Sunday, August 29, 2021

Climate Change

The sky is orange out in Seattle;
In California it is red.
Louisiana's buildings rattle
With hurricane-force winds instead.
In Iowa the corn lies down
From the derecho that passed by
While Texan -outs, both black- and brown-,
Mean thousands freeze and hundreds die.
The Colorado River's gone
And with it water for the west;
The polar vortex seems to spawn
Much further south each year. The rest
Of US history will be
The coming rising of the sea.

Sunday, August 15, 2021

Legalese

How terrible it is to make the rules
When no one cares about the legislation;
It makes the legislators feel like fools
And often bubbles into indignation.
The net result can be stultification
As rules unchanged will harden and grow brittle;
They sometimes need a massive perturbation
To help improve them even just a little.
And yet instead the legislators whittle
Shaving only small parts from the side
They argue over every jot and tittle
While letting larger problems sleep and slide.
If we and they cared more perhaps they might
Care more about if law is always right.

Saturday, August 14, 2021

Plaisance

It's pleasant, I imagine, to be known,
To have your needs acknowledged, to be seen;
To sprout the seeds in others you have sown
With careful tending as they grow up green.
It must be nice to be surrounded by
A coterie of people you know well
Who hear the silence, and can read your eye
Without the need to speak or calmly tell
The troubles that have told on you; to know
That those around you care for who you are
As well as what you do. It has to grow
Increasingly delightful. And so far
In my experience, it has so proved:
When I am known, I am forever moved.

Saturday, August 7, 2021

Predestined Evangelism

Grace, they say to me, is freely given;
A holy gift unearned and so unending;
It heals a world that we all know needs mending
And seals the cracks with which all life is riven.
It is the blessing of an unasked heaven
The joyful news that God himself is sending;
A free-grown grant, no merely mortal lending:
To human souls the necessary leaven.
Yet I am lectured to be born again;
Informed, unless I do just as I'm told
This blessed gift will not be mine to hold
As thus conditioned by the minds of men.
Therefore I have to ask: who gets to choose?
And have you really heard your own Good News?

Friday, August 6, 2021

On the Successive Deaths of David Bevington and Michael Murrin

There are some giants who remain in place
So long they are misregistered as mountains:
A cave reported where there is a face;
Their sleeping drool unrecognized makes fountains.
These massive beings cast their shadows deep;
So deep whole towns are built within their shade
Where people in the darkness softly creep
As if the sun itself would die and fade.
So great can be their impact on the land
That every map will note them and new roads
Skirt by their legs as if divine command
Instructed them to lessen their great loads.
And when they leave, the people who built there
Are left bereft, as lost as anywhere.

Tuesday, July 6, 2021

Predictable Forms

Recently I was thinking about romance novels (which I am an avid consumer of) and fanfiction (which I both read and write) in connection to a topic that is also applicable to poetry, particularly the sonnet: the joys of predictability.
In romance novels, there are known beats in the story that the audience can predict. In fanfiction, the characters and often the events as well are drawn exactly from an existing canon that the audience is explicitly familiar with. In each case, the pleasure and joy of the consumption comes not from surprise and unpredictability but from finding out exactly how known factors will develop and reveal themselves. The journey, not the destination, is the point. 
The same, it seems to me, is true of the sonnet. Fourteen lines; a rhyme scheme and meter that reveal themselves early; predictable points for a turn or two. None of them are the point; they are the medium for the point. The predictable elements allow the rest of the expression to be the focus. 
A lot of modern poetry relies on invented, even nonce forms, unpredictable or at least unconstrained. There is obviously space for this just as there is space for original (not fan) works, and for literary (non-genre, non-romance) novels. But there is also ample space for sonnets and other formal, predictable forms, just as there is for fanfiction and romance. And this is true even though there have been millions of sonnets written and similar quantities of fanfic and romance. Precisely because the journey is the point, we can travel the same paths endlessly, within the same constraints. And it will be different every time.

Sunday, July 4, 2021

Religious Extremes

This is not a Christian nation, not
A country born from your theology;
The key idea I see you have forgot
Is that in this land all of us are free:
Free not to worship as you choose, but to
Consider what we do ourselves think right;
To pray to your God or if we want, not, too,
Without your interfering oversight.
And if we have (have always) fallen short
Of that ideal, and lessened freedom's range,
That does not mean that you get to abort
The thought itself, or make the ideal change:
It means we have some work to do. Our nation
Is larger than your cramped imagination.

Tuesday, June 29, 2021

Sorrow

Occasionally, I'm struck by waves of grief
That roll across me like an open sea
Until they break like riptides on a reef
And leave me longing for what used to be.
Sometimes I curse my own inconstancy
That lets me for a moment cease my grieving, 
Which should, it seems, seize me eternally
Beyond the bounds of being or believing.
But then I recognize that such a heaving
Is unsustainable; I cannot weep
Forever. It is not my sorrow leaving
That helps me to recover, and to keep
A happy face more often, but this balm:
The sea will also sometimes see a calm.

Friday, June 25, 2021

Public

I love a city built without a car.
The way the streets meander to and fro,
The sidewalks made for people to walk far,
The distances made shorter by the flow
Of human need, which places near each spot
The real demands of our necessity:
A place to eat, a place to sit in thought,
A place to buy, to entertain, to be.
A city built along an older plan
Assuming you will need to walk or ride
Is more responsive than a carport can
Or even will be. When I am inside
A city built for us, I find my feet
Are dancing as I wander down each street.

exhaustion

My weary self is tired to the bone
And yet I soldier on because of you.
Not that you make me work; that is my own
Decisive choice. I do what I would do.
But rather having you around me makes
The world a place that I can still exist.
To be around you even tired takes
Less energy; your presence will assist
Whatever it may be I do or try,
Not by intention or directed action
(Though sometimes those as well), but simply by
The way your presence slows the deep extraction
Of me from me, and makes the tired day
An open one through which to make my way.

