christmas lights in windowof homescheduled for demolition
poetry
In Essence
Poetry does not bring me peace. Or if it does,it is the peace of a baby sleeping, only to be woken by a nightmare. Poetry does not bring me relaxation. Or if it does,it is the relaxation of a perch eating a frog underneath a rolling country brook. Poetry does not bring me reconciliation. Or […]
Georgia O’Keefe’s Taos
is time collecting prints on the thumbs of sage smudged hills.A translucent blue topaz lightdisappearingbeneath half-eaten pine cones.
Seven Haiku
winter morning —daylight arriveswithout a story snow plungesfrom tower block ledgeslike falling bodies duckling left behindpaddles to catch upwith mother and siblings children playing in ruins of millme 40 summers agowalking by today young woman pushing prambruise beneath her eyemorning rain zazen together, one breath4000 miles butno distance between us winter street —dog turd on […]
A Time of Survival
Carried in handwoven Amish wicker baskets from the root cellarlike pickled garlicsealed in mason jars with yellow Ginghamfabric toppersthe world needs poems.
A Buddhist Reading of “Happy as a Dog’s Tail”
As a film and literature enthusiast, I am always on the look out for stories that evoke the Dharma. Today, I have a gander at the poem “Happy as a Dog’s Tail” by Polish Poet Anna Świrszczyńska (aka Anna Swir). Happy as a Dog’s Tail, by Anna Swir Happy as something unimportantand free as a […]
I awoke in the belly of a poem
no one is talking about, not since I stopped believingin the power of words to give birth to my dreams. Like Jonah. Swallowed. Smellinglike krill slime sticking to thewalls of a soft, rubbery bladder,all I can see is the darkness of my ignorance. I grope aroundlike a beetle turned on its shell. spinning around the stainless floorboard.
Before Words
By the time it is written down it hasalready passed. Even the animals,the brute beasts of the fields, dumband blind to the ways of poetry in books, feel it in the soul of their hoovesand the simple sensations of their tonguestouching the grass, or a pig rolling in the mud, as birds sing for no reason […]
Falling Into the Well
While looking for the way, we fall into the only placewhere we can quench our thirst. The way is not out there. It is notaround the corner. The way is whatwe need and do not give into. The way is what we are and do notallow others to know. The way falls into us,like an open-eyed man […]
Why Poetry is Well Suited for Space Work
Why did I think she had eyes thecolor of feces and sweat dipping tainted hairs white as burning phosphorous? What is wrongwith me? Why could I not justsee brown and white? It’s as if my mind has to reenter the atmosphere before it can join otherhumans again. Not unlike astronauts, poets speak words with Neoprene-coated nylon.Their syllables irrigating […]