POETRY
Tom saw the world in poetic images. Poems came out of him naturally, like a dictation from within. After Tom died, I found lines of poems sprinkled throughout the house: in jacket pockets, in notebooks, in drawers, on the kitchen table. When I had a poetic idea, he would say to me, “Write that down now or you’ll forget it.” He taught me to respect and honor the creative word. Although his poetry spans 30 years, we have included only some of his most recent poems here.
For Us
for Beth
This rainbow around the sun
Is our sign today
Our first time away
Bending our heads
We had come out at night,
Full moon still shining in my mind
Happy to find ourselves
In each other’s arms.
You framed the drawing
Now hanging in your room
Where I come at night
Whenever the dogs are not barking.
1991-2008
Our Hike
for Beth
We stand together on the trail in the forest rain
Sun shines through the mountain fog
Shafts of light separate the mist into corridors
We think the same thoughts
Your tongue tastes like malt nut
All the greens in open shade
Make it easy to love this world
1991
Cheers
Hoping to have
Just enough
Time
To play
My part
However brief
In my
Tiny life
2011
Eating for two
I am eating for two
And I am not pregnant
Something has grabbed hold
Of me
Helping itself to my calories
And 13 pounds of my flesh
I imagine that I live
Within an inner Serengeti
Yellow lions have me
Even though it will
Be their own demise
In the end
2020
Appearances
Remembering things that never
Happened
Oliver Sax remembers
A bombing during the Blitz that
Occurred before he was born
You forget things that you did do
But remember a person you
Never met
You thought you did something you did not do
Like the yeast you forgot to buy
You thought you called your friend back
You begin to believe that you saw a film
That you never heard of before now
You can’t remember what you forgot
This is our lot
2020
Sitting by the Ocean
The poetry of the moment
Being in the sounds of
Surf plunging
Roaring
Rumbling
Rippling
Foaming white
In and out
Liquid meeting solid grey
Rock and yellow sand
In an aura of sun light
And blue sky
With you and I
Side by side.
2019
(for Beth)
Third birthday
In a lovely little
Green park
Children and parents
gather
Mother lays out
party snacks and favors
Father kicks
a soccer ball around
They turn
Away from
Each other
Into the cold.
Kneeling down
Sophia slowly
Breaks into
Slow
Deep
Sobs
2019
Cuckoo Clock
I caught a
Glimpse of
Sand running
Through
A three
minute
Egg timer
And wondered
What comes
Next
We need a cuckoo
clock
A cuckoo bird
To stick its
Head out
And remind
Us of time,
Painted as a
White wooden bird
Varnished with
humor and scents
2019
Words Matter
You can love a word.
Helplessly
Without volition
Tupelo grabs me.
I love the sound
Of Tupelo
I don’t mean Tupelo,
Mississippi
I would never go near
There.
But I want
To live in
Tupelo
2019
Closer Now
I want to say
George, where
Are you?
You taught me
To skip
I need a lift
Right now
Father
Mother
long ago
Seems Near
Now
They feel closer
Closer now
The dead
2019
State of Mine
The painting
Changes as
It is being
Painted
And goes on
Changing as the
Viewer changes
Allowing the painting
To lead us into
What we know
If you want
To kill a painting
Insist upon
Understanding it
What is it
That lets
this art
Wash over us?
2019
New Ways
Colors mix
On white canvas
Charcoal
Twigs
Rags
Brayers
Oil bars
Brushes
Blot painting
On tracing paper
Like onion skin
Thin and whitish
Pulls and spreads
2019
Tishka
He said that you
Can get stuck in a word,
Like you can lose your
Shoe in sticky grey mud
He said there is a word
For this in Russian.
Tishka
Which sounded good.
When asked if
The word was
Truly so
He said no
But it felt true when he said it.
