Poetry

He has bribed the thorns to guard his poppies. They intoxicate the valley with their forbidden scent, reddening the horizon till it is almost as if they aren’t there. Maybe the guns guard only the notorious dreams in his head. The weather is kind to every bloom, & the fat greenish bulbs form a galaxy…

I was twenty-two, pretty maybe. It was a small town county fair: hot dogs, freak show, cotton candy, and heavy wheels laden with light, all tuned to the gaudy air. The Octopus—remember that one? Eight arms like extended girders, the thing was a metal Shiva juggling worlds: a cup spun at the end of each…

That there is no it, only is. —Richard Ford Two days ago, the sun Was a white stone in the leaden sky, The black-eyed Susans looked up And fell back wilted, just as I wilted And retreated to the air conditioner. Today a breeze has flowed from the northwest, It’s 28 degrees cooler, And I…

For Dewey Huston Tell me again about the butterflies, old friend of my father, bringer of tales, the gully, mossy rocks of the streambed, a cool breeze off the glacier high above, and suddenly butterflies everywhere as if the air you breathed were blossoming. I’ve seen so many things, you said. I wish I could…

As they loaded the dead onto the gurneys to wheel them from the university halls, who could have predicted the startled chirping in those pockets, the invisible bells and tiny metal music of the phones, in each the cheer of a voiceless song. Pop mostly, Timberlake, Shakira, tunes never more various now, more young, shibboleths…

He lies as still as possible and waits, then opens up his eyes. They’re everywhere. Millions, billions of motes, dead as the fates, hovering in the shafts of the morning air. Detritus of the universe, debris, the cosmic dust, polluted, dying, and dead, an endless sinking suffocating sea of sunlit dust that pins him to…

we do not know the name of the river that roils beneath us until we arrive at its shores—until we give reason to pass along or stay there where waters sound like uncut jewels swirling in a tide pool—until the little boats we’ve made fold like kites in a storm—until we’ve come to that point…

A fire has started in the kitchen, and is moving from room to room. There’s just enough time to save the Rembrandt, an original, or the portrait of your wife. You save the Rembrandt, of course, but when you get outside you think it might be possible to save the portrait as well. You dash…

One minute        I’m standing in the parking lot behind the De Anza theater. We’re throwing our empties at each other, our smokes turning a whiter        shade of pale. The subject is horsepower,        and the cars we’re leaning on are Cougars,        Mustangs, GTOs.        Now and then we rumble off and back again        for no particular reason….