Poetry

A Poem to Go Before Eight Lines by Jalal-ud-din-Rumi

Leaving here, I slip out the gates of the palace garden      as autumn stuns the trees with remembrance                        and makes them come around again                                          like a memory of dervish flutes. In my mind I hear the word perfect.                  My feet touch down into cool…

For Anne

On each shoulder                              I bear a jar      with each its angel                  in                        formaldehyde I wish to preserve my loves                                    You say No            let them go fly way                                    Away and when                  they come back…

An Encounter On Exmoor

Watch out for the lady riding sidesaddle! On foot in the foreign gorse, we see the woman’s private ride thicken her with territory; her figure is a jowl of land rising against the sky. If she comes near, we dread she’ll ignore us. She canters from the horizon pasted to a rocking horse, eyes hidden…

from Returning to Earth

“What forgotten reverie, what initiation it may be, separated wisdom from the monastery and, creating Merlin, joined it to passion?” Yeats, A Vision She pulls the sheet of this dance across me then runs, staking the corners far out at sea. *     *      * O I’m lucky got a car that starts almost everyday tho I…

John Muir

He made a crude wooden clock that threw him out of bed, a strong-armed Gabriel, he called it. such genius watched the new bone carriages tottering down their chutes, the magical brooms kicking their heels            spreading around the world, until one flipped and the file      sailed from his hand into the sclera. for months…

Wasps

In the orchards we would take A rolled-up newspaper and light it, And shove this torch into a wasps’ nest. In a moment the hive Would be thick with dead wasps. Only one or two flying out of the fire. *     *      * Now, when I walk in the shade of these trees, I know they…

Blue Angel

Unhealthy nymph you come toward me with glitter of decadence sequin drenched blue angel with hectic flush and slanting eyes hard bodied doll tough hands chalked dry you pump, rise drum against the membrane like an infant’s head against the bag of waters held at twelve o’clock the limits of the law What are you…

Circles

My father keeps a circle of silver coins around his bed to trap angels. When they arrive to reclaim his soul the silver disintegrates the strange alloy in their wings. My mother poises at a snow-circle’s center in a game of “fox & geese” while her children disappear down a radius into some woods forever….