2019
A Way To See
Japanese
Mothers give
Their children
A way to see
The shadow of a
Leaf on
Grey ground
Guiding him to a
Museum
Without walls
Where
Voices of silence
Speak of
The migration of meaning
2018
Lola Drinks Water
Lola Drinks Water
From my wife’s
Hands
Folded into a double
Cup
More and more
She wants.
Slurping.
Hands full of
Water
While we
Are in
A sacred
Place
2018
Body music
Harvesting words
where I find them
Every reading
a new translation
Words that light up
I am taking
for my own
remembering that stories
have something to say
even if the writer
does not.
2018
Open
My father talked to
Strangers
At the grocery
Store,
On the street,
In the hardware store
With an ease
That I know
While I wait
In line
At Walgreens
2018
In America
We become
an instant breakfast
any moment
sometimes left
in the toaster
too long
only to be
followed by
weaponizing language
paradoxical dictators
at the Oh Lord theater
without pantomime
we are left with
images that replace seeing
2018
Photo of arriving in Paris, June, 1938
Freud looks
Down towards
His daughter
who stares
Into her handbag
Looking for
Passports
an official
Dressed in black
belonging
With Austrians
today
refugees
Freud frozen
devastation
rage
Steadying himself
With his cane
menacing
Darkness seen before.
To his left
A finely dressed man
In a gray suit,
Gazes at his papers
Missing his place.
2018
After the crematorium
What to do
with
the ashes
so much
Mixed with Coal Ash and
charcoal gray Coke
spread across
the lush green pastures
and
lower wetlands reflecting
a darkening sky
Or hand rolled on tracks
right here in Auschwitz-Birkenau
in small V-shaped railcars
to the gray Vestula river
nearby,
to be sent down stream.
to carry us to
today
2017
Sleeping on Hair
Rooms full of hair
Brown and black
They shave the heads
After gassing them
Just before
the red coals
of crematorium
#5
Bundles of hair
Shipped back to
Berlin and put into
Mattresses
Sleeping on hair
Hair
2017
How
he can’t remember
what he did
to get spanked
whipped with a belt to be exact
a smoky memory
hangs
nearby
next to waking time
this is what I am
forced to write
think see
how can I shrink
away from
this feeling?
2017
Rather
We are told
To give up
Our darlings
When we write
Rather better
To build a
Darling palace as
A seed bank
2017
I am a Secret
Turning
My Roy Rogers ring
With its secret
Compartment
Where hidden
I lie
2017
Us
Over and under
Threaded
Together
2017
We could be wasps
While walking on
A rocky
Steep trail
Red dust
Packed around
Green pine trees
Bright limestone
Eggshell brown
Sycamore timber
Split rocks
Mud bricks
A four floor
Living hive
Inside the light gray
Cliff wall
They used ladders
2016
My Sister
Your dying makes me
Feel eroded
Grasping you back
To be there forever
Left behind
With your brilliance
woundedness
Joyful playing around
Having your own horse
Your sublime painting
Of musical
Instruments
Fitting together
A unique color harmonics
You had seen Picasso’s
Ways
Noted Cubism’s shift
Thank you
You defended me to mother
Instructing her
“That’s how boy’s roll up
Their jeans now”
Playing Beethoven
Piano concertos
On red records
75’s, big
On our new
Blond hi fi
You taught me
How to skip
Just as I was having
To give up the belief
That I really
Could fly
2016
D Word
Death
Unites us
Like a giant
Cancer support
Group
Back in
Our minds
We all know
We are in this
Together
2016
Nothing to Say
Our lives are filled
With broken hearts
We can sit together
speechless, helpless,
numb together
nothing to say
your daughter
took her life
creating a dark
swamp of misery
for us
to sink into
together
2016
The World is not the same
For T.S.
