With the Moon Near Full

Black woods, blue ground     the hills and their shadows

in the semigloss of night with the moon near full,

moonlight a wax of sadness     evenly spread

over the peopled township     over the fields and banyards

abandoned and quiet under dim stars     the few who must

standing in frost     its dark glitter     unaware of each other,

must because the past     the worst of it     awaits in dreams,

aging strangers     constellated grass     lone riders

drifitng with the planet     into the ruinous forever,

the semigloss of night with the moon near full,

black woods, blue ground     the hills and their shadows.

The Writer

     

 Ordinary sunset, ordinary quiet,

Same line of the planet against the same heaven.

Is it enough? In a heartbeat, you'd said.

Pity, then.

We thought the same stuff was funny,

We thought the same things were wrong,

If we could've been kind to each other,

It was all gravy, baby. 

He takes out his notebook, makes an entry.

NYC Love Poem

Mime on 9th Ave, New York.

      

 The last leaves snap from the trees

          and fall in the street, like the dead.

Torn newspaper spins in barred alcoves,

          lost of its purpose, like the dead.

Listen! The debris of the living speaks in the wind,

          so like the dead.

Horns in Hell's Kitchen, sidewalks enthronged,

          beings by thousands striding the concrete,

          somewhere to be.

Toughs break for cash at the feet of Columbus,

          mourners in Central Park still crying for Lennon,

          a silver man mimes for a living on Ninth,

          billiard balls barking in barlight on Tenth,

          men in jerseys and beards

          shouting at televisions over it all, idol-high,

          epic and glorious overtime endings,

So like her chosen, last city.

The Separation

 

Do you hear me

bang my head

against your wall?

Of course you do.

Why no answer?

Bang your head

against your side

and keep me company.

—lines by Charles Simic after Baudelaire

We Weren't the Oppens

Dreamscape photo

     

Of course we failed,

truthfulness being crucial,

self-criticism demanded,

with motives other than money,

packing words down,

with all our carnal history,

nocturnal artists living in a country

with a fetish for proving it can live without art,

when all we truly needed

was to sit in the sparrow-colored field

watching the last birds of dusk

pass over in silhouette,

and to sleep in our own bed,

or so we said.

—A cento with phrases from C.D. Wright's "Cooling Time."

Title refers to American poets Mary and George Oppen.

Tu Fu in Turkeyfoot

Sometimes I fear the end of light,

but as I watch the dusk from the top of the field

these mountain ridges range far into the heavens,

I float on the breath of the creeks

rising from the valleys,

and I sail away.

—Tu Fu, 712-770 C.E. An adaption

of  David Hinton's translation

of the revered Tang Dynasty

poet's penultimate poem.

Here Where We Are

Sitting until dark

at the edge of the woods,

things as they are,

the deepening sky,

clarity and emptiness,

the yearning of consciousness

under the forked-river of stars,

here where we are.

The force that flows

from wooded hill to valley ridge,

from horizon to horizon,

flows also through us,

joined as we are

to the ends of the Milky Way,

risen now like the handle of a basket

over our world and its mysteries,

here at the edge of heaven and earth,

here where we are.

November Poem: What the Wind Says

The way out

 

She

in the darkened hemlocks

in the month of leaving.

Her

in the oaks on the hill

sleeping naked.

The Air Over the Field

Field in a windstorm

Bursts of impermanent wind,

explosions of seed

over the hoary field,

airborne fleets of continuance

in a world of failed species,

so much humanity on one planet,

weapons on full automatic,

so much loneliness,

diagonal rain,

no answers,

clearing night,

meteors.

Last Cutting

   

Absence as company

mirror-deep

an empty boat.

Ancestral Rain

 Finches in the aster thatch

dripping sky bare dripping trees

the pond's expanding rings

candle flame and ticking stove

distances in mist

thought unbound from memory

pure perception rain

overcloud of all that's gone

deep in native ground

to rise beneath the birds

wild internal spring.

Cosmos

 

No one here

just the mind

the sea's flatline horizon

the steady wind off the continent

with its warm land smells

against the cold decay

the timeless collapse

the motion of arrival

and departure

and further out

the force of fire

the gravity of spheres

emptiness

the no one song.

"Ad Astra" and the Vote

 

I can't watch.

The polls begin to close and the counting starts.

Instead, I find Ad Astra, its final hour on HBO,

Where the results are in: We're all we've got.

The movie's futile search for life beyond Earth,

The aching realization of our solitude—

One hundred billion solar systems in our Milky Way,

Two trillion Milky Ways—our universe,

One hundred billion times two trillion and still

We're all we've got  is our best guess, infinity 

Is difficult to grasp, and yet, as far as we can tell,

We're all there is and all that's ever been.

We're all we've got.

I check the phone, VT, KY, WV, VA, SC, no surprises yet.

The moon is at the window, I step into the cold:

Huge yoke behind the briar arcs, and there atop

The silhouetted hill, colored points of light against the dark,

A solar-powered string draped in the dogwood

To mark where one girls' ashes flourish on the earth.

I check my phone: No battlegrounds, no swings.

Tomorrow, warmer, Indian summer ahead.

Four days hence, the vote is in:

Masked dancers in the streets.

I want to think we won't forget

We're all we've got.

—stills from 20th Century FOX's "Ad Astra," 2019

 

The Few and Far Between

 

Room between us

Far enough apart

not to hear the churn

of false assumption

Disinformation

diluted in sky

Few enough to value

human presence

Distance enough

to think the best

of each other

Room to love.

Blue Moon

 

Pale drift

over the ghosts

of the sloped fields

light of the mind

cold and planetary.

We want to believe

in tenderness

yearning for proof

how far

we have fallen.

— after Sylvia Plath

Most of the People Most of the Time

 

Facing the blinding urchin of the sun

in the high contrast of November,

the wind whistling in the wire,

the tall old oaks along the road

roaring for change, their sharp pennants

starched straight out toward the capitol,

holding my breath in a penetrating chill,

I am steadied by the familiarity of home,

by the form of the hill against the sky,

by the few, great trees as old as the nation itself,

clinging to faith in the most of us,

able to trace with pride a soldier line

through two world wars, the Civil War,

The War of 1812, and The Revolution,

loving the idea of America,

of what was won and what was lost,

and what I believe it is still and can be.

2: Standard Time

Inward our direction now,

two days before The Election,

wanting less of the world,

waiting to be counted,

turning back the clock

(may it signify nothing)

as the woods go bare,

firewood stacked and covered,

hailstones bouncing off the tarp

as the wind presses down

on the dying field,

the ghosts of plants

still filling our view

as well as when they were green,

and so it is with ourselves,

pleased as we must be,

those of us still standing,

with what remains.