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Poetry

Poetry isn't a profession, it's a way of life.
It's an empty basket; you put your life into it and make something out of that
."
                                                                                                                - Mary Oliver
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New Hope/40° 39′ 0′′ N, 92° 50′ 24′′ W (forthcoming in High Plains Register - Fall 2020)


Stairway to the Stars (originally published in The Wax Paper V. 3.1)

Picture
Picture
Ptolemy raises a hand
          expectant gesture of key in lock


the stars sonic ravel
skimming dark matter with light


as it always has                                                        gravity whooshes
         a parabolic bow


its tenor                                                                      the vibration of heat
over the hollow deep


so much space between thing and thing
so much room to fuse or sound a wave


if the stars have not yet finished
consuming themselves


burning the churn deep within
flying through the open door or window


isn’t it because we need them to
stay to point up and out


of ourselves?
isn’t it because we feel


less alone when we watch
something that isn’t us burn?


each star rounding in and                                       out of view
making a music that sounds


faintly like the steps of a loved one
ascending slowly out of earshot


Sleep Study (originally published in Talking Writing May 6, 2019)

Picture
Picture
           Marisol informs me I stop breathing during sleep
throwing the lungs into a fit
 
the riotous bleating of life pulling at life
awakens her frightens her
 
            I say it happens in my roused hours too
when the stars are present even if difficult to see
 
and the negative scene oxygenates my brain
 
when the inanimate parts the surgeons placed in me
singe the air with ache and disconnection
 
and the inward stare forgets to respire
 
when a poem I read thumps the wind from me
and like the printed page
 
its transmission requires no breath
 
            She feels the need to nudge me
back into being
 
away from the precipice of drowning in dreams
            she’d like someone to drink her morning coffee with
 
            I think my reptilian brain has never quite worked properly
survival eyes and rote movements couldn’t ever fully be trusted
 
instinct without thought in a world this alive
 
I like how the light fades slowly
from my closed eyes
 
forms a green darkness from concentric stars only I can see
 
how the moment hypothesizes itself
stitches together a blank quire
 
how it risks meaning nothing
 
            Marisol knows the limits of breath
how there’s only so much outcome in our effort
 
she remembers the tube down my throat
the nineteen hours of surgery that for me did not exist
 
            I tell her it’s taken me the last hundred-fifty years of human history
to find my voice
 
somewhere between ‘you’d be dead if not for’
and ‘sorry for not meaning to say’
 
not yet a storm, just a depression
 
that I submit to historicity
in a way that ensures our mutual misunderstanding
 
how all things move glacially, even my teeth
 
blessed are the well-armed
the sound of hearts opening and closing


[People Tend] [originally published in Brushfire Literature & Arts Journal, 71(1)]

Picture
Picture
People tend

to fall apart or                                                hold it together
 
in nature
as a rule
 
things fall apart
in closed systems                                         our eyes closed
 
some light     never still
makes it through
 
doom is          not absence
as we are                                                        told
 
it         is unrecognizable presence
 
subservient  
           
            in nature
there is no absence
only what is                                                   what it is
 
tomorrow is not                                            yet here
tomorrow
when I will fall apart
 
or hold it together
 
it                                                                      is not yet
 
here


Moscow/41° 34′ 30″ N, 91° 4′ 58″ W (originally published in Midwest Review, 6)

Picture
Picture
my Father
the angry old soviet
            if the union consisted also of Iowa
watching it all crumble
dilapidate philosophy first
consequence later
 
what to do about this view
from the drab paint             peel exterior
and I                                       his son
seated on the floor
playing cosmonaut
fishbowl fogging with each breath
 
            but we had the world
he bellows at state tv
half of europe anyhow
what good are walls
if you’re not also prepared to shoot
            wither the trespassers
 
I play too                   pick up sticks on the moon
pretend I don’t understand
politics                       nuclear annihilation
pretend I rescue Laika  
pretend we rescued each other
from these wistful streets
 
Father is cursing
western religion       materialism sans materiality
we are so misunderstood
he bawls at state tv
Laika barks too
she has seen earth from space


Clutier/42° 4′ 44″ N, 92° 24′ 12″ W (originally published in Midwest Review, 6)

Picture
Picture
Elsie stayed out
past the time cows come home
            sauntering over winters muddy conclusions
            always without explanation for where they have been
 
you have to drink
grandma would say
to survive the winters
the holy rollers         the draft         the grift of the almost never sun
and here we all are
cooped up inside      hens and roosters calling at the shadows
 
the candles angle spills the drafts secret
outside always finds a way in
shapes us while we presume inattention
buries us while we lay another to rest
 
Elsie brings a plume of electric light
back from town
stolen off a moment
at the VFW dancehall
when she twirled so fast
she counteracted the movement of the earth
around the almost never sun
and now nothing looks the same
 
faster  she said          spin faster


Inheritance (originally published in The Remembered Arts Journal, Spring 2018)

Picture














These silent words arranged on this page
shook from places I trod
& cut from what I had in excess
from what I wish I knew

            alas there is nothing unless we create
wrap warped hands around life
 
choke it into being
something hungrier yet
 
less vision than gut
more aural than vomit
 
lifecycle of a gambit
            release the tourniquet
 
welcome the tick of time
itself an illusion erected upon illusion
 
don’t rebuild the roof
let in the elements 
 
I fear for your safety
that is all                                                       my love
 
            be love                                               my love

all things fade
tarnish rests everywhere eventually

on memory especially
that tease of pseudoknowing

a collection of coins
cut wistfully by a sword shimmer
 
water and light
into refracted newness

            on a name handed to me
to you

it too will fall
silent like virulence and hesitancy
           
            but you
be love my love


La Salle Street After Hours (originally published in Chicago Literati, 7/11/17)

Picture
blue in the lamplight
unmistakable soul
canyon wide
foreboding     city walls
O Chicago
 
hidden            hands             knees worn out
on elevated track
hurricane gale           jericho looping
round an I beam center
of concretized lust
 
back to walls that should have collapsed long ago
colder now    even without valleys
wind raking through shuttered row houses
where people dare to live
harder to believe      in Heaven
 
her hair perfected for disneyland
(did the mortician dare touch it,
even to pick the grass out of it?)
pigtails following her winsome cheeks
                                    there are no hills
 
but those made        by skyscraper ethos
train catacombs       
magnificent miles
running into hollow orange glow stations
& sleepless intersections
 
in Back of the Yards
working men rioted for the hope of a better life
long after Union folded their mausoleum walls
in upon themselves
the too-young calf slaughter proceeds
 
O Chicago
is there resolve enough to congeal
into a scab of a hill
Heaven reminds me
of a girl I can’t find
 
bullets gnawed her bedroom wall while she slept
what I’d give for a hill
to escape
their faces
the heaving congestion


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