Wednesday, June 16, 2021

Anniversary (Week)

When the sun begins to crest
And reach its zenith in the sky;
When it turns back to home and rest
And turns its back to say goodbye;
When days, once long, shorten once more
And reach their maximum extent;
When spring at last has left the floor
To give the summer its full bent;
When daylight is a common thing
Untethered to our sleeps or wakes;
When birds no longer crow and sing
At proper times, as nature breaks,
On that long day, my thoughts are solely
On matrimony: union holy.

Tuesday, June 15, 2021

Senatus Populusque

Mitch McConnell really is the worst;
You'd think that would be obvious by now.
Yet somehow some among us seem to thirst
To give him opportunities to wow.
Why is it, Justice Breyer, why and how,
You think this man is apolitical?
There is no silk to spin out of this sow;
The power you have given him is critical,
And it is neither libel nor thersitical
To say, Senator Manchin, you're a fool,
On whom Mitch feasts in manner parasitical
As you defend the letter of a rule
Made accidentally by Aaron Burr?
Think I exaggerate? I wish I were.

Sunday, June 6, 2021

Breathless

The flowers are so beautiful I cannot breathe
The very sight of them leaves me gasping for air.
Their yellow-white profusion softly seems to wreathe
Around my heart and chest. Their beauty does not spare
A single breath. With every in and out of me
I am compelled to notice how they make me feel
And even in the moments where I cannot see
I cannot help but bow before their soft appeal.
With every second that I try to think and fail
I recognize how much I am beneath their thrall
Even when I catch a breath the air is stale
As if their sheer existence occupies it all.
And so I stand surrounded by such wondrous things
And wonder why the beauty of such nature stings.

A la Manchin

It is a simple fact of life
(At least in our society)
That those who seek and foment strife
At every opportunity
Will pass the blame for every sin
Projected onto all their foes
As if they stopped what they begin
Or had their fingers for their toes.
The greatest con that they can pull
Is getting us to go along;
To make us make our own soft wool
To cover our own eyes with wrong.
Be honest and say what you've seen:
Don't let them start up their machine.

Thursday, June 3, 2021

On the Value of Structure

One of the topics that almost always comes up when discussing sonnets especially in a modern context, is the question of what we gain from the strict structure of a traditional sonnet scheme. In fact, you will often see modern poets, or perhaps I should say postmodern poets, but certainly contemporary poets, write what they call sonnets that have no rhyme scheme, partial rhyme scheme, or a distinctly unsonnetlike rhyme scheme (such as heroic couplets). Similarly, you will see experiments with meter or the lack of it, and of course experiments with the number of lines: from 12 to 16 to almost any number. 
In discussing with my colleagues what a sonnet is and how a sonnet means,
I know I am almost always going to be the most traditional voice. For me, a sonnet is as I have explained in these pages of this blog, 14 lines with consistent meter, and a rhyme scheme that is not purely couplets but that extends through the entire poem in some way, usually with a break at the turn.
So obviously I value these structural elements, and of course this is not the first time I have tried to explain why on this blog. But it seemed to me to be a good time to re-specify what I think structure gives to a sonnet, and why I think it is irreplaceable.
Of course, structure gives a lot of things to sonnets, and not the same thing to every sonnet. But you are some thoughts on more general applications of structure in sonnets.
First, structure and the poem's use of it can give a tone or an emotional resonance to a sonnet. The poem I just wrote for this blog, well it has many other flaws (see my post on bad poetry for why I don't think that's a problem) is using the structure of end stopped iambic pentameter with clear octave and sestet divisions to reinforce the sense of calm and quiet that I am trying to induce with the language and the message of the poem as well. By consistently giving the reader those pauses and that regularity it can reinforce what the rest of the poem is doing. Conversely, up home I wrote not for this blog but for my own personal use when I was grappling with some emotional difficulties back over a decade ago deliberately refused to give that end stopping and therefore that consistency; The first word of most of the sentences in that poem was the last word of the line: you can see a similar approach at work albeit not in a sonnet in Gwendolyn Brooks' "We Real Cool", not that I'm comparing myself to her as a poet, where we is not the start of most of the lines but the end, giving the poem a different shape and a different sensibility. In the case of a sonnet with its expectations of regularity, this has a punctuated effect and a heightened one in terms of unsettling the mood of the poem.
This is not possible without that structure initially.
Or at least it is less effective.
Second, the structure and regularity of the sonnet allow for certain words in certain positions to draw power from pre-existing expectations. The most obvious example of this of course is the couplet in a Shakespearean or English sonnet, which takes on a heightened significance precisely because the reader is expecting that turn and that couplet after the 12 lines preceding it. But even within individual line, knowing the meter, knowing the rhyme scheme, Knowing the structure helps the reader navigate the poem.
It is perhaps unfashionable to help the reader navigate the poem nowadays, if that doesn't sound a little too cynical, but it is actually helpful as a reader to know where to look. Poetry is after all the conveyance of emotion and thought in carefully chosen words; anything that helps it do that conveying is in a sense a plus. The sonnet is not fundamentally an obscure or obscuring form; thus regularity and structure are helpful to it.
Third, for me at least as a writer of sonnets, the structure is similarly helpful in terms of making me or forcing me to think through and try to navigate how I want those words to express themselves on the page. With a form, with a pre-existing or predetermined or at least predictable structure, there is guidance not just for the reader but the writer in terms of where emotional beat should come and where key words should come. It is of course completely all right to violate those expectations, or undermine that structure, but the power of those acts also comes from the presence or the assumed presence of the structure. Randomly slapping words on the page (which of course is not what most poets that I know do) doesn't have the same effect as modifying what someone already expects (note that "not the same" does not inherently mean one is better or worse). And while there is definite value and has been forever (pretty much literally) in organic or new or invented forms, and in things like prose poetry or erasers or other forms that may not even have a traditionally defined form, but with in something like the sonnet which has form and structure, it can be used as a source of strength for the writer as well as the reader.
Finally at least for now, the sonnet as a structured poem is of course in conversation with sonnets as structured poems that have come before. And while that may mean that there is value in breaking those structures as part of that conversation, it also implies that there is value in having that conversation on the same level as the sonnets it is in conversation with. My poetry is not Shakespeare's, or Petrarch's, or any of the almost infinite list of amazing poets who have written sonnets in the past. I don't claim that it is. But one of the beauties of writing in a tradition is that you do not have to be at the apex of that tradition to be a part of its conversation. And structured sonnets allow for that conversation to be more visible.

