On days such as this you’ll find me reaching
into every nook and cranny, tidying up as though
I had it in me to put things where they belong.
No Comment
Watching My Son Play in the Mud
May 31, 2021
Whatever the purpose of childhood beyond learning
to read and count, to say please and thank you,
it is this: to persist in playing long after Dada says
it’s time to go home, until, cold, wet, and hungry…
Whatever We Do, Haunts Us
May 29, 2021
“The last temptation is the greatest treason: To do the right deed for the wrong reason.” ― T.S. Eliot, Murder at the Cathedral I have accumulated much, living this life: gadgets, garments, souvenirs of a desire briefly sated, denied, unrelenting. […]
Status Quo Ante
May 1, 2021
I had a dream where from an impossible height
I took in all the splendor and all the pain
we’ve learned to live with.
Earth Day 2021: A Love Poem
April 25, 2021
Every poem is a love poem, even one about plastic rain.
Why else bother to save anything—rainforests, whales…
Warmer Days
April 11, 2021
The winter was mild by New England standards.
We stayed indoors, set the thermostat to 70, and
when the energy bill arrived—late, because, lest we
one day forget this epoch, the mail, like so much else
about our lives, was being sabotaged…
On Reading That Free Will May Be an Illusion
April 6, 2021
I breathe in the air that happens to make it through my screen
door and imagine what the particles contain—mist from Katmandu,
Dead Sea salt, dust of meteors, ground-up dinosaur teeth…
Renewal: A Haiku
March 28, 2021
hail flattens the grass
not all bruises blister blood
each blade asks why me
Reading Poems Written Half A Lifetime Ago
February 28, 2021
Mom has been cleaning the house I grew up in;
she’s mailed me a stack of old poems I wrote
by hand, back when I wrote by hand and carried pen and
paper at all times—just in case. The poems are no good…
The Internet Is a Cesspool; God Bless the Internet: A Villanelle
February 20, 2021
Not much that goes viral is true
(what passes for truth these days?);
but let’s keep this between me and you.