Posts for 2025 (page 4)

the world then again 
asking to be seen 
an invitation to grasp  life with both hands

I place a call  written in my hand  across a pale indigo page 
to not disappoint myself

the touch of cerulean sky  that version  full each day
her sneakered steps hurrying to the front porch  this portal of promise
being  a living being of the day

this air  as if sunrise held it
who says it doesn’t
what could it be like to be in life  daily

a hood isn’t necessary   grown 
is a biological given
yet there  inherent
a fuller capacity for
possible

as the day hands out all it possesses and provides
is this enough  this is enough
in all the ways meant

we’ve not reached full capacity to exist in wonder
take this bread  take this body
what if this is the biggest answering

even as I pluck the weed from the flower bed
chastising myself for doing a chore when I proclaimed this day a wonder one
this too  a small weed tucked between daisy fonds
even as I dip to untangle its roots from the soil  that needs remain
this too full
this is life  given
when I see it
a day  dreaming

There was a chic lady who loved to prance
She donned a new outfit her form to enhance
So tight in the middle
She walked with a wiggle
Too bad it was on back to front by mischance

The cucumbers can’t do this on their own. 

I wake highly opinionated
not knowing the facts.
I make coffee.  

Throughout the country
countable mirror images
do the same.  

I open windows.
An aroma of war
flutters through the bee balm.  

I’m falling down,
not hitting the ground
in a space without grab bars.  

I hunt something, something hunts me.
They circle to form a taijitu
to stand on.  

Paddleboard yoga takes balance.
Concentration evaporates
if I look for shore.

After Sappho’s It was summer when I found you

Summer’s heat drips sweet &
salty sweat from forehead,
eyes blinded, astringent droplets
seep into ducts, steam clouds

glasses as I stare straight into
the morning’s haze hovering
over meadow’s grasses
moistened by recent drizzles.

Tall legumes bairn’s steal
my heart. I do not lust, but love
what tethers me to sanity.
Swallows dart, catch insects.

Wet and ecstatic I revel
in this universe, my umbilical cord.

seal the                                        moment

         by way of
                          a        talisman,
                                   an
    experiment          of                             turning-
toward                                         the next
                                                            place

  to

             grip tightly,     pinch into   a  

knot,                              making

            tension,
                                                               the urge to
                flatten a              wrong.
                               Know the story;      go             still;

             find
     a               center.

      ~ Erasure of Lia Purpura’s essay “Two Experiments & a Coda,” p 142

It’s always enough –
the way the mountains
turn their thoughts into cypress and song,
how lightning tickles ocean’s swollen belly             
and crackles with laughter
while slumbering clouds stumble and snore,  

enough            how morning blue reclaims its rule
over night-drenched sky
by raising its sun-clenched fist,
enough            how birch glows green with ecstasy
while wind fondles our limbs
and satisfied        together       moan.  

Everything                  is as it should be.
It could be no other way.
And so, my playful lover
you must know also how you make me feel
you know this the way an inhale expects an exhale
your foreplay              always enough            to make me gasp.

A word I learned from Lemony Snicket
which here means: the next to last poem
or twenty nine of thirty.
Poetry pushes profundities
through the poet to the perusing reader.
Pointing to and painting the poles
of the compass of human existence.
You’ll find beauty and anger
peace and despair
pointed questions, painful lessons
perhaps you can put yourself there.
Each poem part of a polymorphic anthology
to create each piece we
pierce the soul to draw forth
polysyllabic monstrosities.
Read this aloud
in front of the mirror.
Behind all the spit,
is your face still clear?

1
There was a fine signora in Louisa
on a visit from Italy on a visa.
She’d make a suggestion,
you’d ask a small question
& she’d say Sì, if you please-a!

2
There was a young pilot from Morehead
whose cockpit had a nuclear warhead.
No matter your gender
he’d make you surrender
& bombard you right up to your forehead!

3
There once was a gal from Cynthiana
whose favorite snack was a nice firm banana.
She had a special skill
& would give you a thrill
while humming the tune of Oh! Susanna!

take me back.

not too far,
just two-and-a-half(ish) decades
when I caved and agreed to have lunch with you

take me back.

not too far from where we sat that day,
but a lifetime of memories ago
when our conversations grew
like the mouth of the Hudson after the rain

take me back.

a walk through Central Park on a late summer day
homemade lunches remain untouched
tossed into a metal garbage can
with the Delacorte in view

take me back.

to the moment you remembered
to the moment you repeated what I said countless conversations prior,
to the moment I knew our love planted itself
in soil that would one day hold a towering oak

that we nurture(d)
that we grew
that we find with purpose as each season passes

take me back.

because I want you to see where it all started for me
because I want you to see how I see you
because I want you to see how I see us

you smile and say:

we have never left, my love–
as we sit hand-in-hand under oak-spun shade