The leaves dulled out this year, too dry to make scarlets or flashing golds, and so this rain strips them off quick, quicker than a knife scales a ... Read more
One Hand
The sound of one hand clapping is not silence. It is tears. Love wishing itself against the closed fist. Grace reigning a world against its will. The ... Read more
Parallel
The dead are never really dead. Their world runs parallel, half here, half not, a double exposure. We box up life for our convenience, but they come ... Read more
Perpetual Present
I try to memorize him with the soft pads of my fingertips. Closing my eyes and slowly tracing the cheekbone's rise and gleam the moist, fragile skin ... Read more
Peru
If you want to hear the mountains, do exactly as I say. There are rules to things like this. And I tell you that many have come this way more than ... Read more
Poem for My Father
At night, long after the midnight movies which I stayed up to see, what little nudity they dared show, I also wrote my poems, my stories, in teen-age ... Read more
Poem Push
I hurry home. A poem is coursing through me, pressing against the competition. Cadence sure. A sweet aroma wafting. I follow it, letting my nose ... Read more
Poppies
I moved with her in her shadow, always running behind, keeping in perfect step with her mood, trying to usher her out into daylight so that I could ... Read more
Professor Penguin
The tell tale rasp of scuffing corduroy; An unavoidable corrosion of inner trouser thigh, Effortlessly drowning a soft shoe bounding, With knowledge ... Read more
Returning
Think not of simple seasons As friends depart your side The sight of brown and amber leaves Means not a tree has died It's roots still burrow deep ... Read more
Shadow Over the Shanty
Tell us a tale oh swan of the sea, With your wind sweeping feathered white hair, A beard that has harboured the salts of the earth, And hands, by the ... Read more
Shell Free
Ten thousand pecks they say to break the shell and wiggle free, wide-eyes blinking. Nothing to be done to hurry things. It needs 10,000 pecks to build ... Read more
Slow Down the Years
I barely have time to catch my breath For the years pass by so quickly now. I hardly see changes in seasons As I used to, somehow. Spring takes long ... Read more
Snow
There is something strange about snow. And how the space between the large wet flakes gets filled in with Paris. At two a.m. I open the shutters and ... Read more
Song Unsung
My mother traveled long to mother me: through her small life with no doll or braids, She'd hang her sock on Christmas eve, but wake to motherless ... Read more
Taffeta Torn Through
We look for strong arms to carry us. None forthcoming. Or they come and go and leave us more depleted in the going. We look to find ourselves in the ... Read more
The Arches of Waterloo
It's London and it's 3am, I've stopped to spare a thought for them, Some once husbands, Some once wives, All once captains of their ... Read more
The Couple
Uncoupled. He moving on without her through the glass clockworks to a place where no looking back can see anything. She living in the same ... Read more
The Dance
". . . the question is not, Why are we so infrequently the people we want to be? but rather, Why do we so infrequently want to be the people we really ... Read more
The First Anniversary
He was very late home that evening but the food would come to no harm, it was just a salad, two steaks to grill. Annoyance crept into her calm. He'd ... Read more
The Hand
The hand that punched her face with force That ripped her hair from painful roots That grasped her throat in throttling rage That pushed the knife ... Read more
The Invitation
It doesn't interest me what you do for a living. I want to know what you ache for and if you dare to dream of meeting your heart's longing. It ... Read more
The Moment Before
I want to touch the sharp taste of the moment in between the second just before the place where the breath catches in anticipation. It's the scent of ... Read more
The Secret Garden
Men seek war as women seek birth. The two places where all the merchandising stops. The ordinary screeches to a halt. What remains is one tenuous ... Read more
The Snowball
For a long time he had opened his shirt and shown his scar, but they'd walked through it. He could taste their pity, acrid on his tongue and wanted to ... Read more
The Tea Party
When the conversations were over, when it no longer served you to pay attention as if I mattered —for I had once so mattered— we put the fire out, and ... Read more
The Vision
Art comes first as gift, wild, free and liberating. You think you're going to soar and soar you do. But angels have been known to rip apart a man's ... Read more
This Gathering of Poets
In these our perfect gardens kept, With verdant minds compose, Our poetry to scrutiny, We graciously expose. Where we 'the poets' gather strong, In ... Read more
True Wealth
I guess it's all over. Our marriage has failed. I'm sorry I'm not what you thought you had nailed. No need to get dirty in times of divorce, You say ... Read more
Twyla
At her kitchen table sharing tea in the pale morning I ask the widow, "How long were you married?" And she replies, "I am married. Though my husband ... Read more
Venice
Palaces of pleasure stand like Timeless birthday cakes parading, Harlequins and histories In February masquerading, Gargoyles decorating ... Read more