The Moon

Because the wind outflanked us,

Or the rain filled our pockets,

Dissolving our notes,

Or we caught up on our reading,

A pound at a time,

Or the sea, as it crawled on its belly

Toward the dunes,

Shouted us down,

Or the casual pairs of young clerks,

Escaped from D.C. in Subarus,

Stripped to their pretty underwear

And, bounding into the wild, cold surf,

Whooped with sensation in the riptide,

Carried away,

Or Soutine, in Paris without freon,

Painted a carcass of beef which

He washed each day with a bucket of blood

Collected from the butcher by his girlfriend,

Reglistening,

Or a good woman is hard to find,

Or the moon,

I forgot to mention the moon.

—Title and ultimate line from a poem of the same name by David Berman.

Telemetry

Walking the beach

Early in a penetrating wind,

The surf blown to a frenzy

Like the pulse amplified,

And you hear it again,

The roar of her blood in her veins,

The next dark system off the continent

Overtaking the sea and its distance,

Closing you off like grief,

But you have the space of the day to move in,

And you will deal with the night when comes.

Sonnet of the Lunar Tide

We belong here,

Ancient mariners casting bones,

Apologizing for the eyes in our heads,

Stargazers, wierdos, prestidigitators

On private trips to the moon.

Let the truth have its way with us,

Let the brain stumble from its hiding place.

The end of what?

Shadows kneel in the dunes,

We lock our hearts into idle not sure

Of this world or the next.

Hear the sea coming,

Say it again – we are spared nothing,

We belong here.

–A pastiche from the poems of Yusef Komunyakaa

Dei Ex Machinis, East by Northeast

All the machines are on,

Gravity and the east wind,

The floating spheres

Of fire and reflection

Alternating fear and false hope.

In a few days will rise

The moon in full

Out of the curve of the earth,

Skull of the furled sea,

The dark parted lips

Of the soluble dead

Facing the mainland,

Showing white tongues

To what lives.

Tide follows tide follows tide,

The rise of a transient gleam,

The collapse and the shattering,

Work of the gods from machines.

We never had a chance.

Beached Men

  

Reading a black Irish poet

on a bar in the Atlantic

'though it's still October

and the water's sixty-five

no one else is beaded

with the sea.


Men in pants

are drinking whiskeyed beer

under a red umbrella

and making broad statements

about women and oh

life beats you down it does

and yes it's time

for another plunge

into the dark cold undertow.


Cue the sad fiddle.

From the Roof

Expand by clicking

October swept

from the cabin roof

it needed to be done

deeper with each year

the blanket laid for winter

each summer with less passion

each autumn with more fear

yet from the roof

closer to the sky

nests appear as leaves release

the crowns are full of blue

don't be so quick to go

Casselman Hill

  

the way down

is empty and steep

sumac ablaze on the banks

the right-of-ways scorched with Roundup

the wires overhead crackling

with rumors of a world

Golden Living

tattered glowing webs

 in brittle efflorescence

sun rears up to spot you

wandering after the vanishing haze

isolate in glare and certain of nothing

but bewilderment error chance

and obsolescence

therefore you make art.

The Quiet That Followed

   

  

peace to the trees

to the spider lines and leaves

to the startled birds in the appleflocks

and peace to the wall

to the bits of maroon

to the sink and the drain

peace to the bucket and sponge

to the neighbor who came

to the sheets and the pillow stuffed in the can

and peace to the intertwined weeds

to the runaway sun

peace to a power of ten

echoed in shades.

The Going

   

a dying farm

in shabby elegance


consider time

farmers that our people were

not so long ago


may we fade

as gracefully

Cycle

rain

and the sweet smell

of decay

daybreak

and the certainty

of the next season

nightfall

and the stark facts

of solitude

Love in The Fall

  

fruit of the oak

capless in yellow dust


reach for the hips

of the runaway rose


taste your own blood

posted at the borders


if is a real condition.

—with a line by A.E. Stallings

These Days

milkweed bugs

   

the sun appears

in thicker mist

and takes a lower arc

above the wooded hill

these days

i seldom drive

to town and walk

in dew the world

is slowing down

i take a lower arc

blessed enough

to live at peace

beyond the news

these days

Color

Muted this year,

the drought being blamed,

but here's the road home

where vivid's often too much.

Leaving the Details to the Dark

Cropping a photograph from the previous evening, a line or two present themselves, words about unfinished projects, what it is in my makeup that drives me to completion, and a newfound willingness to leave them undone. Neither am i as driven to analyze, to understand, nor to try an make sense of the whirl that surrounds me as i was even a decade ago. Reality, i have come to accept, is beyond my comprehension.This feels like maturity, but it may be exhaustion.

The sun has yet to clear the hill, the weakening dark still lies upon the field, and i walk through it toward the woods. Spindles of light are gathering on the rise among the trunks, the day stretching its fingers among the trees, sometimes touching the ground with its carpet of wet leaves. My boots are soaked by the condensations of night.

Morning climbs down the trunks. A crow clears its throat. Rising in the near distance where the paved road runs unseen is the clamor of human society, the too-near distance. I follow the path i have made for myself through the cold and dewy woods, spider lines across my face, a little disoriented, going with it.

Enough Heaven

Meant to be expanded with a click

The pouring wind flattens the field,

asters and goldenrod laid westward,

Another train whistles near the crossing

in the valley behind the wooded hills,

Four crows flying in formation

 against the sky that spells rain.

If it clears i will try

to photograph the moon,

And if it doesn't,

the ground is celestial enough.

Worth a click

—with a line by Matthew Sweeney

A Ride in the Mountains

  

We, too, are turning,

Golden in descent,

Blazing at the edges.

The Runner

Still i run

though i am slow

so slow it is the first of October

two thousand and fifteen

and still this road i run

for more than half my longish life

with many stops along the way

and always off i go again

for when i run this gravel road

i am not a boy imperiled by love

in this hour i am free.

Yet see the ground

forever formed

by what it used to be.

—with a line by Andrew Saviano