Larry told
Me you died
Day before last
(which was your
Last day)
After being told that
Both your brothers died
I imagine you were
Shocked to death
Just after you
Got tired of living
2015
What are we
To think
When a physicist
Tells us we
May all be
A reflection of
Another universe
2015
Louis at 80
My brother’s hand
a very old man’s hand
How could he save me
Again as he did
When I was five
Not quite swimming
In our pond
He reached down
And pulled me back
From drowning’s door
2015
Speaks Hunger
He wants no bargains
Jeffery hates sales
Not to be wanting
I am not
Going to get
Drug into that
Seeking sales
Speaks wanting
Attempting to magic the gap
Between what we need
And what we got
What is it
To be someone
2015
Poem for David
‘This is not what is supposed to happen’
‘Tell me about it’
I know but
I can’t stand it
You died too young
For today
Moment to moment
You left us
With the presence
Of an absence
A missing
Goneness
A gap
In our family’s
Circle
2015
Radio
The pale and haggarded
Writer living on the elbow
Of this hallway where
It turns red-orange
Is yelling “does someone have
A radio playing?
Where is that coming
From?” “I can’t get it
Out of my mind”
Just as he looks out
A yellow neon
Sign flashes
“artifacts of the present”
2014-2015
Angel of History
Today I see
My father’s delight,
Taking delight
In me,
Small boy eating more
And more lightly
Browned biscuits
He’s just made
For us
In our fire wood
Warmed cabin
2014
In groves
Which
Incubate words
Used in music
Harpsichords
Hum inside
Seashells
Spawning
Blue visions
of grace
Today
I read
That beauty
Is at the
Heart of the
Tree of life
2014
I want to kiss my father’s hands
Wide with their map of veins
For love to thank them
For all the bacon they
Brought home
For lifting me up
While he and I
Smile at each other
For giving me
A paintbrush
To draw a portrait of him
Tall as me, dark
Black upon white
Sheetrock
2014
Norma
She needs
To be touched
Hug her when
You can
Follow her
Closely
In silence
Speak
Right to her right brain
2014
Awake at night
I see
what I saw
now seen again
Loud cries
tired cries
hollowed out cries
A little girl about three and a half, blonde dog ear braids
wearing red and brown leggings and skirt
yellow sweater
Her screams escalate as her mother walks quickly out the shop door into the cold
She runs to push the door with both hands before it closes
Once out, she throws herself in slow motion on her back
upon the concrete stretching her arms out flat
as if the sidewalk became a lap
Suddenly she jumps up and runs screaming after her receding mom
whose frozen face turns away from her daughter
and her own distress turned to hate
2014
Working the W's
Undulating grasses
wave and writhe
while washed
over by
invisible water
called wind
2014
Scent of sawdust
summer garden
tomato sun
hot and wet
a wonder
growing up through
all of time
monkey mind
still
now
2014
Getting Hitched
While walking up a
Descending escalator
I heard that
A Utah court
Declares
Same sex marriage
Unconstitutional
One wonders how
Did we mix up
Civil rights and
Discretionary cruelty
Garnets
Diamonds
Gold
Sitting beside the hospital bed
He places his hand
Upon his dying partner’s hand
Without disturbing the IV line
Together in
This never
before place.
2013
Inscribed inside
Un be known
Disappointing
Mr. shit
Which dose
To trace
Bubble, bubble
Pots of bubble
Pots of red
Blue
Yellow
Where desperation
Green wild
Following the sun
For years
2013
Chair
Where is
My father’s
Chair
Wooden
Straight Back
With a
Slight
Curve
Oak
Worn smooth
Through a
Dark brown
Stain
A rib is missing
I meant
To take it
For repair
And sit on it
For
Restoration
2013
Taftana, Syria
only men
surround
the trench
filled
with bodies
wrapped in
blankets
of different hues
red earth
yellow sand
powder blue
a little girl
stiff,
wearing green
sandals
lies next to
her sister.
