His Ars Poetica


He does not wish to
play games with words,

does not want to shim
the sound and beat

to something it is
not. Dammit, he says,

people are dying.
Can't we just say that?

Always, somewhere,
the residue winter

leaves for spring. You don't
want to clean it up,

yet the green needs us.
A girl walks by, crying,

and when she turns, her
angular movement

catches beauty.
Can't we just say that?

The storm killed people
to the south of us. Ice

killed them to the north.
Dammit, he says,

what does death rhyme with?
It rhymes with nothing.

Can't we just say that?





What the Poet Wanted


How he wanted
to see and not
be seen, to tell
what he had seen

disembodied.
The glowing moon
on water, the skin
of the image,

there and not there.
Only the story, not
the teller of stories.





Stones in His Bones


Not many bones
in his poems
but there are stones.

He talks to them.
They talk to him
about the stars,

the moon, about
what distance is.
About what is

cold in sun and
warm in the heart
of things. About

how far one goes
for silence and how
silence understands.





Old Poet at Evening


The last churr of the cricket.
The evening turns.

Autumn is coming at him.
Winter whistles in the distance.

He holds his breath.
The stars are disappearing.

Yet nothing is truly lost.

​



Patience


Mostly waiting.
The poet holds

his empty cup.