Category: poem

• how they hang on

  all these loves like ghosts –
  how they hang on,
  with energy enough
  to throw plates
  yet the vision of which
  is leftover rain
  sneaking across the
  summer screens…

  May 23, 2011

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• train whistle in the rain

  From Alice B. Johnson’s “Where Children Live” (my great-grandmother’s book of poetry)

  Why must I sleep so lightly when the rain
  Beats dismally against my window pane,
  Through dark and endless hours of the night
  That fill themselves with loneliness and fright?
  Why must I lay awake and sometimes hear,
  Not only rain — but suddenly and clear,
  The whistle of a speeding troop-filled train?
  Such lonely sounds at night —
  Train whistle —
  Rain.

  May 20, 2011

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• south of the park (patterson, baltimore)

  we us and those like us
  we live south
  of the large green expanse
  of city lawn
  never venturing north
  staying away
  far away
  and shutting our doors locking them
  as soon as the sun
  dips down
  in case someone north
  gets anxious
  and wants more.

  May 18, 2011

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• untitled (big bang)

  if you were there you heard only static
  like
  a steady hum

  until the collisions happened
  and then
  things
  were born and
  things started accelerating out

  now all these things
  mean so little
  make no sound in the vacuum
  of space
  but they keep pushing
  outward.

  [author’s note – Blogger has been down the past several days! We’re back up and running now – thanks for your patience! I also had the special joy of seeing my little sister get married this weekend! It was beyond amazing! I’m so happy for Leanne and Gary!]

  May 16, 2011

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• to Robert Plant circa 1971

  it’s midnight – we are now
  twenty-three,
  if i lean just so out the window
  your hand will
  curve to the bare
  small of my back
  while the other will gently
  tap the steering wheel,
  all of this
  just as the California dusk
  takes a breathless gasp
  at the sight of
  night

  then when
  the smoke has cleared
  and tea has surrendered
  to breezes exploring their sheer
  surface we’ll be
  finding bare footing on
  the cold metal rungs
  of the fire escape
  with nothing –  nothing
  but to believe in
  our immortality and to fill
  blank seconds of
  night

  May 11, 2011

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• ah the comfort wall

  ah the comfort wall
  how years
  sweat into concrete bricks
  to carefully
  pile with mason skill,
  it is not enough
  for the stones to grow tall. they must
  reach side to side
  in an embrace
  soft breath of air
  seals each, kissed good
  and gone.

  May 7, 2011

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• stabbing in the harbor of Baltimore

  these kids cluster
  and clatter in a swarm
  we saw them pouring in to the harbor
  like warmed up molasses
  slowly
  in the heat
  boiling up to a head –

  till the whole lot of them
  burst
  exploded in waves
  foaming over the street
  except one
  dropped to the ground,
  punctured,
  deflated.

  May 6, 2011

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• picking a scab

  pick pick
  scratch scratch
  one little bit
  surrenders to the attack

  chips off
  falls to the way
  side
  chip chip
  pick pick

  another piece deeper held
  flakes off
  regretfully,
  painfully

  blood bubbles to the surface
  cooling
  immediately.

  forgetting why but
  bleeding
  out.

  May 5, 2011

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• skin

  HER

  how can skin
  lack in color so quickly
  draining from a newborn pink
  to ashen grey
  how can skin
  keep these insides
  from exploding out
  from the news of skin
  lacking in pulse,
  blood slowed to a pause
  how your
  skin
  feels
  nothing
  like
  how her skin feels now
  your hands are rough
  callused, vaguely
  consoling
  pulsing,

  HIM

  how she
  grows so small before me
  – oh
  small fingers
  so deathly still –
  I need to solve it.
  I need to fix it.
  I reach out to grab her:
  “it’s not your fault
  it’s not your fault”
  over again
  stroking the thin
  taut
  skin of her hands.

  May 3, 2011

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• the dark place (haiku)

  the dark place lurks close
  behind —  in front —  it aims to
  catch me in its jaws.

  May 3, 2011

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