rope bound
under her last
covers
2012
Double Rainbow
he relishes
the thick
strawberry
ice cream
he offers a spoonful
to his breast shaped
water cup
with a nipple
on top
already, he knows
at which altar
to pray
2012
He said
He said ‘don’t look at me”
Hiding under the pink plastic container
He would not come out
His brother hides under the bed
The father wants me to talk about what I see
I see a puffed up face
A unrecognizable(skeletal) mother
A father whose words cannot form
A pregnazone father a father
Who lost his mother
A father pumped up
A father in steroids
I said nothing
2011
A Cow and a Calf
A mother smoothly swings
Her muscled neck
And shoulders
Sweeping aside the two Heifers
Who were getting too close
To her newborn calf
She will not tolerate
Trampling, stepping on
Around her and her baby
At once
Those black cows are
Out of there
And her calf.
Now touching
Her leg
2011
Cemetary
Here in the graveyard
Everyone is quiet
Cars race by
The edge
Gilgamesh’s questions
Still linger
What is death?
What happens?
Is there life after death?
What we know
Is that we will
Be dead
2011
Taking care
For Norma and Hiam
Kneeling, she slowly
Quietly and tenderly
Wipes the head stone
Of her fallen husband
Of 63 years.
She wears a special
Dress and jewelry
An inaudible pain
Thickens the air
And flattens everything
She suddenly appears
More two dimensional
The polished black granite
Engraved: “he said there is a piece
Of God in each of us.”
Loving and devoted husband,
Father, grandfather, uncle, and friend
A real Mensch
We miss you every day
2011
The First Time
For my mother
Now I can finally
See her running
In her own unique
Way
More like hopping
And running at the
Same time
A definite
And joyful
bouncing
laughing
chasing her sisters
In spite of its being lame
This is the first time
I have seen her so
She was old and
Had already had
A heart attack
Before me
Bedridden most of my childhood
Much of the time
But now I have seen
Her running and I will
Never be the same
2011
Speech
Sounds
They say sounds go on forever
Out into the universe.
If only we could tune in
We could hear Jesus, Moses
And Freud, speaking today
Our ancestors, figures of speech
And figures from history
No longer out of reach
Mozart plays his own music
African drumming from the dawn
Blowhards, the meek, the modest
Mothers whispers
Napoleons orders
Shakespeare’s directions
Lovers wails
Those who show tenderness
I want to take these strands of voices
And weave a Cape
To wear
On those chilly nights
When we find ourselves in there
2011
Yoke
Yoke-mate
I was the best
at turning on the oxygen
when my mother fell
ill
for ever
I was the best
helping her
up and down
up and down
stairs
every step, synced
to hers
2011
Working in the silence
Written while looking at Millet’s painting ‘Women Sewing By Lamp Light’
Working in silence
Our eyes led by
the painter’s placement
face to lamp to hands
She sits
in lamplight
a white bonnet
a red shawl
surrounded by darkness
just enough glow
to sew by
a small child
unnoticed at first
sleeps near her
blanketed in stillness
2011
Hospital visits
To organize, recollect you,
Find your teeth
Help you
Have a smoke
On your beloved pipe
Humiliated by
Having to be cleaned
Up like a baby
Who has shat his
Diapers,
Unbearable
the last time I saw you
looking across a hospital room
from door to bed
the distance shortening and lengthening
and collapsing
a terrible sadness
in our wet eyes
I did not want to know
That you were dying
Nor hear that you were
Ready to go.
2011
Big oxygen bottle
For mother
Green and taller
Than me
With shiny
Chrome fixtures
turning wheel
And circular gauge
Numbered
So as to provide
An exact amount
Of breath
I turned it on
Perfectly
As the youngest
Operator
I quickly learned
To be a provider
Of rich air
Better, to be at home
Rather than looking
For You along
Gray hospital walls
And dim corridors
To find you shut
In, and me
Out,
Of a think plastic tent
Fed by another big green bottle
Praying on the way
To the hospital
Promising, begging
Helpless
2011
Flying east
Grey clouds
Across a light
Blue sky
Flying towards darkness
Going ahead in
Watch time
Looking for
Ancestors
To tell the
Sailors’ stories
Which were lost
In the tunnel
Of the past
That recedes
And keeps up
With us
At the same time
The ferry boat Captain
Is confused
He claims there is
a man overboard.