Hear

Listen to the music of the air:
The way the wind will whisper in your ear.
The wind has neither arrogance nor fear;
It simply is, and lets you know it's there.
The wind help you work through every care;
And though you need to tack, it lets you steer
Around the obstacles to your career
And brings you by degrees to everywhere.
Permit its voice to comfort and to guide
The desperate rushing of your everyday
And it will calm you when you need it most.
The worst that happens, if you find you tried
And it did nothing, is that you could say
You took a moment to relax, and coast.

Wednesday, June 2, 2021

representative

June is a month identified with Pride,
Which rebellion against expectation;
Society assumes that what's inside
A person will accept its straight dictation.
Pride says not only that this is not so
But that it should not be, and that repression
Is illegitimate; that people know
Themselves, and that those selves deserve expression.
It started as a riot, throwing bricks,
Because it can and must resist quiescence;
Queerness is not a sin that needs a fix,
But a deep truth that touches on an essence.
So all month long, Pride should be celebrated
Nor can it by that single month be sated.

Tuesday, May 25, 2021

Ceremony

I could of course imagine anything
From clouds of floating ink to mindful axes;
From soldiers ceasing soldiering to sing
To people happy to have paid their taxes.
I could imagine far beyond the real
Giving a shape to what had had no form
And grapple to my soul with hoops of steel
Those strange imaginings that keep me warm.
I could produce from nothing endless idylls
That would improve the world which I was given,
And though my Rome might burn while Nero fiddles
I would not notice how its fate was riven.
Imagination bodies forth the strange
To keep us calmed within abnormal range.

Tuesday, April 20, 2021

Verdict

Justice is blind, but only in that she
Should not weigh anything except what's true.
She does not choose it random, fitfully,
Nor does nor should she choose what she will do
Based on opinion or identity.
Justice is served we say when we've gone only through
The proper forms and done it honestly
In such a way that Justice will ensue.
Justice upholds the right. This means the law
Should not sway wrongfully, nor self-abuse;
If it is chance, or biased, that's a flaw
That means there is no Justice, or she'll lose.
We all know what we saw last May. And so
We know where Justice was--and we still know.

Panic

One thing that I did not expect:
I'm absolutely terrified
Of what this jury will decide
And then of what will happen next.
A few decisive lines of text
About how George Floyd lived and died
Now written down but not yet eyed
We'll have an impact so direct
I tremble with it. Even I
Though neither black nor Minnesotan
Can feel the history congeal.
This kind of day we know we try
The systems that the people vote in
If they can judge what's truly real.

Saturday, April 10, 2021

Thematics

There is no single sonnet theme
No necessary topics here;
It could recount a weirdass dream,
The architecture of a pier,
The sense of being straight, or queer,
The hope of future joy, the pain
Of stubbing toes, the sense of cheer
That's generated by the rain
(Depression too), the constant strain
Of unrequited love, the fields
That stretch to Kansas, thick with grain,
The sound of battle, swords on shields,
Whatever else we can conceive
Can be a sonnet, I believe.

Rain

There's something calming in a good hard rain,
Something that simply does a body good;
That quiets an unquiet, rowdy brain.
I love to hear it rattle on the hood
Of the parked cars that line the neighborhood
Which will not move, as long as it goes on.
I listen longer than I likely should,
Out of the evening, deep into the dawn,
Until the rain itself is dried and gone,
And everything is quiet but my mind.
I watch the flowers bloom across my lawn,
Christened with rain, ecstatic, unconfined,
And know we are alike. The downpour brings
A quiet music to which all life sings.

Wednesday, March 31, 2021

Repeat after Lope

Caesar it was, who all the world exceeded
Though he stepped over Pompey to achieve it;
And both of them, as if more proof were needed
Of pointlessness (and I can well believe it)
Triumphed in turn on Marius and Sylla.
And in an age before, great Alexander
Conquered the same: Charybdis to their Scylla,
And evidence that time may well meander
But leaves no oxbow lakes. Time's river flows
Consistently, and leaves no one behind,
But in the process, we can see it goes
Back over paths that repeat and rewind.
So after Caesar, came Augustus, who
Conquered it all: but it was nothing new.

Alvin

Warm water oozes higher from the vents
That obfuscate the shape of what we see:
An underland, ectopic and immense,
Reaching up to dark infinity.
The beams our little lights produce illume
Only enough to show the shadows creasing
Across the oddly colored building bloom
Which toils unseen, unknown, but never ceasing.
The thick red lips of creatures in the seams
Make everything around them terrifying
It is an image never made for dreams
But for a nightmare where the world is dying.
We must ascend, and hope it will not follow
And wish the world, perhaps, a bit more hollow.

