshares melted,
swords melted,
only hands left
turning to
the bones of hands
and then to dust. But
in the tired
red-grey days before:
the outline of a garden
dreamed longingly
into the
scorched shapes of limbs and
faces turned to the heavens
in some kind of
awe.
There is much talk of the pulley bone around here.
Some are losing their minds over a keel sandwich.
Why can’t these people stop discussing pickles?
Biscuits and gravy all the day long, but at midnight:
crackers crushed in cold buttermilk and eaten with a long thin spoon.
I wish you were still here.
There is much talk of the pulley bone.
