Category Archives: poetry

Perspective on a hill

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The view from the window is a hill I won’t die on.

Framed on all sides by brick and concrete or old pine trim, it is a portal of a shelter built with a single perspective.

This limited view of the world, covered in dull charcoal – interwoven to attract our focus and screen out flies – mutes the light of new vision and also things to the left and right of the sight line.

Though I do see the changes of a season through it. When the orange and reds arrive, and I see leaves falling – I want to see more. More than this view offers.

And I peek around the edges of the frame to see the wind move through and the rainclouds form. This, rather than wait for darkness to enclose the hill outside my window, is a better view.

Even more so to step outside to feel the wind and hear the leaves. To watch as the rain arrives, then departs. The uneven steps and grassy plots to the pinnacle -where I can see more horizons.

Beyond the window, the hill is even more beautiful when I’m out upon it and living the terrain. This is a hill I will die on.

Fishing Is Many Things

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It is an effort, to awaken before the dawn, when the water is like glass

and fog clings to the cat tails in the quiet moving hours.

It is faith, to set your mind on a place you believe to be a “lucky spot.”

It is diligence, to prepare your gear for the casting. Untangling lines, selecting a lure or bait, the weight to place it at the depth of optimization.

It is serenity, following the sailing line to the splashdown.

and then – patience – the wait, the weight of time on your mind – but with no unsettling burden.

With all the effort and often no reward, having to throw back something too small, or catching the boot of a tall tale from long ago, or dredging up someone’s garbage.

The fishing is more about the process, rather than the end result. If you designed the process well, then a catch was inevitable – though not always a fish. It is no wonder you excelled in the preparation of tasks such as this.

It was skill that walked the halls, teaching others the high loft of a cast to the horizon or how to bait for walleye – wriggling worms – versus musky, with big colorful spinners or spoons.

It was your laboratory to assess, and we were neophytes to the process,

Teaching is what it was. Fishing was teaching.

From your spot on some empyreal bank, you can see the slack line of your recent cast, then begin to reel it in from the lake

and we, your family of friends, see the ripple of water left in your wake.

*******

A poem written to honor a good person who was taken from us way too soon.

A little blues philosophy

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It’s a part of the tune that doesn’t last long.

When I need a deep breath after things have gone wrong,

it’s a fishhook to bring me up from the depths. 

I find myself seeking a felicitous sound

and listening for the turnaround.

It’s a movement that’s made, whether in blues or in jazz

to keep a song interesting -some razzmatazz –

about one chords to sevens and other such stuff,

I won’t pretend to knowingly expound,

just listen for the turnaround.

It’s the first bud of spring coming out of the frost

and the very first lightnin’ bug of past summers lost,

It’s the yellow and red sneaking out of the green,

The first floating snowflake that lights on the ground

all transitions worthy of a turnaround.

The best we can do is to move on our own,

but walk among others so we won’t be alone.

It’s the time and the place of the new moon and stars,

As we are feet first. with our souls earthbound,

The last call will sound like a turnaround. 

Close your eyes

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Close your eyes and count to ten.
Wishes won't come true 'til then.
Considerations blink and mar your thoughts.
Up to two you've tied a dream in knots.

In this moment, circumspect
reaction might cause you neglect.
The delay in what your heart is wishing for -
not long - succinct - a brief six-seconds more.

Close your eyes, accumulate -
(your mind digresses while you wait).
Make a list of salient bullet-points 
to greet the sunrise when you wake your voice.

And in the moment just before
you reach the end count's opening door,
in heroic fashion speak your truth and due
and banish all the hardness once beshrewed.



Opening

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A shrieking blue jay sounds a turning point.
The day might be too long.
Cardinals perch in boxwood sacs, 
reminding me of those now gone.

I've skirted 'round an earthen hole,
peering to the bottom.  
Dirt and pebbles slip from my steps
and down into the dark and glum.

Choristers pause, holding a note
that pierces incense smoke.
The carillons ring out the hour
and half a prayer's invoked.

