Category: Poetry & Photography

Listening for sleep
I write on the ceiling
with Monet’s blue/purple brush
Do not dream

Do not dream of yellow houses
paper horses, or cold, foggy days

Do not dream of fast waterfalls
on the creeks of childhood

Do not dream of old boots
or paper mâché bowls

Do not dream of endless desert roads
or crowds of deep lakes

Do not dream of the refuge of forests
or the visits of small birds

I write on the ceiling
with Monet’s blue/purple brush
as I fall away into
a quiet darkness

I would prefer to live in the company of rocks
and stones under a canopy of tall trees
that send mist and fragrance into the air

I would prefer to live in the company of flowing water
in creeks and tributaries that define cities, counties
and fill the world with a covering sound

I would prefer to live in the company of tall, green grasses
surrounding a landscape of abandoned stone walls
and their carpets of lichen and soft moss

I would prefer to live in the company of mountains
as they are inert to human woe
and subsist in the slowness of time

I prefer to live in the company of oceans
that move with the power of the moon
and remind of eras of perfect change

Why does the moon dominate
what does one foot after the other mean
how will I breathe after I’m dead
who made Tolstoy
what about my lifelong dream to capture light
why can I not live under water
how can I possibly keep track
of the scent of all these blossoms

 

A snowstorm of graves howls
from the caves of mountains
Into valleys and plains
 
Graves scatter the earth
ancient granite stones
family markers
paupers graves
flanders field
hidden graves of abandoned church yards
wooden headstone
the name and date burned away by the sun
here lies   in perfect peace    with god forever
the loving wife of
 
Mass grave
grave of the unknown
unmarked grave
the muddy graves of small towns
burial mounds in heather
graves in the foundations of new york
 
The propensity of humans to fall into graves    ashes    a private ganges
to be forever remembered/forgotten
even as the air
is inundated by hovering birds
and acacia flowers

 

 

 

 

I am a prisoner in Van Gogh’s bedroom
perhaps living in all 3
together
not knowing which room
I am in

I lie in the orange bed
in an altered state
happy in the color
confused by the color

I am only waiting
perhaps waiting to leave
the color
but not sure that I can
walk on these variegated floors
not yet
established in unswerving rest

A green window
opague
slightly ajar
perhaps I can open
the green window
peer out
of Van Gogh’s bedroom
or leave forever
through the blue door

Rusty hinge
The door appears locked
Hummingbirds gather
as if to watch
I walk through
the breath of their wings
I push open the locked door
effortlessly

In the dim light
in a corner of the dim light
a small chest
Ernesto 1929 inscribed
I run my fingers through dust
covering the chest
making tracks    tracks in dust

A low    round table
2 broken chairs
a coffee grinder
2 people could sit
share
Perhaps my grandfather
was here
Ernesto inscribed

In a far corner
in the dim light
a mirror
I clean the mirror
with my sleeve
I see myself as
dust is cast up
up into old dreams

A door easily opened
perhaps by hummingbirds
a table    chairs
a mirror
Ernesto inscribed
O take me back
to all that I have forgotten

 

A young girl
perhaps no more than 14 her auburn hair
in braids down her back
paddles a blue kayak
on the slack green river

She has no destination
the kayak half drifting
half directed
in small circles
in a slow river eddy

The kayak stops moving
The young girl is waiting looking
A blue heron
across the river
draws her attention
for a moment

The girl is not a madonna
or a girl with a pearl earring
She is rather a young girl
perhaps 14   auburn hair
in braids down her back
paddling a blue kayak

In a dream
I learned to breath underwater
by training my hands to be fish

Whale song drew me
to swim to the bottom of the warm sea
and rest among granite boulders
on clean white sand

The ripples on the ocean surface
were prisms that bent the light
and delivered these obtuse rays
to the ocean floor
where I lay

Among brightly colored fish
I looked up through the sea
There    above   in the natural air
the openings and closings of history
were smudges on a blurry sky

My family drifted by as clouds
seeming to search for me
with eyes of glass
guided by seagulls and pelicans

My home receded
to a pinpoint
located nowhere
and everywhere

As I chose to remain a while
I wondered how long
until   somehow invited    I kicked
and pulled      up
into the human space above

 

An old man is walking down a long beach
white hair, a ruined face, his walking stick
punctures the sand
A blue day, with slow waves washing
Seagulls fly above the rocky cliff inland

Behind and around the old man
are shades, phantoms, shadow people
that follow him

There is a young boy
holding a red apple
He is pointing the apple
at the sea

A teenage boy, holding hands
with a blond girl
she has braids down her back

A young man in fatigues
an m16 in his left hand
a confluence of blood
pouring down his right arm
into the air

A middle-aged man
in work clothes
small holes in the knees of his jeans
from daily, repetitive labor

3 children, a boy and 2 girls
run in circles, playing on the beach
their feet make no imprint in the sand

An older man, his hair graying
follows
A woman of similar age
her long braids graying, walks with him
They are also holding hands

The old man, with the ruined face
walks a little farther
stops, looking about him
He sits down on the beach, then lays
his walking stick by his side

The shades, the phantoms, gather slowly
gather around the old man
as he contemplates the clear, blue sky
One by one
the shades, the phantoms, the shadow people
disappear inside him