poet, interviewer, musician, traveler
Ash And Stone
Perhaps even the abuse
was the best they could do.
We are none of us prepared
to shepherd a helpless life,
to watch it grow beyond us
while still needing – or worse,
not needing – our guidance.
I tended the fires of rage
until my heart ran out of fuel,
until in the ashes that remained
I found a stone that was
warm to the touch, and silent.
/ / /
11 May 2025
Charlottesville, VA
New Pope
The new pope is an old white dude.
I mean they’re usually old white dudes.
He once said social media causes the gay.
I’m paraphrasing.
The new pope was born in Chicago.
Might have grown up a Cubs or a White Sox fan.
Eating deep dish, listening to the blues.
Probably not the blues thing, though.
The new pope looked kinda stunned on TV.
Maybe he was thinking:
“We’re still doing this shit?”
He looked as good in the hat as anyone.
His Italian sounded OK to me
but then again I don’t speak Italian.
The new pope is infallible now, I guess.
That’ll make Vatican trivia night easier.
/ / /
8 May 2025
Charlottesville VA
in the air (Wed 1:23 PM)
a cardinal, who then swoops
low over the grass
smoke from two sticks of Japanese incense
burning in an ash-filled Mason jar
the sound of Scott Robinson’s bari sax
with the New Art Orchestra
two little brown birds (maybe house sparrows)
heading for the empty feeders
a mid-sized jet
bound for Charlotte NC
the voice of a work at the perpetually
under-construction house next door
birdsong
so much birdsong
a truck engine
on the busy road nearby
one slowly descending maple leaf
a sense of anticipation
oh, and a hawk
/ / /
7 May 2025
Charlottesville VA
“Everyone draws – until around puberty, and after that for some reason they either announce that they can’t draw, or they keep drawing. Maybe the only thing that marks an artist is the presence of a double negative: an artist is someone who doesn’t claim they can’t draw.” – Amy Sillman, “On Drawing”
flipping
flipping through
Patrick Heron’s paintings
on my phone
I think:
perhaps these aren’t for me
before I slap myself
across the face of my mind
and remember:
I haven’t seen them yet
/ / /
6 May 2025
Charlottesville VA
I’m reading Amy Sillman’s essay “On Color” in her book Faux Pas. Despite my issues with seeing color, the essay is drawing me in, largely in the way it opens a door to the tactile world of paint selection, something I was unaware of.
I have a strong desire to lead a more “artistic” life, although I’m not totally sure what that means. Before I started to write this, my initial thought was that it means a life very different from the one I have now. In the next moment, though, I identified my tendency toward all change being radical, and tried instead to push past that first reaction to instead see that art is close at hand.
I’m already a poet. I’m learning to sketch. I have fairly easy access to museums. I could make music. I could create the poetry album I’ve been meaning to work on. In short, I am already living an artistic life, and I have the means at my disposal to deepen that practice if I choose to. The readiness is all, as Hamlet said.
My copy (top) of Amy Sillman’s sketch (bottom) accompanying her essay “On Color.”
Leave a CommentAvoid The Area
police activity at the Rotunda:
problem or solution?
the phone buzzes
avoid the area
Jefferson’s roads have too many cars
he didn’t see this coming
too busy … you know
avoid the area
a softening of the heart
a lowering of walls
advice over the phone:
avoid the area
later we learn
someone shot himself
in the dark on the campus lawn
avoid the area
sell yourself short
sell yourself cheap
just sell yourself
avoid the area
don’t ask questions
don’t speak up
don’t make waves
avoid the area
/ / /
5/5/25
Charlottesville VA
The Man I Was(n’t)
I’m not the man I was
or the man I pretended to be
I’ve shed that skin
stepped into the new glory of self
I was given a mouse’s moniker
standing by the bus one afternoon
my first glimpse of a world
beyond the walls of expectation
later still, one strap down,
triangle pendant flashing,
I danced to Erasure and felt
a gate open in my chest
it closed again
but not forever
/ / /
1 May 2025
Charlottesville VA
POND LEHOCKY
I love the way you type your PIN
like it only works if you attack your phone
as if the screen knows you want in
but it would prefer you to leave it alone
perhaps it’s trying to save your brain
from Bezos and Musk and all their goons
maybe it knows they’re such a drain
it would rather you just watch cartoons
I like the sides of you that I have seen
on adventures or around the house
right up until you break your screen
I’m glad I get to be your mouse
/ / /
29 April 2025
Charlottesville VA
close
every encounter is a mixture
of delight and regret
I’m pushing the big rock
up a steep hill
am I strong enough to let go?
will it roll over me?
my headphones block the sound of the train
as it carries me fa(r)ther away
past a hundred rectangles
divided into a thousand rectangles
I turn on Coltrane, sit back
watch the blurry trees
/ / /
19 April 2025
Washington D.C.
all aboard
a train is a good place
to write a poem
even a train that hasn’t left yet
is full of possibility
a train puts me at ease
no traffic, no tolls
no need to navigate
just ride the rails
until you get to your station
it’s a terrible metaphor for life
but my favorite way to travel
/ / /
19 April 2025
Charlottesville VA
mayflies
mayflies dead on the streets of Selma
mayflies dead on the Edmund Pettus Bridge
David and I are there to remember
to pay our respects, to see
but everywhere we look
the streets and sidewalks are covered
with drifts of mayfly carcasses
heaps of translucent white wings
uncountable numbers of corpses
we try not to step on them
it’s all but impossible
we walk with a sickening crunch
across that weighty bridge
emerging on the other side
two white people unscathed
on a field of the dead
/ / /
18 April 2025
Charlottesville VA
this place is nowhere
I have learned nothing
about this place
I know the route from home to work
from home to Wegmans
from home to downtown
when my partner drives back
to their other place
I don’t know which direction they go
most days I seem to be floating
like Fenchurch in the Adams book
never quite touching the ground
today someone from afar
told me I’m flourishing
my sister says my life is stable
my kids, well, I’m never sure about them
but me? I’m here but not here
like a main street façade
built for a movie
it looks real if you don’t get too close
don’t peek around the back
don’t see the beams
propping up the illusion
I’m a dusty western town
tumbleweeds blowing through
a short hop from the highway
that goes everywhere and nowhere
/ / /
17 April 2025
Charlottesville VA
abracadabra
no matter how many times I hear
the magic trick that was Art Tatum
I can never figure out how he did it
how his mind leapt as if he’d never
heard of the law of gravity
how his fingers found all those keys
with no eyes to guide them
how he took songs everybody knew
and blasted them into a million
glittering jewels of sound
he had an arm up each sleeve
with miraculous hands at the ends
here I sit, mouth open in wonder
grateful just to listen
/ / /
14 April 2025
Charlottesville VA
Black Saint Billy Harper is wailing 40-something years ago in some other city but tonight he’s filling the air in our bedroom in Charlottesville because earlier today at Melody supreme his record was on the wall and I remembered that time I interviewed him and his voice was so rich and resonant that it put mine to shame and that was already so long ago that I recall only impressions (not the Coltrane tune) and wow! this band is killing.
five decades
collapsed in an instant
black metaltail hummingbird
/ / /
12 April 2025
Charlottesville VA
