Masks

One day I wore my mask askew,
to see if anyone could glimpse
whether I still had a face behind.
But neither she nor anyone
looked long enough to tell;
this, I suspect, because
on balance—I mean, every
human being on the scale—
we hate ourselves
more than each other,
and want to love
far more than we do.

November ‘17

Meetings

In college I had a friend
Who’d “live slowly” in the days
Before heading home to Mississippi;
He said it slowed down time,
Elongating the moments he cared about.
Time, being something we can only
Perceive, seemed to comply.
But I would live quickly through
All my loves, my joys and laughter,
I would diminish every intimacy,
Every tenderness and treasure,
Just to knock a second off this meeting
About our time management and
Milestones or whatever other nonsense
Bureaucratic buzz word you’re saying
Right now.

Crows in the fall

Crows in the fall
make their long calls
in three cries
and live, on average,
8 years; so the birds I heard as a child,
from the woods behind the nursing home
where Great Grandma Gow died
are, like her, all dead
ten or more years hence—
while their sad, wise cries
still echo in my head,
and I can still hear my Great Grandma Gow
scold my scrawny other-self
for being a child out of bed;
can feel the hot retort in my chest
even now: that I wanted to see
my parents going to the car.
Before we would leave, my parents
would talk at length in quiet tones
to my father’s parents, as the kids
ran around the lot, and I would caw
back at my friends the crows.




October 2017

Childhood

Only Time will tell

what words you'll scream at me
from a foggy teenage fury, or
what heartbreaks and tragedies

you'll tell me of in years to come
as tender youth hardens into age--
but Now, with your yellow curls
pressed intimately against my aging neck
as only infant sons can hold their fathers,
in tear-dipped awe I silently observe
your light-shot spring dawn, bursting
with unlearned wisdom and grace,
& store these wide, joy-filled seconds
in my fearful heart, hugging you to me
as I shall press this memory
against the wounds my age and
cynicism insist Time shall inflict.

sep 2017

Uncouth Observation

I think most normal men
balance private inner lives
of desperate immorality
with gracious public lives
of shamefaced cowardice.

Maybe it's why we all admire
evil men, who have achieved
what most of us are too weak
to truly contemplate.

(And to the dear feminist:
Thank God we are not strong
like women. Lord, save us all
from girls.)