You can never have too many once-in-a-lifetime experiences.
We often take unimportant things for granted.
Time and space are like matter and energy, but I’m not sure why.
Never be a borrower or a lender, unless you or somebody else needs something.
Baseball has been very good to me, except for those times that it wasn’t.
If you can’t be honest, at least tell the truth.
Learn from the future.
Finally, if you come to a fork in the road. . . Well, you know.
“Listen, you guys know me.
I’m hands off…”
– Chuck, Supernatural
I don’t need a god
to be full. The moon
is waning, and I watch
her waist becoming thin,
the silver line between
her womb and her hip
reducing, drawing away,
and I choose
to see the good,
the beneficial
in the things I allow
slip away.
I don’t need a god
to tell me when
I’m empty, the places
I meet darkened faces
of my shadow; period.
I am seen
when I glimpse
Myself, in pools without light,
without surfaces
or mirrors of divinity.
I don’t need a god
to direct me
to reconstruction,
her gravity digesting
stars into gowns, diaphanous
manifestations of her
stations of sublimity.
I, too, am waxing
amid Copernican cycles
of growth.
And when I sleep, I dream
mythologies of antiquity,
where the gods descend to mortal
corners of creation, to find
alignment, of all
that is whole, and full, and fit
for visitation.
I picked around the gristle and occasional tiny delicate bone.
The cheese made up for that.
I have always viewed proteins as vehicles for cheese, or
reasons to justify tortillas, chips, or pasta as couriers.
She didn’t have a name for it, even though we ate it
once a week. My dad must have asked nonchalantly one evening,
“Are we having that chicken shit again?”
I delighted in being allowed to cuss when asking what was for dinner.
Why aren’t we marching in the streets
against corruption, government
and corporate interest not serving us?
Because we’re Americans believing
the myth of the American dream,
that we’re all equal and our hard work
results in success. Red, white
and blue–that’s us. The wild west
of no restraints. We still think
we’re the cowboys in our childhood
Saturday matinees.
Perhaps you might find one
In the bottom of a tattered cardboard box
Half filled with your mother’s school books
She thought she might need someday
Ubiquitous spores tickle as you dig to the bottom
and find a thick book
Something as thick as a “phone book”
Whatever that might be
It’s filled with words from A to Z
and what they meant
Now they must mean something different
Because unless you twist meanings
You can’t have both Freedom and Equality
Poetry in
everything–
all places–
brought to light
in sunrise–
brought in darkness
by a Whippoorwill–
& in memories
of you.
I find words
in tiger lilies
on red, clay
Kentucky
roadsides,
a solitary
Monarch
circling.
I hear poetry in
the flow
of Old Seventy Creek
& in its descent
of 76 Falls,
writing.
I find words in
the view
from Jack’s Knob
when fog rises,
& deer in
Upchurch Hollow
bounce high in
crossing,
white tails upright
one
&
all.
I dream in
my room unseen,
alone
as Covid19
howls
outside the door,
hungry hunter,
tracking.
strangely cool June
afternoon 4:00ish
shady back patio
breeze waltzing
the tulip poplar leaves
wine glass in hand
lounge chair reverie
broken by
low rumble
from cloudless sky
nears overtakes
deafening rotors
of five military helicopters
flying in formation
right over our house
armed lethal
display of power
common sense shouts
just a training exercise
other senses hiss
martial law
clearing the streets
a defeated president defying
peaceful transition
gun-toting supporters
ready for civil war
She tucked herself
behind the barn
underneath Elderflower weeds
that grew out of a knot in the wall
creating a canopy
curtained with little white flowers.
The weeds had grown so tall,
underneath them and the roof’s lip,
this was always
the driest ground
after a storm.
The Bones of Winter Birds
Hallowed
Dwellers
Echo
The Hour of Departure
Grief and Other Animals
These Terrible Sacraments
Time and Distance
Wider than the Sky
This Apiary
Many-Storied House
One Throne
Dreamland For Keeps
Outposts on the Border of Longing
The Nights, The Days
How Darkness Enters a Body
~ Created from titles of chapbooks and collections, in order of appearance (including title): Robert Murphy, Ann Fisher-Wirth, Patricia Fargnoli, Megan Mary Moore, Christina Lovin, Sonja de Vries, Patty Paine, Kathleen Thompson, Colleen S. Harris, Nancy Chen Long, Allie Marini, George Ella Lyon, Rae Hoffman Jager, Sarah Nichols, Roberta Schultz, Kathleen Thompson, Sarah Nichols.