Monday, March 29, 2021

Bulbous

A little light
Is just enough
To pause the night
And see our stuff.
But if it fails
And darkness rises
Each poor heart quails
Before surprises:
A single chair
Slipped out of place
Will cause a scare
That loses face
And we all head
In fear to bed.

Suez

We cut a narrow path across Suez
To save ourselves from going 'round the cape;
We lined up ships like candy in a Pez
So tight that they (and we) could not escape
When finally a ship had grown too large
To navigate and spun out of control:
A ship? Without its steering, it's a barge,
And foundered on a non-existent shoal.
It blocked for days the passage at one end
Sending us back two centuries and more.
When these things happen we then all descend
Into the patterns we held hard before:
And so it is a miracle, I think,
We didn't all wear ruffs, or start to stink.

Saturday, March 27, 2021

Geography

I miss Seattle in my bones
I mean I really really do
I have a sudden constant jones
For the PNW.
That does not mean I do not love
The Midwest, East Coast, or the rest
But rather that I'm fondest of
My roots back in the new Northwest.
I miss the pine trees all around
The rain that isn't really rain
The mountains framing Puget Sound
The coastal starlight on the train.
I love the life that now is mine
But now and then I have to pine.

WWX

There once was or I once believed there was
A hope that I might be an honest man.
But honest is alas as honest does,
And honest people will do what they can.
Those who desire to achieve much more
Cannot for all that they might wish it be
As honest as they used to be before
Nor can indulge their former honesty
So far as to admit in honest truth
That they are not the same as when they were
Once honest. So they idolize their youth
And claim to be not honest: honester.
And so it was with me. And being honest
I know I did not do what I had promised.

Cult

Belief is precious and cannot be grown
Within the soil of a self-made mind.
A mind reliant on itself alone
Will never seek to look beyond or find
The nutrients belief requires. No,
Such self-belief strangles all other thought
And will not let competing concepts grow
Within the self-conceits that it has wrought.
Believe then in yourself but not too much;
Do not believe beyond what you require
To think you matter, else you will not touch
The other souls around you nor acquire
The common core beliefs society
Requires of you for propriety.

Wednesday, March 24, 2021

Metaphor

I fly in turbulence with seatbelts tight
Expecting any moment oxygen
Masks will drop. My stomach roils. The sight
Our of the windows veers, and veers again.
The engines hum, and whine, and then give out;
The plane is gliding, then it starts to dive.
It noses down, and then it slips about
Inconstant in its angle. Every gyve
Threatens to cut the lift under the wings
(The only hope for cushioning a crash)
The metal in harmonic tension sings
And all aboard are tensing for a smash.
But then I hear your voice, and hold your hand,
And straighten out, pull up, and smoothly land.

Tuesday, March 23, 2021

Fishes

What wishes are
Is substance-less,
As if a star
Were an abyss;
As if a rock
Became the sky
Or if a clock
Let all time die.
A wished for thing
Exists because
Of what we bring
To it; it does
Only what we
Can make it be.

Monday, March 22, 2021

Madness

I saw the branches of the broken trees
Rise up over the suburbs, circle twice,
And form themselves with the flowing breeze
Into an intricate, unknown device
Which seized the wind and wound it in its limbs
Until it stole the breath out of the birds,
The sky grew dark, as if the sun had dimmed,
And clouds clumped up in dark, oppressive herds.
I only seemed to see it; those below
Went on about their everyday routine
As if they did not care, or did not know,
That hell had made the ultimate machine
Prepared to end the world. So they, unknowing,
Were whipped along wherever it was going.

Sunday, March 21, 2021

Tribute

I could tell a tale, if I desired,
That would uproot the comfort in your heart
Tearing the simple joy in it apart
Along with any hope you had acquired;
If I were moved, or evilly inspired,
The words I'd write would make your innards start,
Disrupt the very soul of you, and part
Your ribs, to rend your lungs as you expired.
But tales like this are better left as hints,
Not told full out, where anyone could hear
Or written down for readers to devour.
Handled this way, their danger merely tints
The world, and does not dye it; leaves it clear
Enough for other tales to hold their power.

Saturday, March 20, 2021

Suburban Gothic

The bite of air crunches on my jacket
As I first step outside. The rain is holding
Just barely off; the slightest breeze will crack it
Out of the clouds. The moonlight is unfolding
Into the yard, made eerie in its beams
As if the squirrels were fey, the trees were deeper
And wrapped you in the substance of their dreams
Unless you were a very wary sleeper.
I pause and do not fully raise my foot,
Turning inside again. I will not go
While dark clouds hover high like soot
Waiting to be swept. I think I know
Better than that. I will just wait
Until the weird recedes, though it is late.

Friday, March 19, 2021

Love

I feel your presence when you are not near
But somewhere in the house. It's warm and sweet
Like cocoa on a desperate winter day
Watched from inside, with proper winter cheer
That brightens up what once was dimly gray.
I feel you from the tiptoes of my feet
Into the edges of my bangs; I sense
That you exist nearby. It comforts me.
Thank you for being you, and for existing;
Not thanks as in a hope for recompense
Or as a covert way to keep insisting
That this is somewhere that you have to be,
But thanks because your presence brings me balm
When nothing else is comfortable or calm.

Isolate

I call to God but I forget to dial
Leaving me just talking to my self;
But, hey, that's useful, 'cause it's been a while
Since I took my own issues off the shelf
And looked them over. Maybe now is good
To check in with the sense I have of me;
I do this less than I might wish I would
And so I'm shocked by what it is I see.
I am exhausted, deep down to the bone;
Ready to collapse without support.
It's not quite that I feel that I'm alone
But that I've hid behind a mighty fort
Of thinking I should help, but not request
Assistance for myself. It's not the best.

