Sunday & Monday
Pop songs in the tattoo shop.
All power to the people.
High tops splash color
like the mycelia on your arm.
Text: a break-up far away;
nothing is promised.
•
The next day:
Sacramento 12-string.
Cat wrapped around the bird bath.
Flannel season has arrived.
The neighbor going
wherever it is she goes.
•
Help me light this fuse.
I want to set fire
to the past
so I can use the flames
to light the way forward.
/ / /
8-9 September 2024
Scottsville and Charlottesville, VA
Category: My poems
Precursor
Coltrane and Ellington.
Two mugs of chai.
The cat is in the hostas.
A simple morning.
We eat avocado toast,
pull ourselves up by our bootstraps.
Lorenzo Kom’boa Ervin
speaks of revolution.
/ / /
8 September 2024
Charlottesville VA
Considering
I’ve been feeling old.
The skin on my legs is rough and itching.
I’ve forgotten how to sleep.
I gained back half the weight I’d lost,
stopped walking everywhere.
My right foot aches near the big toe,
even with my cool retro sneakers on.
This morning I sat in my rocking chair
on the porch, eyes closed, hands clasped
over my (too ample) belly,
breathing in and out at a measured pace
as a catbird rasped in the neighbor’s tree.
I do these things mostly out of habit,
pulling meaning from repetition,
from not stopping.
Now a jay is crying
in a different neighbor’s tree
as I sit rocking, eyes open,
hands unclasped,
thinking about the next cup of tea.
/ / /
1 September 2024
Charlottesville VA
buzz chirp hum
the conductor’s invisible baton
4:45 a.m.
/ / /
31 August 2024
Charlottesville VA
Leave a CommentTorch-bearer
Late at night, reading about Ammon Hennacy —
wondering how to live a life of purpose.
It’s easy to say, “I was born at the wrong time,”
as if there isn’t work to do now.
I feel disconnected from most things,
yet hope bubbles up like a spring in my mind.
Which forge offers the best chance
of producing a sword that vanquishes melancholy?
My son reads Octavia Butler.
I’m not ready to pass the torch,
even if it burns my hand.
/ / /
8/24/24
Charlottesville VA
Four For Monday Morning
I am spectacularly bored.
Perhaps there will be
a thunderstorm this afternoon.
*
“Supplication” is playing.
Jerry weaves in and out of
Bob’s rhythm.
*
There’s a kitten at home.
Here in this fluorescent cube
there is only me.
*
At the edge of my vision
is something that’s been coming
for a long time now.
///
29 July 2024
Charlottesville VA
I’m Even In Love With Your Dog
River runs to grab a tennis ball —
he yanks it out of the air on one hop
like a 19th-century ballplayer.
And then, because he’s yours,
he drops it beside a second ball
and goes back and forth between then.
Eventually he chooses, carries the winner over,
waits, tensed, for it to be thrown again.
/ / /
18 June 2024
Charlottesville VA
Science Fact
It was probably a bullfrog.
It was most likely a heron.
It was definitely a bat.
It might have been a peacock.
One thing I’m sure of,
one thing I know to be true,
is that in this whole wide world
the person for me is you.
/ / /
11 June 2024
Charlottesville VA
Palestine
I stopped writing poems
because there is no way
to order these lines
to make you care
when the photos
and the videos
haven’t.
/ / /
6 June 2024
Charlottesville VA
back to a solitary toothbrush
/ / /
27 May 2024
Charlottesville VA
If You’d Let Me, I’d Fall Into You Forever
Into the taste of you, the scent of you,
Into the sound of your laughter,
into the deep-field galaxies in your eyes.
I would travel through the universe of you,
exploring the worlds inside you,
your thoughts that light the skies.
If you’d let me, I’d love you with everything I have,
with the parts of me I haven’t yet discovered,
with all my will and wonder.
I would sing you every song,
write you every line,
awaken to the desire and joy of you.
You are who I hoped I’d find,
after I finally found myself,
the dream at the end of my rainbow heart.
And if you’d let me,
really let me,
I’d fall into you forever.
Very Early
A mourning dove coos, well, mournfully, through Bill Evans’ solo on “Very Early.” A Danish musician had these tapes for years before finally deciding others might like to hear them. What other treasures are hidden in attics and under beds? What magic waits behind downcast eyes? A neighbor drags his garbage to the street, then walks back to his house to do – what? Now it’s a bass solo with catbird accompaniment. The chai in my mug has gone cold.
/ / /
15 May 2024
Charlottesville VA
Lost And Found
You left your water bottle.
You left your scent on the sheets.
You left a space on the couch where you belong.
You left me reeling.
You left me wanting more.
You left the taste of salt and honey.
You left paintbrushes and a toothbrush.
You left an Eagles CD as a joke.
And in the end — you left.
Stay.
/ / /
14 May 2024
Charlottesville VA
the dawn chorus:
leafblower, band saw
hammering, jay
/ / /
11 May 2024
Charlottesville VA
northern flicker
across the street
missed then pointed to
/ / /
10 May 2024
Charlottesville VA