Poems
I started writing verse sometime around 1999. In the intervening decade I produced a lot of material which shall never see the light of day if I’ve my druthers, and a few things which I think are tolerable. Here’s the latter.
The seasons
A
haiku
Shitting in the
woods
Rain
A
morning sonnet for U—
Eulogy
for Hank Dearman
On a golf
course
A winter sonnet
The seasons
(Charlottesville, VA; May 2005)
Spring
Everyone’s inside in this April shower
but me, in a loge in the
cathedral square,
where the rain veils door and tower and
stair,
and goes pat-a-pat, pat-a-pat on the cobbles.
An umbrella bobs around the corner
and — brown-skirted, tall, and
plain —
my love peers at me through the rain,
and smiles
hesitantly — is she welcome?
She slides onto my lap at my answering smile
and lifts her feet
from the rain-runneled tile.
She kisses me, and in my ear,
she
murmurs, "’Allo, ’allo, my dear."
Summer
I recline on a hilltop one bright summer’s day
next to my love,
brown and tall,
who gazes down on roof and wall
of a city of
brick not far away.
The smell of cyprus, sharp and broad,
the line of her body, the
fall of her hair —
and faintly I catch its scent on the
air:
less pungent than cyprus, but sweeter than grass.
I touch it — and she does not turn —
but in the way her shoulders
lie,
I clearly see her crinkling eye,
and calm, indulgent
smile.
Autumn
Through the doors I can see the sky –
I’ll abandon my work and go
outside
to autumn’s color up the mountainside
and the terraced
garden down below.
On the porch I watch my love
laughing at each pull and
shove
in mock battle with the dog
over an old and well chewed
log.
The dog gains the stick, proud of his win.
My love gives me a
sidelong glance and grin:
Silly, why so long within
On this
lovely day? Come play!
Winter
The mountainside is white with snow,
The limbs of oak trees grey
and stark.
The black and silver clouds loom low
and wipe the
scene of shape and mark.
As I lie on the couch and gaze into the flames
I can hear the north
wind as it beats at the door.
From the kitchen comes rustling, a
creak of the floor,
then a clinking beside me, a touch on my arm.
My love, in brown, appears beside me,
And cuddling close, proffers
some tea.
She cradles her own and peers through the steam,
and
secretly smiles, lost in a dream.
A haiku
(Oberlin, OH; June 29, 2005)
A blooming linden
scents my nightly walk homeward –
a quiet
pleasure.
Shitting in the woods
(New York, NY; 23 July 2006)
To shit in the woods could be hell I suppose.
Impaction, diarrhea,
are terrible woes.
And if some right moron mistakes poison ivy
–
Oh, how little pleasure that moron now knows!
Eat well, and take your plastic shovel,
Your toilet paper, but
leave your troubles…
The golden air at sunset spills upon the ridge
and slowly drowns in
molten light the valley spread below.
Here I sit, upon my hole.
The treetops’ summer foliage is tossed upon the breeze
and dapples
all the ferns below into a sea of green.
Here I crouch, by a log.
Sublimity and silence! Solitude and bliss!
When I return once more
to town, it’s surely this I’ll miss.
Rain
(New York, NY; August 10, 2006)
The rain is a curtain,
the lightning flashes above,
the people
cower
in shop awnings and subways.
This is New York in the
rain.
On sixty first street
a cop is parked and reading
while the
rain runs down
all the windows of his car
all the buildings on
the street.
On the 1 downtown
I faced a girl hardly mussed:
her shoes, a
bit damp;
her hair, a few strands displaced;
her mood,
reflecting the rain.
Once again at home
I watch the East River bridge
below my
window
vanishing in a distance
of thick, silver rain and mist.
A morning sonnet for U—
(New York, NY; June 2007)
I’ve a treasured memory to share:
the sun aglow in your golden
hair,
your body curled in quiet repose,
your quiet breathing,
your curled toes…
How long I watched, I am not sure.
Some
minutes, watching o’er your rest,
until at last it seemed
best
to wake you to share the morning pure.
And moaning
slightly, languidly,
you stretched, cat-like, lithe,
writhing,
then settled with a tiny sigh.
With friendly
resentment you regarded me,
reluctant to wake, and yet
smiling
as the bustling city passed us by.
Eulogy for Hank Dearman
(Lausanne, Switzerland; November 2007)
Your quantum mechanic might just say
that ripples on the world are
all we’ll know
of any man, and all we’ll know
of death, we’ll
know as ripples fading.
But they’re enough, and they’ll be missed,
As without more we miss
the kiss
of sunlight and the veil of mist:
By their ripples,
you have known them.
And we knew him among tomato vines,
or gathering wild
dandelions
to bake them, toasting campaigns in wine
against
some garden pest.
And we knew him pronounce on day-old food,
whereto, wherefore, and
just what should
be done with it, and the final word:
"Two
peas you toss, three you keep!"
And we knew him, in his kitchen,
sauteeing sole in wine for
luncheon
and then, when at table, crying,
"The wine stands by
you!"
And so we knew him by these waves
which slap the sides of paniche
rafts,
and, when the gentle wind abates,
settle, settle, and
are still at last.
On a golf course
(Washington, D.C.; June 2008)
Ye Scots who hae wit’ Wallace bled,
What rare revenge upon the
head
Of the English ye have ta’en.
The English garden was the pride
of the southern lowlands far and
wide.
I think that pride ye’ve slain.
For in these gardens the world o’er -
America to Palimpur -
a
game of golf they’re playin’.
A winter sonnet
(Independence, VA; January 2009)
It’s winter. The birds begin to sing.
Dawn’s light is weak and wan
and pale,
and yet creeps in my window pane.
The frost has
touched those wild things:
It traces up the bramble stems;
it
crawls down brown and sleeping grapes;
It reached the streambed’s
rocky hem;
it caught the stream’s fantastic shapes.
How
pleasant then, to stay in bed,
and pull the covers snug and
tight.
I feel beside me where you lay…
The moment’s lost: I
share my bed
with no one in the morning light.
I rise and
start my day.