Coming Down To Earth (After Seferis)

Always oppressive 

Seemingly never- 

Ending slate 

Of charcoal grey 

Sky, let us all 

 

Rise a little 

Higher each day so 

We can see it’s never 

A question of arriving 

Too late.

Solid Solitary Projective Verse

Coming upon Cavafy’s 'Walls,"

One is struck not so much 

By its masterful construction— 

 

Each word firmly in its rightful place, 

As befits a master word mason—but how 

At the end of that brief monologue

 

On loss and involuntary solitude, 

If the reader has indeed attended 

To what is rightly taking place,

 

He finds himself right at home, 

Next to a singular silence 

He never dreamt was coming. 

 

 

 

 

 

Doublets (Les Misérables)

 

Such a waste always 

To never love to surfeit— 

 

Such a life wasted, 

To never know it.

 

 

 

 

 

Libretto Of Suspended Animation

 

One stifling moment you are 

Here, the other else- 

Where, the persistent 

 

Question of why remains 

Hanging, ambivalent 

In the unmoving 

 

Liberating air. 

 

 

 

 

 

Empathetic Interior Landscape

 

Deep down 

 

In the terrified heart, 

Suffering festers and hides, 

 

And everybody wants it 

Ripped out and out 

 

Into the open without wounding 

The innocent beast 

 

Cowering inside. 

 

 

Real Heavy Stuff, This Gardening

 

Another morning out here well- 

Spent watching drunken bees staggering 

 

From one pollen-filled flower 

To the other while inside I bet 

 

You’re wondering again how it is 

I’m always stupefied from taking all this in 

 

In what might pass as a stupor 

Yet clearly mistaken 

 

Light. 

 

Hard Offering From A Despondent Nihilist

 

No matter what

You feel nothing will

Tender the something

You lack.