Wednesday, March 17, 2021

50

But if I never lied, how would I live?
And if I never told the truth, what then?
Society is ready to forgive
The latter--ready still to trust again--
But doubts the former option to extremes.
For sure, we all imagine we tell truth
(And maybe we all do, in games and dreams)
But for so many reasons--safety, ruth,
Politeness--we tell lies and call them white 
(Because society is racist too
In deep hard ways we cannot shine a light
Upon so easily). And these are things we do
Instinctively. So just to live each day
We have to settle into shades of gray.

Else

I am the way I am for many reasons
Some under my control, and some less so.
I vary with the sunlight and the seasons;
Sometimes regress, and sometimes (I hope) grow.
But what is most important is to know
The person that I am: how I react,
What makes me pause and then what makes me go,
The people on whom I have an impact.
That kind of contemplation teaches tact,
So I can learn to be a better me
Accomplished with what I perhaps once lacked;
Better prepared to face reality.
So I am who I am, but I'm not done
Becoming. I have not been everyone.

Tuesday, March 16, 2021

Fish

I am in love steeped in so far my soul
Is like a fish in water swimming so
Wherever and however it may go
It cannot see the water for the whole
Of its existence stretched from pole to pole
Is nothing else but water. It can know
Love only by the shadow it may show
Upon the curvature of my fishbowl.
And as I breathe the love I feel, my being
His given sustenance by what it breathes;
To be surrounded so is simply freeing
As I'm embraced by love and what it wreaths.
I have to wish to see it for in seeing
I could no longer breathe the love that sheaths.

One Way

Age is just a number, so they say
Of course the number changes as you age,
Always increasing since time goes one way
Forever turning to the next blank page.
So age may be a label, but it's still 
An honest presentation of the years
We wish it would hold steady—well, until
We realize the yet uncounted tears
That would let fall if we should age no more
Because the only way to stop is die
And such cessation we perforce deplore.
Therefore we welcome age as it goes by
And cannot help but to delight in it;
At least we do if we have any wit.


Monday, March 15, 2021

Sleep

She is not silent as she ought to be;
At three a.m. I would prefer her so.
It isn't that I fear her infancy
But sleeping well would help her happily grow.
Alas, the hour waxes and she weeps
First loudly, then (unheard) in louder tone;
I cannot say then (as I'd wish) she sleeps
When all can hear her constant, lowing moan.
I try to give her time to soothe and rest
But she impatient will not sleep once more
Until my faith is put unto the test
By by feeding her. I cannot yet ignore
Her cries, because she is but infant age
And therefore will not calm, but only rage.

Mothertucker

It's easy to be popular when lying
Because you don't owe service to the truth.
If what is true is difficult or trying
You can ignore it; if it is uncouth
You can pretend the proper ways are true;
In short, if you or others might prefer
A different world, then you are welcome to
Claim everything is as you wish it were.
And who among us does not have some things
They wish were changed, within this world of ours?
A lie, well-told, thus such elation brings
That by comparison what's honest sours.
Of course, if anyone were checking in
They'd find the lie--but being found's the sin.

Sunday, March 14, 2021

Skill

The words do not come easily to me
Despite appearances. Sometimes I wrestle
With one phrase for a quarter of an hour.
Sometimes they fly with neat fluidity
Sometimes they're ground out with mortar and pestle
Sometimes that too seems far beyond my power.
Of course I have some phrases that are stock
And others that are central to my goal
In writing what I write or seek to write.
But then, it seems, sometimes the muse will mock
Whatever she has placed within my soul
And leave me on my own, as is her right.
And in those times when I must miss my art
That is the time I try to write my heart.

Growth

Trust is not custom-made to fit, but grown
Not like a weed, but like a bonsai grows
Carefully tended. Left too much alone
It will not grow aright. The seed one sows
Does not always take root; sometimes what springs
Forth out of the ground does not resemble
What was intended, save in minor things--
This is the trust we all at times dissemble.
Sometimes it does not grow at all, and dies
Somewhere within the ground, or at the seed;
This is a life obsessed with constant lies
Regardless of their purpose or their need
And sometimes, rarely, it can grow as planned
In honest trust, a true, perfect right hand.

Tuesday, March 9, 2021

@ Me

We need to talk about your username.
It might have seemed a good idea back then
When everybody else had done the same
And made a joke. But now, please think again.
When you apply for jobs, or even meet
New friends who didn't know you in the past
Are you so sure that you want to repeat
That username each time? Not all things last,
And that should be an easy thing to change.
Come now, be sensible, it's just a tweak:
Your whole life doesn't have to rearrange
For people not to view you as a freak.
You say it's funny. Well I'll humor you,
But no one else will find it funny too.

Legal

The law is only valid as an aid
To make humanity act like it should.
The moment that the law itself is made
A barrier, it ceases to be good.
We need the law, but we need mercy too
And both must live together to be just;
The law restricts, or tells us what to do,
And in the doing, it must earn our trust.
Where law becomes inert, or worse, a sword,
It is no longer what the law should be;
An evil law we cannot well afford
Because it breaks that trust unfixably.
Law works because it matters, and we care,
Until it doesn't--then it is just there.

Monday, March 8, 2021

Re

My everyday consistent relaxation
Is reading what I have already read;
There is no neurological taxation
When hearing words I've already heard said.
I thus review without much aggravation
The books I love and mostly memorized;
When I return home in my enervation
I do not have the wit to be surprised.
This makes my life a pleasure by returning
Down paths that I have often tread before;
The embers that within me are still burning
Get oxygen from books that they adore.
It's not that I can't take in something new
It's that, on balance, I just don't want to.

