Come Closer and Listen

JO'B

I wish I had known                             

to call for help                             

in the dark                             

I wish I had known                             

you would come                             

—repurposing a line by Charles Simic

And Yet Tomorrow

JO'B

                 Under the layers of evening

                 I hear the creek in the valley

                 And the river in me

                 Sorrow sings the sweetest strain

                 And yet the south wind blows

                 And yet tomorrow

                 The sun may warm my back

                 I'll wait

                  

Three Oh Five

JO'B

                      Come closer

                      my friends of the dark

                      the notepad the pen

                      the small circle of light

                      the second hand's slow sweep

                      the book on its stand

                      a sentence or two strong enough

                      to repeat in a whisper

                      as if you could hear it

                      my face faint on the pane

                      against the fathomless night

—after Charles Simic's "Nothing Else"

The Next Front

JO'B

              Weathered enough to know

                        We've missed each other

                                  This time through, yet

                                             How pretty to think

                                                      One of us will go on ahead

                                              And wait.

Just After

JO'B

"I do not know which to prefer," Wallace Stevens wrote. 

"The beauty of inflections. Or the beauty of innuendos.

The blackbird whistling. Or just after." 

———

An easy rain has ended

The wind lies down upon the pond and sleeps

Embers of sunset reflecting there

The questionnaire had asked

Are you ever lonely?

Chorus frogs begin to sing

When I am very still

Pure clear ringing notes

A floating world

Monochrome

JO'B

Blackbirds singing          

As color drains from the west          

I had promised myself          

More solitude          

A Bridge for Kelly

Rooftop on Delancey Street n Lower Manhattan, 2005.  (JO'B)

On a rooftop

At the center of her world

In a city of exceptions,

Above the rough edge of Chinatown,

The wordless poem of the heart,

The falling man of the HVAC,

 The depth of bridge to Williamsburg,

Became her woods and valleys in the light,

Became her constellations in the night,

She found her peers,

Artists and writers and musicians,

Gentle, complex thinkers,

Laughers, quick to care,

And they found her,

Far too near the end

Of the last American Renaissance.

Delancey Street, New York City, 2005.  (JO'B)

Equinoctial

Returning

To the close-at-hand

We find

An ordered universe

And we drift

In that balance            

American Fire

From the public domain

Screams of the mothers             

echo through these hills             

not so far away             

from the women searching             

through the rubble of a school             

for their murdered daughters             

finding them             

not so far away             

from this field full of robins             

in this naked scenery of March            

suddenly drying in a pitiless wind             

soon to burn             

lovesick for awhile if we're lucky             

soon to burn             

—After a Tomahawk missile struck Shajaareh Tayyabeh Primary School 

in Minab, Iran, at the beginning of "Trump's War" on February 28, 2026

Waiting Out the Storm

JO'B

A cold rain blows in              

Chilled in an abandoned barn              

Sheltering with ghosts              

The Longevity of the Local

JO'B

 

Still standing

in evening shadows

Night pours in

through broken windows

Built to last

on the ground we grew on

Memory's Hill

JO'B

                    The trees are streaked with rain,

                    Ribbons of sky ripple in the ditches,

                    I move through the visible world

                    No longer expecting someone present,

                    The people I have loved

                    Lined up over memory's hill

                    Stretching back into the mist,

                    And it's enough to know

                    Most of them loved me back,

                    Once upon a time.

Hindsight

JO'B

 

The subtle tones               

intrigue me most,               

would that I had been so.               

Nightwalker

keep on                           

my soul                           

no other light                           

 

A Life in the Mountains

from the public domain

A diffusion of rain.          

I walk the woods without shadows.          

The war goes on.          

I live among deer.          

I wondered if sparrows no longer twittered.          

Then I realized I was going deaf.          

I wrote a poem of three lines.          

That was all I had to say.          

I must finish the chicken coop.          

They're knocking plates off the table.          

The body grows weaker.          

But gazing at the mountains stays the same.          

Thirty years since I've seen you.          

And I still see your tail lights going over the hill.          

The mind moves as slowly as a cloud.          

But a cloud moves on.          

                              —adapted from The Life of Tu Fu (712-770,AD), gleaned from his poems and translated by Eliot Weinberger, New Directions, 2024.

The Legend of Magic Water

jo'b

                   

The wind I see you there                    

That shakes the hemlock arms                    

And fells the paper birch                    

Across the melting drifts                    

The mists I hear you close                    

That sleep among the trees                    

Ascending in the trunks                    

The gaze you touched me with                   

A light that brings the flood                   

On sugar sugar days                   

A rising of the blood                   

The Comforts of Winter

jo'b

         

                    Now with enough

                    firewood to burn

                    until swallows

                    weave over the field,

                    seasoned cherry and oak

                    burning hot and slow

                    with a few unexpected sparks,

                    like the love of old friends.          

