Poetry

He stood before a sea of envelopes, as others stand over a plunging surf. One by one he began to open them, to read the letters inside. Since he had no hope of replying, he pictured them adrift in the distance. Free to walk by the water, he did. He saw the wild ducks, far…

Although they fashioned their spears on the lathe of our technology we had to admit we liked watching them with their bare chests and heavy metal candor they lent a sort of backyard charm to the universe until even the doctor and his assistant were snapping their fingers nodding their heads and using everything they…

We passed the open Bible round & waited. Round robin, & it was my brother Walter's turn. He knucklebrowed the passage, grunted, then began. “Yeah, here. Right here it says: Shepherds in the fields. . . keeping watch. . .” He found what it was he wanted. “The angel of the Lord. . .shone around…

Coming from the wings, he leapt onto the raised opera-set built to lift his libretto—ten years of work— into the national atmosphere of fanfare, and he missed: down on his stomach, pasted prone, a spread-eagled grunt, and a gasp from the audience that sucked up applause for the two or three seconds it took him…

The noose rests lightly on the lamp Restraining No     engaging it to memorize these details that charisma drawn from the well of a broken circle

Ripsaw whine across the picture dome of day dividing blue from blue: the steady Munch-like scream of Flight 630's engines as we sat there minute after minute on the runway trapped, until I saw my broken body kicked & pitching forward, one more dead American sure he was going someplace else, dumped instead onto the…

The wet sand yields like the wall of a womb—pliant, enveloping each jog with particular resistance. Sand dollars and crab legs, the glittering dead cod, lie in line plotting the neap. The sand's a fine spot for ends. It conforms. Waves slip in it beating themselves to foam. A drag extends. Gutted by gulls, a…

The square was almost deserted I held my fear like a knife Sharp but ineffectual Like keys clenched in a fist The square was almost deserted Except for the punks and the moon Except for the taste of desire Cold as an ice cream cone Covered in chocolate sprinkles A girl called out my name…

Late August, and the pond is holding the summer's heat close to shore where leaf-litter has begun to form; even out at the center of things there are pockets of warmth deep beneath a canoe short-roped to a slab of scrap iron heaved into place once again on a scrub-topped boulder barely covered by water….