Mirror

I always wag a finger at the mirror
saying, you really ought to stand up for yourself
but then I take my own advice and answer,
if I want to cave and cower and let them use me
why, that's only for me to decide!, and I can
if I want to. So there! And the mirror wins
because even though its advice is no good
I keep going back and offering it some more.




June 2022

Peninsula

 We anticipate the peninsula will be an arm

laying on the water.  Now it is unfolding

separating itself from itself; 

a long low smear of land

for quite a while. 

Afterwards, 

like a memory, it collapsed 

back upon itself, and eventually 

we forgot it ever was anything else.

June 2022

Next time

For someone with one life
I too often think, "next time
when I'm paying more attention
I'll do this differently."
So, next life, I'll make sure
I don't do that so much.





June 2022

ruins

nine hundred years pass.

then: internet tourists in sneakers

desperate to imagine, to explain.

the silent stones keep your secrets well.

what was it, to which you maladjusted?

if the river by your palace dried--

why not rebuild anew? or, in famine--

where were your granaries? and so on.

we act surprised.  but then,

the muse dies, and still i linger

sitting in a desiccated river-bed

scraping poetry into the dust.

may 2020

love

the most damning response

is--you wouldn't if you knew me

implying both, you wouldn't

and you don't know me.

and honestly, i can simply tell:

you really wouldn't if you did.

but don't feel bad about it,

please--it's true of almost

everyone i've ever known.

it's ironic, too, i suppose.

i do know people, better than they 

know themselves, sometimes, it seems;

and i not only would, but do,

spoken & unspoken, felt & acted.

some kind of sad clown syndrome

and not very notable, really,

beyond the melodrama of a poem.

anyway, i wish you'd stop saying it, 

because i would, knowing me.

November 4, 2021