—for GK and JK

The Tao of Today

jo'b

                          Today I shall try to think

                          of the small as big

                          and of the few as many,

                          practicing eternity

                          while I am unwinding

                          somewhere in between.

—after a poem by Philip Schultz

Solitaire

jo'b

 
                    To walk the field at night

                    is to hurtle through the universe

                    and it's quite a ride

February Thaw

jo'b

We measure our lives by our joys. -- Thoreau. Feb. 23, 1860

I let the fire go out            

and opened up the house,            

invited in the wind            

and stepped outside,            

the road now bare enough            

to ride, and that I did,            

shouting out to neighbors            

mucking out their barns,            

stubble showing in the fields            

as snow recedes, and I            

was happy to survive,            

blinking in sunlight,            

yet something was still missing,            

something weather only can't provide,            

something... something more,            

but what?            

Answers, I suppose.          

Infidels

jo'b

In the vast silence                       

On a hill muted with snow,                      

Transient belief.                      

Earthshore

                    'Tis the sound of the earth

                    I hear in the spruces

                    as much the rush of the sea

                    as my own breath

February Hilltop

jo'b

Standing with the wind

stinging my face,

I listen for voices

across untrammeled snow

in fading light.

The valley fills with night.

Healing the Blind*

jo'b

The wind wanders off into the next county,

Snow devils lie down on the hill,

The sun moves low and weak through the trees.

The world is frozen, empty and still,

But the heart is blooded with thunder.

Write me a poem. Tell me what's true.

* — St. Valentine was martyred on Feb. 14, 270 AD, for continuing to marry young Roman men despite the emperor's order against it,  preferring single men as soldiers. While captive, the young priest,  to prove the power of Christian faith, cured his jailer's daughter of blindness. The night before his beheading, he wrote a note to the girl and signed it "Your Valentine." So goes the story.

Midwinter

jo'b

                    Before the fire

                    where we once sat

                    I open the vents 

                    and hear the flame

                    throbbing in the flue.

 

Domestic Tranquility

Never lost.                                       jo'b

I love to get things in the garage

where the UPS driver leaves them—

books, vintage Carhartts, poems—

sacred stuff I keep to myself,

except for a few old friends,

in this uncertain season.

I also love a good storm

when everything stops,

snowbound and out of touch,

the road drifted shut,

snowshoe weather,

a welcome peace, except

now for the satellite-cluttered sky,

now for what we all carry,

now for the watchers.

These few uncultivated acres—

I always figured if I kept them safe,

if I kept them truthful,

if I kept them simply mine,

I could go wherever I wanted

and never be lost, living a tranquil life

in its final chapters, embracing naivete´,

oblivious to the algo.

I was wrong.

Heed the call.

Mist in the Valley

jo'b

     Grandfather

     You came to protect me

     Stepping out of the past

     And into my dream

     Everything's possible

     When mist fills my valley

     I'll need you again

Sedatus

Please click to enlarge            (jo'b)

Deep breath,

Wounded soul.

Nothing lasts.

Silent Flight

jo'b

Do not ask               

If I still hope               

             

In the woods               

At dusk               

The owls alight               

Who am I to grieve               

Who has not ceased               

To wonder               

 

Portal

jo'b

                                                Three parts light

                                                and one part night

                                                the broken pane

                                                of dreams

                                                The past

                                                breathing in that dark

                                                like an animal

                                                chained to its stall

January Thaw

jo'b

Pausing by the pond                              

in this jagged world                              

to thaw my fears                              

and watch the sky                              

slide out from under ice,                              

looking up                              

by looking down.                              

Sunset in Winter

jo'b

                    A lower light

                    gathers at the waist

                    of earth and sky

                    Brutal in its stillness

                    when the wind dies

                    A beauty so intense

                    we feel our losses

                    more and more

Heartsick

jo'b

This way                        

old friend                        

if you're still willing                        

we'll call it a triumph                       

of memory                       

Writing by Candlelight in an Icestorm

jo'b

          

Night masked an ill wind     

That kicked in the cabin door     

And murdered the light     

Sky

jo'b

I never tire

of looking at the sky

for surely that's where she went

she who is lighter than air

which is why the Irish

leave the window open

to make it easier

for all

All Perfecto and No Bike

SchottNYC.com photo

               He sold his last motorcycle

               after a spill,

               a concession to age

               and to circumstance,

               but he kept the jacket.

               He thought he could

               defeat time, and desire,

               and the need to be loved

               if he just geared down,

               but the weather clears,

               and the sun warms his back,

               and he feels it again,

               the wild urge of speed,

               of freedom, of living,

               and, oh, to go down swinging.

Incantation

jo'b

I spoke your name                    

To the rising Wolf Moon                    

And I wait