Poetry

  • Up Late

    Talking and joking late at night: the rain pocks the air conditioner, blocking the traffic so the apartment remains like a lakeside cave we've come home to after the performance, as if we are docking, while fooling around, but not falling out, a rowboat to its place, and scampering home to the stone stools we…

  • July 4, 1989

    Rain today, rain tomorrow. Today we shotgunned a copperhead coiled near the front porch, blasted it in half and the head end crawled under a log. Yesterday the Supreme Court said it wanted to kill or enslave my daughter. I exaggerate, I always exaggerate. I cleaned the shotgun with a wad of oiled rag and…

  • Gravedona

    Lost in Gravedona without a map, You ask directions in handicap Italian of a stout old woman. She laughs, “Stop struggling, come in, And whilst I think them out, I'll make us tea And, if you don't mind, have a chat with me For I'm half-Welsh, half-Genovese.” Her father built this house, planted trees “That…

  • Wind From the Sea

    Too conscious of our need for pillows, he rises from bed to walk the street. No need, he thinks, for underwear or other gauze to dress his soul. Because he is alone this late at night we can forgive his need for walking out beyond his robe. He is that near to seeing himself as…

  • Un Poeta/A Poet

    Poco filo mi resta, ma spero che avrò modo di dedicare al prossimo tiranno i miei poveri carmi. Non mi dirà di svenarmi come Nerone a Lucano. Vorrà una lode spontanea scaturita da un cuore riconoscente e ne avrà ad abbondanza. Potrò egualmente lasciare orma durevole. In poesia quello che conta non è il contenuto…

  • The Seduction at Villa Carlotta

    Nature is never wrong, the lilies say, Simply alive in the pond, life goes on. Despite carnivorous violence, firestorms, We are porcelain quiet. Sit on this bench, Listen to the Baroque Ensemble play Music composed during the French Revolution; cherish the bees Closed in our petals, close your eyes, Close them, close yourself in these…