Last night, across
a dusty street corner
I reach
a junk shop—
the sort whose racks & shelves of
old tools & metal signs
are dragged daily outside—
& eventually
realize
I’m perusing Lou Harrison’s bookshelf.
The owner
walks up
& explains he
once’d been hired
to clear out Lou’s home
In the middle of one side
of the shelf
there’s a staircase
which I follow
up & into
a modest
concert hall mezzanine
inside the house
I find myself casually
in the presence
of Lou’s friends
who seem not to know he has died
—perhaps, an earlier time, before
he’d gone
September 14, 2021
What Is Written
Leaving work,
prison
in a sunny little rush
I savor this warmth
on my back
&
what is written
But more
the play of light
&
chain-link shadow—
ripplings
upon the page
January 22, 2024
Hoping It Was Thunder
I was hoping it was thunder I was hearing
& soft joy when I was certain
Then a few assuring flashes signal
more to come
—Sudden recollection
as of a voice that was forgotten
or the morning’s dove cooing from Maryland
Could it have been years since I noticed this...
Night
pattering on the gutters
& trees & roof
& even the steady drip through the ceiling
onto two attic steps
makes me want to be silent
To give all the space
to low rumblings
March 18, 2021
Probability Puzzling
The other night
I fell asleep wondering
if any future
or past tenant
of this house we rent
would ever keep their bed
in the room
we use as the living room
How bout a bed
in what serves as our dining room?
I don’t hate these possibilities
honestly,
I find them kind of appealing,
refreshing
*
I have always loved nights
spent in the common space
with friends, from out of town.
As a kid, sleepovers
were a birthday or weekend treat
Or
with just my siblings
on the living room floor,
sleeping bags
by the fireplace my dad mostly tended,
cartoons on tv in the morning.
My parents sometimes
would use the foldout sofabed,
five of us ending up
in some combination of these placements
*
Our couch pops
so easily out
It’s a signifier
of our lack
of fealty to the coming morning
We have no roommates
to contend with, or to irritate
—just kids
who we could share this with, but haven’t yet
They still are learning
to get to sleep
I’ve always loved slumber parties
& adamantly insist
the inability of grown people
to make a habit
of socializing
without time constraint
makes much the loneliness
of adulthood
An easy, affordable joy
we may not realize we miss
*
Would any person keep their bed in our house’s kitchen?
For medical reasons?
Out of obsession
maybe… with baking?
It’d be tight in there… but a cot
or a ‘single’ would fit.
I’ve misheard some principle
from thermodynamics
or cosmology
that given infinite time for wandering,
the elements in a space
will configure in every possible arrangement
*
So then, a thousand times…
Ten thousand…
A hundred thousand times…?
If we re & re-booted the tenancy
of this house,
how many tries
until
some person puts a bed in the kitchen
May 1, 2024
Too Lonely For A Mansion
It could not be congenial—
even with some
magic windfall
to live
in luxurious isolation
I am too homey
(of a person)
to guard
any fortune
I am too lonely a person
for a mansion
October 4, 2021
If I Should Play At All
Glad to see you all here—
Hello!
Earlier
I asked the universe
& it told me it doesn’t care which songs I play.
It doesn’t matter—
the ones I think you’d prefer you think you’d prefer
the ones I think I would prefer Just get up there & do something
—covers, originals; played well,
played badly;
loved or loathed
or ignored
& thank you
it said.
*
Thank you
January 21, 2024
Summer Evenin’
A swattin beauty,
battin—
your paws outstretched,
Like a cat
boxin ’n’
wearin backward
the unbuttoned
summershirt’chu gave me
It keep yr tummy warm
this evenin’,
beige-to-blue ombré
I would not
’ve likely chosen.
Goldenhour sun
’s glowin’ up
yr tan arms ’n’ cheek skin,
Shinin’ Vy’s braids
you done today
like some Swiss summer girl’s, out
for pickin alps-
meadow wildflowers, but
in a dress—coral-pink
with highlighter-luminous tufting,
& tough black
gloves, fingerless
*
Up schoolyard’s hill
old gnarled
maples tower
& watch us,
vaguely menacing
We walk
past ’em, post-picnic,
on our way back home
’cross the street
*
You two in
a pre-bedtime bath routine
—sweet,
Till Violet’s
expression
twist deep, disturbed
Misheard us
discussing
whether or not
it is “time
to take out her brains”
Shakily, she ask now
if we’re goin ta need
ta remove “Robert’s brains, too?”
*
We all crack up
at the frightful
mistake made
’cause it’s just—
her hair’s
a little tangled
July 16, 2024
No Wonder
It is no wonder
no spirit
& no magic
are alive
In a house
without cracks
in the floors or folds
in old
upholstery
(for it)
to hide in - side
No wonder
March 17, 2021
[fly on my hand]
Small fly on my hand
white butterfly, wasp
bees on the mountain mint
& milkweed.
