Hard Awash in a Fog

Thick cotton swabs 
The mind white 
Gone soft too 

To many harsh black 
Landscapes too thin 
To hold water 

Just right for you. 

A Poem, More or Less (after Porchia)*

One can never say enough— 
It has to be less or more, 
Till what’s left is just 
What you’re looking for. 


 *The catalyst for the above: 

     “Whatever I take, I take too much or too little; I do 
not take the exact amount. The exact amount is no use 
to me.” 

--from “Voices,” translated by W.S. Merwin, Big Table Publishing Company: Chicago, 1969.

Ultimate Refugee Solution

Round burning bedsides, 
Vigilant undying lines 

Of snuffed out candles seeking 
To be lit again once 

Their last day on Earth turns 
Off the lights and sputters 

To all a goodnight. 

Despair

What is it that takes 
So long to appear before you 
When you’re down, down, down? 
You spend forever waiting 
For some sign of it 
Before you're goners
When the herald’s already 
Winging it to the next town. 

Verdict

cut-and-dried 

white- 

washed 

walls 


no 

shadow 

of 

doubt 

crossing 


blank 

page 

leaving 

no 


room 

for 

deliberation 

As Good As It Gets

So sick of hearing 
Of the death 
Of this unacknowledged 
Legislator of the world 
And of that, I cannot 

But think in these mean times 
How many have come before 
And how many are yet to come 
And how many after that— 
A distressing, unceasing line 

Of well-meaning poets 
Dead or alive or yet to be 
Strung out and scrawling across 
An indifferent, chaotic universe— 
It doesn’t get much better than that.