Waiting in the Shadows
Poetry is a private affair born from the dark in the embrace of silence; no one around to watch, just me and a few words waiting in the shadows, loitering in the dark like hungry lovers.
Keeper of the Circle
(for my grandmother) Julia kept the circle, her love against the chaos of the genie from his bottle, released on all their plans except the one in her heart. No innocent fancy, but raw desire burning for a future writ in the ancient tongue, spoken to the gods ruthless and unafraid. Not a gentle lamb […]
Fierce Beauty
As the body dissembles the soul recovers strength from the inner well; the old way of falling down into life, the ageless source that holds the bones, keeps the heartbeat. The flame within each cell alight with the knowing disease will free as it burns away the shell, for the sprouting coil to break surface […]
To Love What is Close
I found this place before winter snows, green and tender with the wet smell of life. Resting here with wounds healing, the impulse to go on quieted by the river, limbs like drooping cedars let go and touch the earth. Though the pass ice is melting, the way across the mountains opening for spring, I […]
Tir Na Nog
Paudraig spoke to me though from afar his voice both close and quiet, reminding me of the green sloping land and north the sea, shining and alive with ancient music. There is a place for him and many gone before who traveled to America where they’d never rest, returned now to Tir Na Nog, forever […]
Counterweight
Like the counterweight beneath stone columned bridges, the mass of years moves slowly, cast from rights and wrongs and the willingness to love until only ashes remain. I am not the daylight crossing or a road filled with important travelers but the mass below that lifts and lowers, put to use when the rivers rise […]
Solitary Prayers
The soft sound of dry snow on the long incline to Devil’s Peak, white curves and outcrops above the tree line, unforgiving, solemn, windswept to the far distance. Solitary prayers like mist blown snow, lifted in arcing curls into the cold air, crystalline blue above the tall mountain.
Play the Ancient Drum
I’ve outlived many beliefs and though they’ve passed I’m still here with more than a few skins shed behind me. Slow of step, creaking to arise, I call to my ancestors to guide me on the old road, play the ancient drum and stomp across the heavens so I will hear and know how to […]
Reluctant to Take
They say the streets are dirty but you could eat off the sidewalks, their names with z and k sounds, the granite steps worn and shining from the corn brooms they leaned on beside the old stick chairs, surveying passersby like invading soldiers. My father used to lean on his rake that way, his arms […]
Like Rivers We Pour
The tiniest parts of us are what appear, stuff you can see like clouds off the ocean and big drop rain. We open like mountains, dive in cold water, yet this spark of light we give a name is but a glimmer, like snow melt and passing leaves. We show our faces then are gone, […]
Still I Need Darkness
I’m huddled in my cave, a stick fire kindled with a flickered flame lighting the cragged walls. Outside the winter sky blue black and full of stars, layers of snow upon the earth, ice covering the sleeping trees. There is much to consider before I cross the river, thought and feeling like sap waiting in […]
That Must Be Me
What do we really know but a few days with the traveling circus, enjoying the elephants, tripped up by the carneys, in love with the girl in tights. Then the lights go down, the wagons depart and there’s only the stars, the smell of animals and someone new that must be me.
Held Close Like a Talisman
We have rituals of innocence, when we dress and undress, how we lean toward each other in the night and most of all how we’re still in the morning, letting the quiet remain, the dark slowly fade as we pull back the curtains looking east to feel what may be coming and see each other […]
On the Stafford Centennial
You spent your life writing poems shaped from the earth with the quiet force of water, reminding us of the danger putting anyone on a pedestal. Now that you’re gone we dress you up in hero’s cloth, but I recall the dry dust of the internment camps, the forgotten people on the edge of town, […]
Tell It All
When you’re writing the eulogy make sure to tell about the broke down trucks, our cabin on the creek with the blown off roof, the cobblestone curb on the lower Eastside where we found two junkies crying, remembering how they once had been. The dogs and pups you loved, the way the kids smelled in […]