Tall, white-flowered cosmos
bend in the breeze
All the way
All of this sways
All these wave in the sunheat
end-a-summer midday.
—
End-a-summer, midday
kalanchoe, sedum.
& coffee grounds, deer shit
What a break, a gift
to be free to see this,
to sleep past eleven,
to sit & watch
this all
—What a freedom
The bee weighing down
the speedwell branch —Wow…
& then
the rebalance, rebound
So many on the mint
White butterfly weaves
through our backyard junk
Birds are quiet;
the crickets not.
—
For the first in a long time
we last night drank a lot
Then had a mix
of good & bad dreams,
lying beside you
They remind me
you were so tough
to trust
Hard to ask
for honest response.
But earlier
last night
put all that aside,
behind us,
to treat the night like a date.
(& we’ll enjoy that same treat today)
We were initiated
into a strange room
at our familiar
spot below the street (—“if ya know you know”)
& wandered over to a late show, late.
I’ve had a lifelong thing
’gainst trying too hard
Complete acceptance, it seems
Couldn’t depend on games,
calculations,
behavior
Guess what I’m askin & offerin
’s somethin unusual:
to live outside
social valuation
—
Of all people
knew
you could be different, dude!
& our small olive tree looks good
Pokeweed’s almost contained;
squash vine not.
Wildly, lively it
has overtaken
the old clothesline post
& bird feeders hangin there.
Our wood windchimes
would soon’ve been soundless,
engulfed
We had ta move ’em
to that “evergreen” branch.
Now they click/clunk lovely
It’s my cue
to be quiet
—
There’re the birds
There’re the birds
words & music
September 15, 2024
Adorenment
Spinning on the heels
of your replacement funny flats,
you float free of the floor
& the long front desk,
where keyboards & telephones wait
for fingers & voice
they do not deserve
to know, or to have
your time
Or to feel
the click of your ring
& turquoise
earrings, dangling
But what
or who does?
I do not know.
I see you,
alone
in your own rugged elegance,
unjustly tethered
to the rest of us
April 18, 2022
“Reading Over Your Shoulder The Whole Time”
After one
solitary yester-
day of observation
this one
is filled with communion
Mostly unexpected, but
none more so
than when on the metro
as I star the corner
of a page of poetry
the guy
sitting next to me
says: wait,
you like that one
July 9, 2021
Transplant
One green wrap
on near-black
backdrop,
twisted
around a barren branch
& another strand
outstretched & swaying,
just an inch
(or two) away
from a second
leafless limb
Watering the mimosa tree,
recovering in the evening
June 8, 2021
Auggie’s Shining a Small Light
Auggie’s shining a small light through a hole
near the bottom hem in
the old secondhand t-shirt I’m wearing.
He asks
why there’s a hole there
& I show him the dozen-ish little ones
beginning to form up on the chest.
He says, “oh,
why is your shirt breaking?”
I tell him I wish it wasn’t, but also
it is old.
“You wish it would stay like it is forever”
I do wish that
“But everything breaks,” he says
We agree
houses, & people, & plants
& even the rocks
all break, eventually
Nothing lasts forever & everything breaks eventually
he reconfirms for me
“No one told me, I just knew that.”
August 26, 2023
Half ’Cross The Bridge
Half ’cross the bridge
over swampy Totopotomoy Creek,
a place we’ve never been or heard of
but come to
driving aimlessly
Now singing
Luke Kelly’s Raglan Road
half ’cross the bridge
August & I, running, laughing
after chatting with a Scottish man
& his dog who’d come
from the opposite end of the trail
Incidentally, a Robert (Scot)
Incidentally, a fiddler
whose wife called
at just the same moment as Kate
March 15, 2021
Mountain Laurel Heaven
The moon lit
the far wall of the ravine, full bright
& the falls
were deafening
Mountain laurel
heaven, lush you
knew it happened somehow
& now
I wish badly
we could have let that child be
& better than me
I would cede my place
with you, in this world
that she could grow
more rightly than we grew
September 9, 2023
Our Practice
Don’t need to avert
our eyes, you & I have
a different sight
a special practice—
Of Seeing
what is radiant
&& troubled (in the world);
what is both bleak
&& vital
We, together
don't be down-weighed,
not dull & sullen
These days, I’ve treasured
a feeling in my gut
—like hunger
Don’t want to lose this difference;
keep cultivating
Our Difference
It’s not what is (or how it’s) served up—
It is the bravery;
It’s the not recoiling.
Look—there is something stirring!,
shimmering
in All of it! We know
how to look