Dysthymia [Poem]
I don’t really want to do anything–
not peep through the small doors
at mice living out unimaginative lives
or run a finger over the beaded skin
of a rattling snake, coaxing venom.
Grief Recovery
Requiem (Poem)
Requiem (for Miranda) Yesterday you were still here. Today snow has laid itself down in the lanes, thick as fur. The flap in the door is locked, as it would be. You hated snow. I expect you in my office chair quick as a ghost, a look to say, “I’ve been here all along.” In
“Homesickness”, Poem in Rattle Poets Respond (Online)
“In Kyoto, hearing the cuckoo, I long for Kyoto.” -Bashō, trans. Jane Hirshfield In some sense, homesickness is always a longing for a place that no longer exists. Which is to say that it is always, to some extent, existential. Yet with the rise of populism on both sides of the Atlantic, I have never
“Homesickness”, Poem in Rattle Poets Respond (Online) Read More »
The Eleventh Year
Eleven is drawn with parallel lines. Parallel lives. In one, my son survived. He is with us in England, in the rain; or we are still in California, in drought. He is like me at that age–obsessed with science and discovery; or like his mother, he is at the piano, practicing. He is like neither
X
“Who would give me a map to find you, the paper / superimposed with a constantly moving ‘X’?” -From “Father-Son Conversation“ Malcolm. Professor. Triple. Dos. So many x-es, so many ex-es. Expatriate. Expletive. Ex-father. Ex-son. Two lines, for a moment, cross. This is how the Romans made ten. In Arabic numerals, it takes two digits:
Noman’s Land Common (Film-Poem Online)
Noman’s Land Common A shadow passes over the meadow, effortless in its cooling presence, a wake of songbirds, for a moment stilled, for a moment passed over by a presence like night, a shoal of fish beneath the barnacled hull, tender in covering, blanket-soft, the lids pulled over our welling eyes, to shed a drop