poet, interviewer, musician, traveler
I don’t usually post two poems on the same day, but here goes. This is in response to the first-ever prompt from the new Big Tent Poetry. Click on the image below to enlarge. In many browsers. you can click on the bigger image, too, to make it EVEN BIGGER. Crazy!
all the world
in the hazy moments before sleep
I turn toward the window, think of you
my cheek resting on the cool pillow
I wonder where you are, what you’re doing
is your head cradled by soft down?
are you looking at the same moonless sky?
do you hold my face in your eyes,
imagine my warmth beside you?
once we walked along village streets
making plans for the future
now I sleep alone, think often of the past
memory is a vast theater of empty seats
the curtain removed years ago, the ushers released
I sit on the edge of the stage, swinging my feet
the echo of my heels hitting the wood
accentuates the exquisite loneliness of this room
a jolt as my body falls and I am awake again
face turned toward the window
cheek resting on the warm pillow
thinking, as always, of you
the chase
300,000 madcap monks
line up in rows
myopics who cannot follow
the treeing of the raccoon
by a pack of wiseacre hounds
the raccoon’s claws draw
molasses from the trunk
a dark glob balancing on its
nose like a circus trick
the monks follow the smell
to the base of the tree
where sits a Spanish violinist
who plays a jaunty reel
the monks begin dancing
the raccoon begins dancing
the tree begins dancing
the hounds circle round
find soft spots in the sticky grass
and settle down to sleep
Red is…
the color of the rush
the sound of the audience
the flame behind your eyes
the tingle in the fingertips
the vibration inside
the salt on the tongue
the cast of the rain
the taste of need
the washing over of the past
the end of the tunnel
the soft touch of skin
the hard echo of calling
the turn of the key
the clatter of footsteps
the remains of ashes
the promise unspoken
the thought unvoiced
the blush of truth
the cry of a hawk
the whisper in the hallway
Red is the ringing phone
that is never answered.
Red is the back that turns
to the pounding on the door.
Red is the question that
no answer ever rises to meet.
Red is the waning
of the moon.
Listen to this poem using the player above.
Delaware
a deer crosses Delaware Avenue
flashing a shock of white-tailed rump
at the convenience store window
Thursday morning commuters jam the brakes
jarred from their talk-radio reverie
into an encounter with the world-as-it-is
this doe stops all the moving metal
the beat of her heart more powerful
than the combustion of the bones
of dinosaurs, explosions that
carry and eradicate the memory of nature
Listen to the entire set using the player above.
UPDATE: The fine folks at Albany Poets sent me a recording of my set straight from the sound board. It’s higher quality than the recording I made and is now posted above. Enjoy!
Thank you to everyone who came out to see my set tonight at Poets Speak Loud at the Lark Tavern in Albany. I had a fantastic time and was very touched to see so many friendly faces (including the folks who would have been there anyway).
If you missed the gig, here is my set in its entirety. You can listen using the player at the top of this post, or download the mp3 file for later by clicking on Download, right below the player. The first voice you’ll hear is that of Mary Panza, the MC and one of the prime movers behind Albany Poets. Enjoy!
2 CommentsListen to this poem using the player above.
April
already the sinking of autumn
a rough sack of wet leaves
thrown over the shoulder
sternum aching from bending forward
the slightest cloud across the sun
renews longing
air smells of metal, predicts the coming rain
sidewalkers with downcast eyes
avoid the discomfort of contact
a woman on a concrete bridge
measures the distance to Ophelia’s bed
thinks better of it this day
there’s rosemary for you, that’s for remembrance
there’s fennel for you, and columbines
Ophelia waits, open-eyed
unready, she’s thinking, that’s all
the time will come, my sweet
when I shall cover you up with my watery sheet
I’ll be adding to this album as more photos come in. Here are the first few from the reading.
Leave a CommentListen to this poem using the player above.
Water
(for Carolee and Jill)
all my poems are wet
soaked through with tears
of realization come too late
before the ink is dry
as my pen lifts from the paper
my eyes well up and it starts again
every missed connection
every just-closed train door
every unreturned smile
there are never enough pages
to soak it all up, to absorb all these years
why does it take so long to cross this river?
Listen to this poem using the player above.
Come with me, Shelby
come with me, Shelby
leave Dunkin’ Donuts behind
abandon the too-sweet smell of the batter,
the truckers’ glares,
long-separated from warm flesh
and soft mouths
leave your ill-chosen uniform
and the constriction of low wages
we’ll drive to the lake
sit in my pickup on top of the hill
try to spot the woodpecker
building a home
I’ll find us a tree
peck at it with my pointed intentions
burrow down
until the sap sticks to our skin
with a texture no glazed donut can replicate
we’ll have no natural predators,
feel no need to pray
content to perch
above the ebb and flow of this life
and to taste the sweet morning air
Listen to this poem using the player above.
A poem for my son John and his grandfather, after whom he was named. John Packard died in April 1996.
John, again
(for my younger son and his grandfather)
he’ll never smell his grandpa’s pipe
never hear him laugh or make a corny joke
he’ll never feel the rumble of the BCS
as it plows up the rich earth for planting
he’ll never sit at the oval table
never pass a bowl of fresh-picked veggies
or watch his grandpa butter warm bread
he’ll never be tickled by a mustache
or smell the sweat on an old t-shirt
never be picked up in a wiry embrace
or put his cheek against rough stubble
but he’ll carry with him the joy in the land
and he’ll walk with solid steps on country lanes
he’ll laugh when laughter is needed
and he’ll stop to help a stranger
he’ll see in his mother’s eyes
the eyes whose gaze he’ll never feel
and he’ll know what it is to be loved
Listen to this poem using the player above.
My first conscious attempt to use projective verse.
Click on the image to see a larger version.
Listen to this poem using the player above.
Light
from an essay by Kwame Dawes:
“to be at home in a lace that is full of light”
and to be held in its grasp, caressed by light
to feel the tendrils, the wisps of light
wrapped around your chest, softly
slithering down your thighs, grasping
the tender parts of you, this lace
penetrating flesh, seeping into blood
the soft glow in your veins, the rhythmic
pumping of light from the heart, spreading
illumined corpuscles, erythrocytes, leukocytes
traveling toward the extremities, pooling
in the fingers, the toes, rising
to the top of your head, the tips of your hair
to be at home in this lace of light
this lace that is full of light
Listen to this poem using the player above.
Observations from a recent drive from Albany, NY, to Middleburgh, NY, and back.
Middleburgh Sketches
April 19, 2010
tiger-striped hills
cloud-down hovering
one goose in the April sun
* * *
Cachao’s bass at the root
I on the mountaintop
summer salsero amid spring hills
* * *
thick-grown budding trees
guards posted beside the road
the city is a surprise
Listen to this post using the player above.
Gingerbread Man
“I’m uncertain,” said Heisenberg.
It was true — he was hard to pin down.
You have to get up
pretty early in the morning
to catch a man
traveling 66,000 miles per hour.
To meet him halfway is a challenge;
the distance always shrinking,
never quite closing.
We are, finally, unknowable.
Not fixed in both position
and velocity, evading
capture, measurement, taxonomy.
What’s in a name? And where? And when?
Heisenberg printed a label in neat
block letters, but could find
nowhere to put it. All his photos
were blurry. He could not
recognize the faces.
Who is the nucleus, who the electron?
Who is the fixed point, who
the orbiting satellite?