2010
Father and Son
for my father
a father and son
work silently alongside each other
in unison
folding, packing, carrying their supplies
they swim slowly in a warm bath of unspoken feeling,
their thick medium to move about in,
this is their camp
1995
My Girl
for Rachael
My girl sings to her dolls
My girl plays the flute for her dolls.
A joy,
My girl opens up a joy in my heart
that was packed away by distraction
she makes me lay down my load
and dance,
a dance remembered from before she was born.
1994
Coffee Creek Chalet
I’m watching Blue Jays eat acorns at their leisure
if they are ever at leisure
Sinking into a silent place in the forest
bits of nut falling from the
Jay’s dinner table
the steady water flow
sweet smell of pine and fir
damp leaves, fallen, moss, twigs
a forest alchemy
I’m rich!
1990
Squirrel
a squirrel who has
the world by the tail
plus his own beautiful tail
amidst a rain of acorns
stood me off
with fierce churps
a threatening stance
and a determination
to stare me down
I know I am slipping
into silliness but
think of it as playfulness
in the face of a sternness
A Blessing Way
for Molly Bee
A current of love follows
the mountain water running
over us
around us
beside us
in a shallow flat
where water warmed
among long summer afternoon sun.
sugar pine, cedar, and birch
branch out along the river
flowing from a source place
where heaven and earth peak
You, Molly, tiny daughter on my chest
not yet a year old,
now marry at 25 years old
to a young man full of promise
and devotion for you
who will hold you in another way,
a husband way,
downstream from a father’s way
a blessing way
Fed By Memory
Rilke says
Poetry is the past breaking out
in our hearts.
Today as I drove along
caught up in a dark mood,
I passed the conservatory of flowers
and a very special day stepped forward:
My father and I are standing
by a flower bed where a young gardener
planting hens and chickens
recognizes the importance of the moment
gracefully gives my father a souvenir bulb
He is delighted,
the warm sunair, the green,
the feeling among us.
Today, I burst into tears.
1986
Welcome to Lake Combie
Sure enough, I arrived
at inspiration point the
minute I strayed from the
official directions.
Today while turning back
from having lost my way
I met a mother deer with
her two fawn nearby;
they were sitting low in
green grass and clover
under the shade
of a big oak
growing in a pasture
frequented by cows.
Their eyes and moving
ears told all,
they were sweet baby eyes –
so still, moist
and quiet
The mother looked
over at her young and
then at me –
attentive,
relaxed,
and ready to
snap into action
if need be.
I went on quickly.
Maybe too quickly.
1986
All is Damp
Spiders web
my easel
in an afternoon,
Ants eat the
toothpaste residue,
lizards chortle,
dogs bark,
cocks crow,
birds sing,
the farmers who work
the rice by day,
Hunt eels –
and frog –
by lantern.
1984, Ubud, Bali
Breakfast at the Raffles
Ferlinghetti says
It is the bird singing that
makes us happy.
Glancing up I meet
deep purple orchids
Birds,
Palms,
White table cloths
tables of steaming sausages
Bacon, ham, eggs, potatoes
Chinese porridge
yellow pineapple
yellow banana
red papaya
1984, Singapore
Echo and Spice
Oh spice man
Grinding saffron, curry, and cumin.
you seem so serene –
I want to watch you for hours,
amongst your red powders,
a fragrant terrain indeed.
You move in a most
relaxed pace and time, -
no motion wasted, -
the right hand feeds the
grinder’s mouth while the
left hand bags the scarlet dust.
I marvel at your unbroken
face, surely this smoothness
Slides from a clear sense
of satisfaction,
That quiet freedom –
attained by doing only
what you must.
