Light

Light plays constantly on every surface. 

Light lingers at night in the hems of the curtains. 

Day drips in through eyelids as we slowly awaken,

Chiseling through cracks in the skull as we lay latent. 

Light is rumored to come from rays from Satan. 

Light is merely wavelengths, at intervals waving. 

Crashing metal produces ember-like sparks.

Constellations issue material falling apart.

2/3/23

 My child thinks the moon was moving,

Because the clouds were passing across its oval face. 

What I hear as the howl of a wolf becomes a siren: 

The intermittent fire truck honk confirms my error.  

Yet wolves have been sighted in parks nearby. 

Once they howled a chorus with the neighborhood dogs. 

The rain is slanted. Branches dangle off wires and gutters.  

The space between the earth and the dark-lit sky 

Consists of whooshing wind and cracking trees. 

The door behind us closes, three days into February. 

Mushrooms (2016 note)

 (redacted): one matsutake. Near l/r

switchback with large felled log at the 

corner. (Just after strange signs). 

Admirable boletes at very crest of trail before 

descent into creek valley. Many chanterelle, 

most near matsutake. All choice found in 

open forest w no vegetation, pine covering. 

Staircase: quarter mile in, north side of 

creek, lobsters. Shaggy manes just past 

bridge on right side of creek. 

Spring kings: ponderosa pines, true firs, 

cedars. E of crest 

Ponderosa: flaky jigsaw bark, long thin 

needles in bundles of 3

True fir: erect cones on top branches, short 

blunt needles (one inch) 

Rimbaud

 We take masturbation lessons!

We flap and flail and

Get sent back to third grade. 

What a disgrace. 

“The system failed you.”

Or: the fact that there was a system.

For it all runs afoul. 

The fact was, there was a system 

For ever and all. 

I like to smile and joke

To avoid a tantrum. 

I smile, I joke,

I like to stomp, to screech. 

You can relax your muscles in sleep,

Or you can drain them.

Flex and scream,

Pinch your eyes, clench your teeth. 

And my mind is plainly blank.

The wrung-out feeling. 

I sink into the floor, and numb is the pace.

As far as numbing goes,

I finish first place.

Shelter in Place

3/6

…and it hits, exposing not entropy but order: 

Deceptively simple order of physical space.  

Order in every place except for the hospital.

The coliseum is a proper lonely ruin,

Wrung of people.

A fresh threat has joined us. Directing traffic,

Gradually sweeping the streets,

It is eerie how it chooses not to speak.

The government tells us to be responsible.  

They will not help, although they will pretend.

They and we both know it, unfortunately.

And folks take care of their own, in a wary shuffle.

Nodding at each other perhaps,

But with distance intact.

When everything becomes normal again,

Normal will no longer be the right word for everything.

If everything were normal? What a frightful bore.

Shows on TV, conferences, organized sports.

Palatable distractions, and possibly nothing more.

3/13

It is easy to be irritable in throngs of traffic.

But what if that traffic is gone,

And in place is the threat?

And if you think too hard,

Tug the strings,

It all unravels:

Clean water, garbage pickup, the internet.

Is that the threat?

Amenities snatched?

Creatures of habit, we deal in certitude,

And this is a reminder that two things are certain:

Taxes (extended three months),

And (of course) death.

I decided years ago to appreciate my lot,  

As if that was enough,

As if that absolved me.

It’s better than some do,

I used to tell myself.

(I may still tell myself this).

(At times, I make myself sick.)

3/21

My son is obsessed with manhole covers.

He fills them with sticks as he sits in the street.

He staggers towards home when I mention ma-ma.

The sun is shining. A few days to spring. 

I know we are lucky. It feels like a sin.  

Across the Water

From across the sound,
The storms upon the mountain seem very small.
And we have the urge to cross the white-capped water:
The journey provides some distance, disrupts routine.

When I was a child, adults seemed
Like they had it figured out.
And now I know we haven't,
And my child has grown bigger,
And is beginning to talk.
As winter approaches,
The memory of early light fades,
And I get my thick socks.

The thought of soup until spring is plenty solace.
When I return from out, home smells of onion and garlic.
The warmth stings my cheeks,
And I leave my shoes on the mat
To avoid tracking leaves.

Anti-Gravity

We danced among the stars,
And even when we came down
Our eyes were starry, our faces glowed.
We felt the star-crossed new-found love
Of newest friends.
It prevented us from turning
Against each other,
From spitting venom,
From sucking blood with our canines.
Until it didn't. And now we orbit in a void,
And our yells just disappear,
Swallowed by space. And the void shouts back.
Or is it an echo -
I wish I liked the sound. 
But we had our pick
On that blue orbiting orb
For quite a while.
We are the dinosaurs.
We will leave glyphs in the layers,
Submit to interpretation,
Attain significance.

Or, in this airtight chamber of my head,
Is that just my hubris nagging again.

It's You

After all, it's you, love.
After all the fear and drudgery.
I must be careful not to lay
Too much at your feet.

When you awaken, I’ll hold you,
Sit you in my lap to look around.
Forming every day,
On my lap you sway, a beautiful dreamer.

Although to you they are mere sensations,
To me they are: he loves my kisses!

This will have to be how I explain,
Until later.
Then my words will leave me.
And I'll sing you Bombadee,
And I think you'll see.

the nerve

Actual daily threadbare psychic pain.
Rooted in my brain.
Clinging from the other side.
The other side of what, I cannot know.
Perhaps the what itself
Is the blight, the distractor.
Though also a token source
Of daily pleasure,
Or at least of sensation.
The raw sort hurts so lovely
So long as it's gentle.
The smallest size on the grater,
The surface scratch.
I rub my eyes bare.

lost poems

Inundation of moral quandary.
Quagmire of significant choices:
Put another plastic in the sea?
The best lack all conviction. 
Judgment of a generation as poetry.

Sacrifice is succor via suffering.
Satisfaction is available,
But only to the moneyed and the free.
Death is no better whined at than withstood. 
Moral instruction encased in poetry.

An ancient city buried in the sea,
A museum of entombed fragility.
Testament to a truth that none shall see.
The fascination of our predicament - 
The envelope is scratched with poetry.

Spectral creatures pick at their snacks,
Which collect in pinches and cracks.
Their gazes are glazed and ghostly.
The sour breath shall vanish in a day. 
Most shall see somewhere some poetry.