Ah, Misery

My shoulders ache
From holding my
Emotion, shake
As if I'd cry,
But I cannot.
Their pain will fade
Until the thought
Of what has weighed
On me recurs
And makes me shift.
An hour blurs;
My shoulders lift
Only because
Of what she does.

Yoda

I cannot decide what I should do
And since I can't decide I won't do jack.
That is the typical angry pushback
From those who can help, but who don't want to.
They think that saying that they'll think it through
Should be enough to make up for the lack
Of any action, but they will not track
Their history, and act like this is new.
But it is never new. It's always thus:
Those who are paralyzed into inaction
Tend to be rooted so repeatedly
And always act as if raising a fuss
About it justified a harsh reaction
Blaming on us their immobility.

Saturday, March 6, 2021

Con

There is a kind of truth that lies
Because it obfuscates the rest;
The kind that very often tries
To make you think it is the best
And urges you to just ignore
The edges it cannot quite cover.
It claims, this truth, to have been more
Than it is now, but you'll discover
It is, if anything, much less
Precisely since it tries to hide
The other truths that would confess
The little ways in which it's lied.
The truth, alas, need not be kind
Too good to be is so, you'll find.

Multiple Definitions of Worry

But what my dear am I to do
If I cannot be by your side?
You know I've always wanted to
Be with you; now I am denied
How can I hope to find a place
That is not where I've longed to be?
Am I supposed to just erase
My years of waiting hopefully
And simply to accept my fate
Divided from you as I am
Nor let this fortune enervate
My spirits? I don't give a damn
What reasons there may be to force
Our separation. No divorce!

Friday, March 5, 2021

Options

Just think of all the ways you could be better
And recollect that you have not been so.
How comforting it then will be to know
That though you are an unremitting debtor
As unelect as any Irish setter,
The way you live was seen through long ago
By One who understood your every woe
And by good mercy made sin a dead letter.
This kind theology of total grace
Appeals to many, and is justified
In the eternal act of divine mercy;
But if in us that thinking holds no place;
If we believe the Gospels to have lied
It is as true as Homer's tale of Circe.

Imago

I once imagined I could be a saint
If my religion had those, anyway;
One of those calm, clear souls that artists paint
With golden halos piercing through the gray
Dull sky above them, sinners in their way
Transformed by virtue into holy men,
The ones who awful villains always slay
But still their message lives to spread again.
I thought I might be one of these and then
I looked with honest eyes upon my living:
The manner that I chose, the why and when
Of my ecstatic prayer and deep forgiving
And noticed it was always so self-serving
I was no saint; not even half-deserving.

Wednesday, March 3, 2021

...Is Bliss

The unkind wind outside moves me to tears
Not from some sympathy with those who bear it
Nor from the pressure of my own small fears:
My self-concern and thoughts of those who share it,
But from the simple physical release
Of having cold air blowing in my face;
I squint, and duck, and try to find a crease
In which I won't be gusted out of place
And fail. And so I weep not from my sorrow
Nor any reason but the simplest one:
There is no trouble here that I would borrow
But only weakness. When the wind is done
I will, I know, be smiling once more
No matter what may happen out of door.

Defiance

This just in: I don't care what you think
For some generic you. I care a lot
What everyone I know thinks, and has thought;
In fact, I sometimes fear that I will sink
Under the weight of contemplation, pink
With my own embarrassment. It's not
That I prefer to be self-conscious, ought
To be, or should. It's just that I can't wink
At what I see reflected in their minds.
If someone that I know thinks I am bad
Or can't imagine why I'm like I am
I have to wonder what their searching finds
That I've been missing. So it's sort of sad:
I wish I didn't, but I give a damn.

Tuesday, March 2, 2021

To an Astronaut

And will you now begone? Oh, fie
I see that gravity is weak;
It cannot keep those who would fly
To fancied comfort. Do you seek
Another world? Or would you wreak
Some fond revenge upon us all?
Your answers always are oblique
And so my trust in you stays small.
You won't return if I should call;
Why then should I not keep you here?
A kitten playing with a ball
Knows not to let it disappear
And so do I. So if you leave
Know I allowed it, though I grieve.

Pride

I am so proud that I could spit
Except that wouldn't be OK;
But anyway you look at it
I'm proud of who you are today.
You've managed to remain yourself
Despite the troubles of the world:
Not put your freak flag on the shelf
But wave it proudly, all unfurled.
I could not for the life of me
Express in words (not even these)
How much your own ability
Has left me weakened at the knees.
So know that I am, of you, proud
More than I even say out loud.

Monday, March 1, 2021

Frustration

The sound of children waking up
Before the sun has risen yet;
The piddle of a little pup
Where there should be nothing that's wet;
The drip of raindrops on the floor
In spite of what should be a roof;
The politicians who deplore
Good policy based on bad proof;
The hours traffic wastes each year
From lack of public transportation;
The time I spent in useless fear
Or seeking missing motivation;
These haunt me, but can be ignored
If you are here to be adored.

Falling

It is a slow, sweet congregation
Of instants, not a single moment;
A constant, low-toned incantation
From secret books whose words can foment
Susurrations in the holy
Fabric of both space and time
Whose mere reverberations wholly
Elevate us, so we climb
To newer heights we never thought
Were possible before we heard
Their inspiration in us, sought
The promised beauty in each word.
This slow increase reflects the way
We brighten up each passing day.