Supplying the spice of life,
the element of flavor refined,
Resonating with your presence,
a presence in us all.
1984
For Renaldo Maduro
Our lady of Guadalupe
Watch over him
Red peppers of the South
Keep him warm through winter
Spring rains wash him
Summer sun caress him.
Renaldo with your passion
Your giving and receiving
You excelled with all your might
And you were generous,
You fought shame, rage, and terror
You were inside and out,
I’m sorry for how much you
Must of suffered in between
Thrice minoritized
Once by race
Again by class
Then finally in love
With the dark man
And then in dying
Of a disease whose victims are blamed
Help us forgive ourselves
AZT hope for AIDS
To go over, Pass our house
Oh angel of death
Fall fell anyway
Gaunt and tired
I saw you sweating
Telling me you had been
Sick a month
Still charged and sexy
After words
Our resident shaman
Saw you in his dream
Riding fast on a camel
In the desert
With your long rifle held
High; smiling your
Renaldo smile.
The dead in the minds of the living –
Now you will live for me
In my mind and
I still hope we can someday
Play congo drums
Together in Mission Dolores Park
Mozart or the Chickens
To listen to Mozart on the tape deck
Or to the chickens and
The wind
Clucks and gusts,
Swaying grass flowers
Branches leaves.
To say that wind is air moving over the earth
In a horizontal direction
Is not enough
A blackbird is gliding
Sideways on a wind
Looking for his breakfast
The chickens speak for themselves
Oh No, The Good Mother-Breast Is Cracking
In Mas,
I finally found
the long sought after
Good Breast Mother
holding her child close
I greedily snatched her up –
bargained hard for her,
paid cash,
140,000 rupiah.
Now she is cracking
from heart to foot –
clean thru her child’s
leg and her own
Breast.
The crack is
stopped at
her heart by
a knot –
once a limb
1984
On Being Available
When the door’s open,
you can hear a poem –
some say – write
a poem –
on an airplane,
on a couch,
in a minibus,
in a lobby,
as a hobby,
at lunch,
in a car,
late at night,
in the evening,
anytime at all.
1984, Ubud, Bali
The Black Madonna
They tell us that you
were burned black in candle soot;
But I think you’ve always been black
like a bark root
reaching from under the dark
earth,
Amidst the children of mother night,
older sister to sleep and dreams.
Now hold us in your
loving arms, whose rapt embrace
stays our sores and pains
“Our mother who are in the earth”
Woman in the earth
womb in the earth
accept your children that we may
hear your whisper,
help us turn our heads
from right to left,
sun to moon,
sky to earth, before
it is too late.
Oh Black Mistress shake our land,
hail down black stones
Lest we forget the
honored and the blamed
the pregnant and the barren
A whore’s love, a mother’s love,
a virgin’s love, a lover’s love;
we need you to be Black,
shade us from the bleaching by convention.
Oh holy ghost –
only you can bring us over,
you surely spoke to Mozart,
Orpheus, and Maximillian.
You are sought by those who found you.
And remembered by those who forgot you.
1984
The Cabin
After slowly washing
the supper dishes,
in water –
simmered over a scrapwood fire,
the water, cool
from the well – pumped
in the company of grasshoppers
and carried in the stainless steel
bucket,
With all its beautiful scratches,
one drink
dispels thirst.
Sitting on the porch,
feeding ourselves on
the warm and silent
Bond.
serenaded by
crickets and frogs,
noting the fireflies –
my father uncovers
his memories for us
How could I have known
then
that these moments would sustain me
through the solitude
that was to follow.
1984
The Gratitude For Poetry
by a young poet nearly 42
O muses and
Great gods,
Ground of being
Thank you and all your minions –
How could I live
without you?
through all the
rock and
ice
you have given me
new life.
revived me
from my stumbling slumber.
I surprise myself.
1984, Ubud, Bali