Orange sun
Flaming through
Smoky lense
Wild fires
Burning in
The West again
A thousand
Miles away
I sit
Under the haze
Of the gray
Sky I’m hit
With the
Beauty and
The Tragedy
Of this
Stone’s current
Trajectory
Category: Poems
Struggling with meaning
My brain feels
Like it’s bleeding
Aneurism, stroke
The basics
I can’t cope
Terrorist of mind
To myself
Wholly unkind
Derision and retort
The basics
I can’t sort
Violence comes to find
A silent scream
A visible blind
Dig and dig
And dig
This hole
A full cave-
In to bury
My soul
Sifting through
Trying to
Breathe
I’m left
To uncover
This person that’s me.
Who am I?
Who
am
I?
Who am I?
“Who am I?” He calls
into the darkness
Eyes closed
“Who am I?” he calls
into the silence…
Room Quiet
Who am I?
I think
therefore…
I am
who?
Questions the silenced darkness?
A thousand voices
Rise to compete
None saying
Who I am
Only, I am who?
Poet
Singer
Husband
Father
Philosopher
Worker
Provider
Destroyer
Loud
Silent
Aggressive
Docile
Lover
Fighter
Natural
Synthetic
Bold
Afraid
Tough
Soft
Broken
Recovered
Addicted
Free
A thousand voices
Call to me from
The darkness — yet
None, tells the story of
Who I Am…
Coffee Club Clutches
Why are
Poetry books
So short?
Are these
Unbearable thoughts
For your
Pleasantly
Silent
Society?
Do we dare
to challenge
More
These foundations
That you
Adore?
That only
In tiny
Packages
Will you
allow for
these Diversions?
Is it that
I cannot
Keep you
In these
pages without
Paying Dues
To the
Coffee Club Clutches
of Consumer Culture?
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Cars roll by monotonously
— A long trip, swoosh after swoosh
Numbing rhythm won’t let you sleep
Car after truck after car a
Pulsing circulatory system
Of Human consciousness
But each day is a car
As we stay home for
The sixth month in a row
How could we know that
We should have packed a snack
For this longest of journeys
No end in sight to this
Trip down Covid Lane.
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Orchids;
Rope after rope
of Marigolds
Fuchsia tapestry
Dancing to the fast fingers
of the solo guitarist
Black Bird
“Take these broken wings”
“We are gathered here to leap”
Like your brother and cousin
So small (now grown)
Splashing water in 99º
The gathering
With hand fans
waving to the beat (the heat)
As we assemble everyone
who cherish us
to bear witness
To our love —
The Souls Mate
The couple hitched
And at 17
This life has grown
Into One
I no
longer know
Myself
Without
seeing
you smile!
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Old oak,
Varnish and chrome,
Stability;
Longitude.
Why buy
New Furniture
for Anniversary?
Shouldn’t it just
be solid
Antique?
What better
to recall
a time when
“Things”, like
relationships,
were better made.
Not angry
and fashionable
like the mob,
But the
Old Oak Tree;
Reminding Me
That patience
and time spent cherishing
the things
We already have
is what make
Great these
Long-lasting
Moments
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“Perhaps I am a dull reader; if so, these matters can be explained.
And in fairness to me they must be explained—if not by Dr. Wil-
liams, then by some modern prosodist sympathetic to Dr. Wil-
liams’s method.” H.C.
Yes, I am
Sympathetic to
the random form
The triadic
flow. We’re
sorry it causes you
So much
confusion. I
quite like the
Dalian comparison though
If my lines
could drip
Off the pages
and flow back
into the river
I would
have accomplished
My Art.
*April 8th, 1950. “Dr. Williams’s Paterson” Hayden Carruth - Studies in Paterson
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The River Never Thinks To ask?
“Where are We going?”
The Rocks Firmly Saying “STAY!”
Caught Between,
In this Eddy
Choice The Sole Task
None Ever Seem Ready
Hold Your Ground Or
Let This Pass
“Every action has an
opposite and equal reaction”