Category Archives: Poems

In spite of rain

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In spite of rain tumbling toward sleet,
the street half-hearted and gray
with envy of clouds, which take
their opportunity to jettison

sweet dying light,
the sun unhidden briefly, quickly,
and hustled back before any expectation
of warm rebuttal of fall can set in,

I know the trees live still,
though barren of celebration,,
I know beneath the crust that grass
and flowers grow, unheard, unseen,

I wonder at the thinness of sparrows
and the strength of their fires
on days like this that drive the mice,
beloved of field and furrow, indoors

to nibble in resignation
at the edges of mortality.

Lazarus

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And Martha says to Jesus,
‘So how long is this resurrection
good for?’
‘Hard to say,’ says Jesus.
‘Why?’

Martha pours him
another glass of wine.

‘It’s just that he won’t stop
talking about it,
how he’s your favorite,
how you don’t raise

just anyone
from the dead.’

Jesus drains his glass,
reaches for the bottle.

‘I might be able to get him a job
in Cyprus.’

Who

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The morning grew clear toward mid-day,
no clouds, just a west wind
to stir your memory.

How you thought truth was in you,
how you swore allegiance to companionship,
how you lived in the night
and passed judgment on the light,

a light you rejected, a payback,
a settling, a comeuppance,

how you failed to notice , even then,
that you hadn’t the status to be rejected,
how you slowly saw, slowly, grudgingly,
that rejection was neither of you nor for you,
and how little it mattered.

Later, you try to start over,
still wearing the skin you were born in,
all those scars the only evidence.

How it is

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No more winds, please,
let’s keep it on the down low
lest someone pull the chain
and down the drain we go,
merrily down the drain, life is but a word
fashioned from old shoe-strings
and faded bruises

Was that a victory or a loss?
Or am I asking the
wrong question?

The way clay fits the mold,
even if it starts out flat
and all wrong…

No, no, it’s not true
that life is just a story,
that’s just what we trick ourselves with,
to make us feel we are not
blind worms, dodging concretions
in the all-too-lumpy soil

But we are not worms
any more than worms are us

Simple. That’s it.
Simple rain falls to earth,
clouds dissapate, and we think
it’s the sun coming out,
but it’s the sun, not the clouds,
that’s been there all along,
least of all, we.

Meditation for the end of the world

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When the last fireball comes trundling through,
earth on its list poised to be crossed off,

try to find the platitude in the boast,
or see the plodding repetition in the sunset,

or the sheer tedium of mortality,
as if fear were a mere sauce for eternity,

for the certainty that in an infinity
of worlds all will have come to pass

over and over and over,
and even that, over again.