Epitaph

It’s time I got this off my chest— 
The more I put down on paper, 
The less my soft heart felt
Like a marble headrest. 

I, As in "Nothinglikeness"

I once wrote 
A poem ending 
With a word I made up— 

Nothinglikeness. 

I wanted it to be 
About light and how light 
Would be if light were like 

A void 

And I found myself leaping 
Out of the clear blue 
Clear through it. 

Earthbound and Inert

Look—up in the sky! 
The lunatic moon’s salivating, 

Spewing quicksilver- 
Lined trails of spit 

For all us snails 
To drool over before 

We get too phlegmy 
To take off likewise

Lickety-split. 

Athena's Owl and the Learned Swallows

Wide-eyed on edge 
Of red-tiled roof, 
The studious looking owl 
May not make out much 
In the late morning light, 
But one thing seems clear: 
These nesting early birds strafing it 
Till it vanishes have done their homework well, 
And can now return to that brooding business 
They so instinctively and abruptly left behind— 
It’s as if they knew 
Wisdom rests not in taking in 
What rears its head before us, 
But what to make of what 
Nests in the empty space 
Once that knowledge takes wing 
And flies away. 

(p)articles of absorption

rifle

                    (white-

washed

                    stone

wall)

cracks

                   (blood

red

wind-

                   flowers

                   seep

through)

Leave-taking

I read somewhere 
That ashes are the last 

Trees to welcome leaves, 
The first to let them go— 

In the meantime so brief, 
So breathtaking an interlude 

It bears repeating: The last 
To welcome them, the first 

To let them go.



 

Bankrupt

You wager the world would be no poorer 
Had it no poetry, though five will get you ten 

You’ll never get rich staking your life on it.