Is this how changes snap and tear
when events go awry?
a grinding crevice in the ground? 
a ripped seam in the sky?

Careful plots, with no solid facts
are awfully mistook,
our hero left with no recourse
but to rely upon a hook.

A shrieking blue jay sounds a turning point.
The day might be too long.
Cardinals perch, reminding me 
of people that are gone.

Opalescence

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A jellyfish cloud drifted in the sky

propelling itself hither and nigh.

The type of motions that mesmerize,

whilst I woolgather time in the ocean wide.

A rabbit perched upon some pillow fluff,

awaiting a moment to jump, and not to muff-

then disappear inside a hole in a huff.

(All this I’ll imagine soon enough.)

And later, the sky I watched was flattened and grey.

A canvas without texture on a humid summer’s day

settled in to remove my imaginative display.

And the daydreams diverted down and away.

The shades of green caught now in my sight,

Jagged lines on the edge of the canvas’ chalk-white.

whispering connections to the last vestiges of light.

And the opalescence of dreams settled in for the night.

Torte, with my father

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Chocolate dense as darkness.

The flourless cake, its heaviness derived of bittersweet.

A china cup , a black pool swirled with an opaque liqueur.

The taste of each as contribution –

rancor offset by the affable.

I sit across the from the empty seat you once used.

My memories are heavy with the affection of your company

and controverted by your absence.

Each bite with a following sip a battle of emotions.

How it lingers, the memory of your sudden death

followed by the overtones of your prescience.

The night we talked late, and you said “the parent becomes the child”

Yet, I still want to ask you for advice and you never quite accepted mine.

The sound of my fork clinks and the resonant ding of the cup

as I set it down upon a saucer

all I hear in reply.

*****A memory of my father on this Father’s Day. Happy Father’s Day, Dad.

Driving into Lascassas after midnight

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Driving into Lascassas after midnight, when only the ghosts walk.

The glint of streetlights launches from the pavement,

a blank page to capture dreams

and past countenances in the moonlight.

The words you speak echo in the night and pass through blinking traffic lights;

As poems create themselves in flight.

Not like arriving at LaGuardia on a Sunday afternoon,

with its hallways filled with a thousand stories at every turn.

There is a rush and jumble to this world,

only small pockets of stillness swirl

to float a verse into the air.

Most often colliding in the face of a hurried elsewhere.

Almost never staying free and clear,

like driving through Lascassas after midnight

with soundless ghosts and streetlight glare.

Rabbit

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The sky was pallid, lacking device.

My ambition was weedy and my aims imprecise.

I walked near a garden while out on a stroll.

My mind in a spin that was out of control.

When a rabbit darted from beneath the hedge-row yew

out onto the pavement and pondered askew.

It paused just enough to acknowledge my glance

then hurried away in a leap and a prance.

My eyes then diverted to a swelling of phlox,

purple and white, and crept over rocks.

Opportunistic, these flowers that crawl

slow and indifferent of their beauty and sprawl.

A shelter for insects, this bloom carpet sum

covered terrain in a besetment of rhumbs.

The rabbit returned, hopped in a straight line,

I stood there connecting the points to design.

What wonder is here. What mystery there.

The path to discovery does not compare

the direction, the lines that we draw are just that.

Drawn from perspective, our own charted plat.

The rabbit now vanished, my lunch hour spent,

I returned to my workday with a poet’s intent.

Bridges

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A craftwork of metal and wire arisen out of a mist.

Something fashioned by a fantasist

appealing to our journey, future-made

above the clouds with hope arrayed.

A box across the creek bed, made of wood.

The romantic moonlight lit and understood

its dirt road point of interception.

It hosts a memory of affection.

The stone one with its aqueduct eyes,

peering just above the waterline.

A docile stream that’s hardly flowing,

yet moves a slight, its life sea-going.

The poet’s words are diffident,

but stand in verse, the infinite

transitions to a place of rest

spanning over rocks and clefts.

Horizons stand, all that remains

beyond the beckoning segue plains.