Friday, February 19, 2021

Spring

When flowers bloom again
Someday beyond all knowing
I'll come to you, and then
We'll watch the flowers growing.
When sunshine comes to stay
And creases all the clouds
We'll sit the livelong day
To watch the strolling crowds.
When warmth and sun unite
To make the world seem new
I'll bask in fresh sunlight
And watch, my love, for you
So we can be together
Throughout the better weather.

Thursday, February 18, 2021

March

I dread the coming of the longed for spring
Because the danger of the winter lingers;
I know the hope and joy April can bring
Grasping the world in warm and gentle fingers,
But February lays its future traps:
It cannot help but threaten in the heat
To melt the snow, and dump into our laps
The endless waters of the snow's retreat.
And so I fear what I have said I wanted;
I worry even as I get my way.
I can't pretend to live my life undaunted
Since even my own wants have gone astray.
But if I fear the spring, I still know this:
Your love I want, and it is only bliss.

Wednesday, February 17, 2021

Inequality of Expectations

The expectation seems to always be
That we will be the better, bigger people;
No matter how they act (despicably)
As sure as churches raise a cross on steeple
We will be told we ought to work for good.
It isn't that I mind; I much prefer
To help where help is needed, and I would
Imagine I would do that if it were
Not so required. But it grinds my gears
That no one ever seems to think that they
Should change; should at last after all these years
Adapt, and meet us somewhere like halfway.
Why should we always have to turn the other cheek
Because we all know they will slap the meek?

Monday, February 15, 2021

Excelsior

The world, delighted by the dancing flame
Will burn itself to keep the flame alight;
So I by chasing after fickle fame
Consume the very source of my delight.
In seeking ever to become my best
I lose sight of the good I was already;
And in the striving I forget to rest
Imperiling the sense that made me steady.
I should, in conscience, sit and look around
Observing how my life is warm and sweet
Instead, I gaze at mountains that surround
Imagining myself down at their feet.
But in the valleys lie the riverbeds
Not at the mountains flame-erupting heads.

Wednesday, February 10, 2021

Reading 5x5

The case is pure simplicity:
You only need to use your eyes
And answer truly what you see
Without the cataracts of lies.
Or if you choose to shut them tight
You need but listen with your ears
For sound can substitute for sight
And what is heard for what appears.
Or if you will not listen, too,
Then you need but inhale, for that
Will serve to sniff out what is true
Assuming you can smell a rat.
Indeed, if you have any sense
You can determine this offense.

Monday, February 8, 2021

Seriously, Folks?

The Constitution says you can impeach
The Senate rules say, once impeached, you're tried;
I'm not sure what the logic is you teach,
But where I'm from, that's fairly cut-and-dried.
The Constitution gives a penalty
Of being banned from holding office more;
There is no earthly reason I can see
That shouldn't work once you are out the door.
In fact, if logic is as I was taught,
That only works if it works once you're gone.
Since once convicted, you would then be not
The President, and yet the vote goes on.
So to conclude: once you impeach and try
The former president still goes "bye-bye."

Sunday, February 7, 2021

After Lope de Vega (II)

When you commanded the entire world
And forced the head of Mithridates down;
When in your hand the ball and scepter curled,
And three great triumphs echoed your renown,
Who'd tell you, might Pompey,  that the sailors
Would throw your rotting body in the Nile,
Your once-bright robes now packaged for wholesalers
Your head retained in hope of Caesar's smile?
And happy Caesar, who at Pharsalus
Used steel to take the laurel you wore prettily,
Thinking your enemies were silenced thus,
Who'd tell you, busy ruling Italy,
Your own bad end? Except for one who knew
Your destiny is fixed in spite of you.

Saturday, February 6, 2021

After Lope de Vega

Troy fell, because it was its fate to fall.
It burned; we all know how the story goes.
But since that story is now known to all,
Greece, which once burned it, ever grows
More jealous of the city that it burned.
So I, who have been burnt at heart
Become more famous for the way I yearned
Than I had been when not yet torn apart.
This is the way life compensates us fools;
Our fates are fatal, but our recompense
Heats us with fame even as fortune cools:
Mischance brings notoriety immense.
So those of us who cannot have good luck
Become more famous for the way things suck.

Monday, February 1, 2021

Negotiating In Bad Faith

I fear that we have seen this play before:
That every plot and twist has been previewed
And that, to make a blunt point and be rude,
It was a flop. I will not close the door
On every hope of what could be in store,
But I remember how it was reviewed,
How it began, and also what ensued,
And find I have no wish for an encore.
Oh, let the Democrats cease to pursue
The votes Republicans will not provide
And seek instead the country's good alone!
Forget the script they'd have you come back to
Remember all the prior times they lied
And do your best, although you work alone!

Tuesday, January 26, 2021

Trials

Are you prepared to make the bullshit flow?
To tie your twisted logic in a knot?
Are you prepared to not know what you know
And say it's principle that you forgot?
How easy is it for you to pretend
That what is politic is also right?
Or to advance and heartily defend
A cause that ought to keep you up at night?
Can you stick to a lie despite all facts
And yell at volume that the truth is lies?
Can you forgive despotic, deadly acts
As if their consequences were surprise?
If so, my friend, I know where you will be:
Within the Senate's new minority.

Friday, January 22, 2021

Following

One thing I know is there are always rules.
They may not be explicit holy writ
But they are always there. Their presence cools
Hot tempers and makes sure we all can fit
Together. But the rules can only function
If everyone knows something of their law;
You cannot follow an unknown injunction
And secrecy will be a major flaw.
Therefore I seek to name and to declare
The rules I see at work in every place;
For just as certain as I am they're there,
I find that others' doubts may bring disgrace.
But if you know the rules better than I
Please tell me so, and I will hear, and try.

