Poetry

  • Roman Sketchbook

    AS As you come and go from a place you sense the way it might seem to one truly there as these clearly determined persons move on the complex spaces and hurry to their obvious or so seeming to you destinations. “Home,” you think, “is a place still there for all,” yet now you cannot…

  • Tzimtzum: Contraction

    The contractions         Have come Too soon                You are sentenced         To bed    in the country house During the tedious hours Your sons scrap             Your husband courts An imaginary lover          You summon         the living Mothers:                Hagar                        Of the bitter smile                Sarah                        Whose laughter lies                Rebecca                        Who outwits men…

  • February Morning

    The old man takes a nap too soon in the morning. His coffee cup grows cold. Outside the snow falls fast. He’ll not go out today. Others must clear the way to the car and the shed. Open upon his lap lie the poems of Mr. Frost. Somehow his eyes get lost in the words…

  • Unholy Sonnet

    Amazing to believe that nothingness Surrounds us with delight and lets us be And that the meekness of nonentity, Despite the friction of the world of sense, Despite the leveling of violence, Is all that matters. All the energy We force into the match head and the city Explodes inside a loving emptiness. Not Dante’s…

  • Origami for Adults

    People who’ve seen relatives die by fire, stand to the right of this line. People who’ve imagined large, drug-taking siblings, crouch down by their feet and warm your hands. People who offer syllogistic explanations for plain brown acts, play musical minds to the tune of any anthem. People who delay sobbing to answer the telephone,…

  • Rain

    I can hear the rain now, its vanishing averted glance, and long branches descending softly toward cool water. And then a voice coming back from its solitude to find me, “When nothing spoke to me anymore the broken statues spoke to me,” and “Be opened my mouth, untie what is upon my mouth.” I have…

  • In Defense of the Fallen Clergy

    For the priests accused of fondling altar boys, Of using the orifice of communion and the other Unnaturally, for heresies preached Of whisper, nudge and dubious games, Hand burning a thigh in dubious Accident and secrecy, The way elation cauterizes fear, For the fevers of adrenalin wherein shame Forges one an angel naked and invisible,…

  • Ajijic

    The lengthy lawns of the rich run down to the lake’s lap. Cats steal chiroles from the nets where they’re drying on the shore. Dresses and jeans lie flat below the fish, dancing an ancient, static line. Their owners’ hair floats in black, soapy masses on the green sway. I’m stuck in jangling shade, no…

  • The Afterlife

    Then came the day even as the water glass felt heavy and I knew, as I’d suspected, I grew lighter. I grew lighter, yes. Say, have you ever fainted? Such a distinct horizon as you are raised above your pain, like Chekhov’s, and it was clear to them the end was still far off ….