Quarry

Sunlight surrounds her

like limestone dust on the air.

Transfixed, she waits.

Again, the red maples bud

under shelter of the oak.

crow outpaces the clock ~after Ted Hughes and Werner Heisenberg

time is the abyss, the bridge, the long fall

time is the staunch resistance to now

time is a lagging indicator

measured cold new

grows old waiting for time

to catch up and still

no one understood

what Heisenberg meant

those 2.6 billion moments ago,

on a trajectory mocking the arc

of the crow,

. nothing

upon nothing below

for Caitlin and her boyfriend, Abstract Algebra

The Grate

in a moment

his hands were gone

.

he found himself in the water

water and bread / the grate

time was stronger than stone

.

go, look through the key-hole and see

she was red silk with fiery eyes

.

E Pluribus: An Erasure

Bloody,

the future was anything.

The courage of divisions,

hesitations answer history.

One severe collapse deeply,

aggressively

the storm passed.

One shuttered decline

hit those who'd already

become

that much harder.

The burdens of harder and longer, less,

unable

to know the reason.

I witness;

I hear

the children.

They don't understand,

not now.

The numbing,

the different face -

they hold a better else.

They share this spirit: strength.

It begins between;

it's that we all hated - what was necessary.

More would surely be lost.

So we took,

we made,

we spent, most

but not all.

The rest, a time of need.

We cut

We cut

We cut

We cut

We cut

We cut thought

on all made possible

Act!

Act!

Act!

Act!

until there are men

and women

who focus,

do,

begin,

grit

grow

gain -

plant today

build tomorrow.

Erased from the text of Barack Obama's State of the Union Address

A New Year's Eve Admonition to Poets

An automatic poem

always sits in the closet

and waits......while

the conversation burns.

If you (foolishly)

happen to open the door,

it will spring out,

bold and bluster, but quickly

it melts into submission

and the backdrop suspicion of walls.

Maybe it will slide out as a boat

in the night, drifting

without sound; leaving no trace,

weaving water and sky,

like the blue moon

of two thousand nine.

Likely it will stand

inflexible, inexcusable

blocking the path to the door;

a pile, an edifice,

a cairn stone marker

for your fear of alcohol,

and the apology

you owe planet Mars.

It could sprout albatross wings,

be a cheat thunderbird,

circling above the cliffs by the sea

while new winds are born howling

through rock, over wave,

and gray haired snowfalls

pine hush memory.

In the morning it may lounge,

a lost lover’s lash filtered gaze,

wishing you had knocked

that lurid merlot

across the perfect

table top failure to contain

your elbow percolator wit.

Snowly

Snow has me thinking

about the tight white mantle

keeping summer warm.

Absent sound, without flurry,

I dream of undressing her.

Manifesto (my laptop attempts a poem on its own)

We always write about the moon.

Why shouldn't we when it rises,

like a big orange Caesar -

hailed by the armies of bare

trees under winter's blush.

We always write about the moon,

her smooth yellow arc across

darkening amaranthine.

I always want to tear the cover off,

pry it open with a blunt screwdriver;

peer inside to the clockwork

and the fulcrum that balances pain on sting.

I need to know what is red about red,

what is wet about ocean,

and what is blood about sky.

We always write about the moon

because she has seen everything.