Monday, January 18, 2021

Letters

I have to know; I must admit
When listening to Dr. King
I am the whitest moderate
He ever spoke of. That's the thing
We seem to always, now, forget:
That he was not only a dream.
His expectations had been set
By Jesus, and so often seem
Beyond mere mortals. But they're not:
They're possible, just not with ease.
They can't be cheated, skipped, or bought
And many of them will not please
The multitude. But they are needed:
A call I have left too unheeded.

Friday, January 15, 2021

A More Perfect Union

We must and shall have unity, of course;
This is a union, so it is required.
But not the unity the mob desired
Of their delusions realized by force:
The rest of us have backed another horse,
And must insist that theirs will be retired
The fear and the division he inspired
Have brought us to the point of this divorce.
We shall unite, but only through the toil
Of true, exact accountability:
With consequences for the ones who roil
The surface of our dear democracy
We do not hold with chants of "blood and soil":
A union without fascists it must be.

Wednesday, January 13, 2021

Rousing Speeches

I would not care if Trump had been a god
Sent down from heaven to govern the nation
A paragon unequaled and unflawed
George Washington's improved reincarnation
A blessing on us all in every way
Who vanquished Covid and brought wealth to all
Whose words and thoughts had never run astray
And never faltered at the nation's call
If he had done as he has done. Who cares
What his accomplishments may be, if he
In public view against our trust still dares
To call in question our democracy?
These weak defenses of his public crimes
Are symbols of our fast decaying times.

Thursday, January 7, 2021

Political Poetry and the Current Moment

Right now I find myself thinking a lot about the nexus between politics and poetry. Of course there is always been political poetry appearing on this blog; I've always written political poetry in general. But there is something I think in this particular moment (and as I write this that moment is the moment of the aftermath of an armed insurrection against the United States capital; and I say armed advisory because besides guns there were pipe bombs were found in connection with the RNC and DNC) that invites poetry. Not just because there are in fact a number of poetry magazines and other venues that are asking for poems about this thing, but because there is something about a shock to the system like this that does not want to be understood solely through prose or through theater or through any other genre. Now when I say a shock to the system I don't mean necessarily that this came as a surprise. We have known for a while that there was inflammatory rhetoric, lots and lots of inflammatory rhetoric, in the American political system (in particular from Donald Trump). We have known, if we were paying attention, that there was a good chance of that coming to a head precisely on January 6th. But I mean a shock to the system in the sense of something that has not happened before or that if it has happened before has had serious consequences before, and that has serious implications for quote unquote everyday life as we know it. So in this case this was a shock to the system not because no one could see it coming but because normalcy, something that people have been trying to quote unquote regain for pretty much all of Donald Trump's presidency, is deeply threatened by these actions.
And I think that there is something about that, about that idea, that is demanding of poetry. Poetry at its best speaks to the thoughts and desires that we cannot express properly in other fora. One thing that I try to do, but don't always succeed in doing, in my poetry is to write a poem because a poem feels like it needs to be written and not because I just had a thought that I could have expressed in some other way. There is something about the heightened nature of a poem that does not necessarily insist on world altering events as a topic but that is most useful when it is applied to something difficult to express. I suggest that this moment is such a moment. This moment calls on these sorts of techniques for expressing our feelings about it.
Of course I do not mean that all the people who are writing prose about this or dialogues or any other media are somehow failing to meet the moment. I mean that in addition to all of that poetry is called for. I mean that in order to properly meet this moment we and I (and that all sounds very self-centered so let me just say societies as a whole) need poetry.
I (and if you read this blog you will not be surprised to hear this) think that in some ways it demands not just poetry but traditional forms of poetry. One thing that I have realized for myself at least in the last four years is that when the forces that are at play that seem most threatening and most dire claim for themselves the mantle of conservatism there is a positive and affirmative value in using traditional small C conservative techniques and values to argue against them. Sonnets, rhyme, meter, and all of the other attendant elements that make up traditional poetry in the Western tradition such as certain imagery and certain rhetorical techniques and so on are all strong weapons in this particular fight, or they should be. So there is a benefit of value to writing political poetry but also specifically political traditional poetry and for the purposes of this blog political sonnets.
That means you should expect to see some political sonnets on this blog. It also means that if I have the time (and given that the world is a madhouse I both have all the time in the world and none of it) you may see some analysis of past political sonnets on this blog. But the takeaway I want to have for this particular post is that it is the right and proper thing to respond to moments like this not just with impeachment, criminal charges, or a renewed resolve to use the organs of government for good, but also with poetry. Poetry has an affirmative value for helping people process express and understand the troubled times, the hard times and (of course we hope to return to) the good times.

On Self-Pardons, to Donald Trump

You cannot grant what you desire:
Self-dealing is forbidden here.
And though you've heaped your funeral pyre
You cannot leap your own way clear.
A pardon is a thing you grant
And grants are given but to others
Your pardon me protect your aunt
Your uncle, children, sisters, brothers
But what a pardon cannot do
No matter how much you may try
Is be applied by you to you
"I pardon" only starts with I.
So rest assured you'll do your time
When prosecuted for this crime.

Friday, January 1, 2021

Winter Snows

The snow falls softly on the icy ground
And I am sure it will not be the last;
I do not know how much it has amassed
But still it falls in freckles all around.
I keep on waiting for a subtle sound
To tell me that the winter storm has passed
But it sweeps on, implacable and vast,
And silent wind on windows starts to pound.
Watching from within, it feels familiar
As in the old pathetic fallacy
Where all the world exists but to fulfill your
Imagined woes, whatever they may be.
Thus as the snow piles up, so love increases
And like the storm, it seems it never ceases.