Tag: poetry
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Roman ruins lying off a square in Arles
Muscles of stone hold fast one on top of another, watch time slip by in tiny packages, endless streams pouring forward, memory perfect. When did this corner round off? How did this carving waste away? You needn’t ask; it is known. Rough-hew blocks exhale their millennial sighs, add rhythm to time, note each breeze with…
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Versa
specks of rain tap on dark window; tree branch lit by streetlight swaying we rest on shoulders of night breeze, hemming, hawing through hours, wet air, open window ego pulls this way, that; shadows rock up, down walls; ever stirs our little pot of storm — shame, pride, joy, disappointment, shame, pride, joy, tap, breeze,…
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Karma
I sat here at this table many years ago. The door was on State then, not Chicago; three shops sold coffee here since. On Tuesday evenings, a homeless man muttered to himself at the window, staring into his coffee, while I ran through course notes at the next table, coughing on his stench, not knowing…
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Old elm
Abandoned farmhouse, greying outbuildings. Our old elm on the corner that died last year stood through the winter to remind us of its broad generous shade, kind relief now removed. Empty sky. Time unwinds, pulls me back to your year as sapling in crowded woods before this town, this house. Our kinship holds, deeper need,…
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Lantern on path
Lantern swinging down path — I wonder if it is really there, if that is you, or just some accident of moonlight and wind. How is it possible for the night to be so black that no adjective makes sense? Just black-black, with shadows hovering and the wild phlox lopped over reflecting greywhite back up.…
Poems from in between 