Caesura
To write the word is to not write in the space where the most important part of nothing occurs. In the Middle Ages there were no spaces. No one read silently. Everything written had to be read aloud to be understood. Some say a deeper consciousness came ...
Read MoreColeridges
all artists are Coleridges with their dreamy art projects and poems already completed in their overheated heads spitting it all out spitting it all out on a page or a piece of rock stuff that has been gurgling inside for two weeks and just then, just then when you’re about to cough up the diamond the roses with all those delicately painted thorns carried by those courting young men in their wrinkled jackets the postman knocks with an express package that you just have to have and you open it and find a garden of trees loaded with cell phones lap tops dripping like pine cones the larger the...
Read MoreThe Poem in My
The poem in my knee can predict rain coming, but not whether it’s a storm or steady drizzle. The poem in my ear hears that train in the distance long before it’s near Linden Road. On a warm spring day, like today, the poem in my eyes can tell the future. It’s not always right, but it has its moments. When I’m torn, conflicted, unable to decide, the poem in my heart tries to speak. Its voice is wet and garbled. Sometimes, I forget it’s there and go about my business, a simple guy hoping for more luck than anyone deserves. And the poem in my skull is the loudest....
Read MoreGathas
Recycled Woman arrives along with all the seasons Arrives with freshness and the beauty of spring Arrives with the old, yellow leaves in autumn Arrives in the season of ice and freezing rain She’s present everywhere Along the dirt roads Along the plains In the forgotten houses Between the lines of Gathas* Across the fire temples In the temples, mosques, churches With frozen dreams Recycled Woman knows that life is like The morning dew sitting on the green leaves So brief, so fragile She learned that everywhere far or near In the troubled roads of Harlem Next to the green beauty of...
Read MoreWrightsville Beach: Observation Lesson
I start with those great lines about the rose: “but where save in the poem shall it go to suffer no diminution of its splendor?” Well, that’s one way to look at it. Today’s painful thought — I write rather than live. Words on the page, my...
Read MoreGet Your Hands
April 27, 2009 Known in Poland as “King Kristian the Glorious” the white haired pianist said, after almost reaching the end of his program, something not quite audible. Was it “keep your hands off my country” or “get your hands”? A murmur went through the audience flummoxed by the indistinctness of his words. Either phrase opened a roomful of possibilities. Did I want new ones, or would I keep those already attached to my wrists? “Get your hands”: I could use new ones, I thought. Others with the same idea had left their seats and walked down to the...
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