Sunday, March 26, 2023

Words, and Then Some

Too many fled

Spillways mouths

Oceans swill

May flies

Swamped

Too many words

Enough

 

Said it all

Spoke too much

Tongue tied

Talons claws syllables

Ships set sail

Anchors aweigh

 

Adrift such flame

Molten metal

Scimitar swiftness

Swallows at dusk

A vernacular

Unspeeched


I've said it all

And then some

We've said too much

And then some

Gongs of regret

Soaking it in

 

The choir of silence

Rehearsing 

Friday, March 17, 2023

Narrative of Colors*

a brown hare (liebre marrón)

dances

diaphanous (diáfano)

as willow wind (viento del sauce)

whispers

to Ganymede (Ganimdes)

perched on a silver birch (abedul plateado)

whose broad bean (haba)

of muted lavender (lavanda apagado)

waits 

* I walked into a hardware store and randomly collected paint samples. Pratt & Lambert Paints calls the strips of paper Color Narrative (tm). Then I randomly chose from my deck of 7 and arranged the words as above, with 11 words of my own added.

 

 

Thursday, March 09, 2023

Poem on a Lazy March Thursday

That was a rumor of crocus

Creeping under the myrtle

A promissory note

In the key of hope

Aside the stale snow

Stubborn against melt

 

That was a robin

No doubt at all

Its singular song

Perched on a wire

Strung from Kyiv

To Kalamazoo

Its clementine breast

Battered and beating

 

That was sunlight

They say piercing

Cumulus and doubt

A miracle or mirage

They say mingling

Shadow and blaze


Thursday, January 05, 2023

Booklist 2022

1.    The Search: a biography of Leo Tolstoy -- Sara Newton Carroll

2.    The Buddha in the Attic -- Julie Otsuka

3.    Silverview -- John le Carré

4.    Snow Angels -- Stewart O'Nan

5.    The Blue Guitar -- John Banville

6.    Great House -- Nicole Krauss

7.    Glory -- Vladimir Nabokov

8.    You Think It, I'll Say It -- Curtis Sittenfeld

9.    Ethan Frome -- Edith Wharton

10.    Life Without Children -- Roddy Doyle

11.    Why Peacocks? an unlikely search for meaning in the world's most magnificent bird -- Sean Flynn

12.    The Last Painting of Sara de Vos -- Dominic Smith

13.    The Employees -- Olga Ravn, tr. by Martin Aitken

14.    Wayward -- Dana Spiotta

15.    Year of the Monkey -- Patti Smith

16.    By Nightfall -- Michael Cunningham

17.    Ocean State -- Stewart O'Nan

18.    Time Is a Mother -- Ocean Vuong

19.    Forest Dark -- Nicole Krauss

20.    Gap Creek the story of a Marriage -- Robert Morgan

21.    Leave the World Behind -- Rumaan Alam

22.    The Vanishing Act of Esmé Lennox -- Maggie O'Farrell

23.    The Lost Family: how DNA testingis upending who we are -- Libby Copeland

24.    The Black Snow -- Paul Lynch

25.    Elegy for April -- Benjamin Black

26.    Learning to Talk -- Hilary Mantel

27.    Something to Do with Paying Attention -- David Foster Wallace

28.    Enon -- Paul Harding

29.    Whereabouts -- Jhumpa Lahiri

30.    Dreaming in Cuban -- Cristina Garcia

31.    Unaccustomed Earth -- Jhumpa Lahiri

32.    Ghost Light -- Joseph O'Connor

33.    Eventide -- Kent Haruf

34.    Noboy's Normal: how culture created the stigma of mental illness -- Roy Richard Grinker

35.    The 351 Books of Irma Arcuri -- David Bajo

36.    The Slap -- Christos Tsiolkas

37.    The Comedian -- Joseph O'Connor 


Tuesday, December 27, 2022

Year's End

I start with a lie. That's too strong. A falsehood. How about a miscalculation? The year has not ended. That's a fact. We are not at year's end, not fully, not yet, not now. I start with the half life of a half truth. I start with a start, a stutter start. I stutter my strut of a start because I have nothing to say, nothing to say except to lament the rubble and ruins, the strewn limbs and blood rivers of Putin's nightmare backward lurch into history. To think that World War Two was over? And to honor, I can't find proper synonyms, the bravery, heroism, patriotism, valor of Ukraine, its people amidst the smoldering slaughter, that mother on a gurney outside the bombed maternity ward they later said she and the baby died, that image to remember, like the silent scream freeze-frame shot to the head in Saigon, or the white man brandishing the US flag against the restrained black man, the soiling of old glory, Stanley Forman, and so on, ad nauseam, till death do us unite. Even before year's end I want to flip the calendar, turn the page, close the books, hurry before there's more, hurry up, there's time, and that's both horrifying and hopeful is it not.

Wednesday, August 31, 2022

Apostolic Blessing

Freedom of Espresso scene, real life: She: a print dress, paisley to my eyes on a background of torquoise; open face, wide smaile; tall leggy; bright. Enter him: muscular, clean-shaven, taller, trim, Harley Davidson shirt but subtle. They sit at the table in front of me. Engaged. Riveted. his back was to me. She was animated, smiling the whole half hour or was it an hour. She had eyes for him. You can tell.

They left.

Me too.

I caught them in the parking lot. I accosted them.

You know, I just have to tell you both. You two look so happy. I saw you in there. So happy. You remind me of me and my girlfriend. People tell us all the time how happy we look. We are. Same with you two. You look so happy together.

Thank you. Oh wow. 

Man.

Jeez.

They exchange glances.

Her face turns red, the verge of tears.

We're blessed. The Universe has blessed us, man.

But guess what? This is the first time we have met in person!

It's true. Really.

That's crazy. That's how it was with me and Faith. We knew each other fifty years ago and reconnected last year. It was instant chemistry. And now it's like we're apostles of love, apostles of happiness.

I can't believe this.

I'm Paul.

I'm J.

I'm M.

Hold it.

I went to my car and came back with a copy of On the Spectrum from Me to You.

Here. That's my story, our story. Enjoy.

I want to read it first.

She got into her SUV. She had parked right next to me. She rolled the window down. She was quite oversome by emotion.

I don't know what to do. I live in New Hampshire.

Don't worry about that. Go with your heart.

My apostolic blessing.

Sunday, August 07, 2022

Confederacy of None

oh say can you see

a pox upon our land

a Pax Americana

no not never

oh my can you spy

a flag swirling

in the bed of a pickup

a rebeling with a cause

if hatred is so called

fear by any other name

as sordid and as sour

as the banner of the hour

this far north

this far gone

an uncivil war

a confederacy of none

a lunacy of race

and riot and roar

a sound and a fury

of democracy

out the door

Words, and Then Some

Too many fled Spillways mouths Oceans swill May flies Swamped Too many words Enough   Said it all Spoke too much Tongue tied Talons claws sy...