Nov 14, 2008 | Poetry, Sonnet |
Brains in a bucket on a cloudy dayblack lab tops under fluorescent light“This once was a particular person!”I don’t shout, but pry gently, with fingers Pink, blunt, huge, sausages that dwarf thinking,a process once extant but now extinctin the pale tissues being dissectedin the search for structures, tracts, commissures This was all matter of fact long ago,staying with me as matter of wonder,sequestered somewhere in my gray matter,just like what lay in those buckets that day Rain fell and spring thunder came and sweet scentSmoothed away what brains in a bucket...
Nov 14, 2008 | Poetry, Sonnet |
Each day your being in this broken worldyou repented and invented in the same breath,struggle proceeding without theory,only in practice, with awkward actions I watched, not knowing what I watched or why,you confused me, because you repentedyour invention of me, too, as if I’dbe better not to be, better with you At a safe cold distance so that your plightcouldn’t contaminate me, except thatyou had an instinct, too, for warmth, so Iwas drawn closer and closer to you So close that sometimes in dreams I was youUnaware of myself as someone new In Memory Of David Victor Lewin,...
Nov 14, 2008 | Poetry, Sonnet |
Everything’s pretext for mourning, so whenthat old space bird fell in fiery piecesacross west Texas, burning up the sonof Holocaust survivors, I thought of you How the worst had come as a surprise somany times at last it could not surprisebecause you kept it always with you, near,the hurt intimate with your heart, too close For anything like comfort – when I sawthe face of the Israeli astronaut’sold father, I recognized the look, like you,unsure that survival is a blessing, Steadfast, even when he’s most despairing,For we and our world are past repairing February 2,...
Nov 11, 2008 | Poetry, Sonnet |
They flee from me, the lithe and lightning fish,whom I would catch and dally with and keep,admiring their embroidery, a dishof light to make the queen of art’s heart leap. What tailor’s hand their small scales stitched all tricksof counterpoint and fugue, as Bach, did know;with nimble wit fantastic threads he picksand sets them all in unison aglow. Not by seasons does the sea change fashions.Fish clothes are classic, some pre-Jurassic.On their skins sleek creatures sport their passions.Some are fierce, some soft, some mock and mimic This sea, where arts converge, makes light musicand music light, shows lust an ancient...
Nov 9, 2008 | Poetry, Sonnet |
It is as in the deep a silken tent,yet vagabond, without a central stay.Adrift in its capricious element,where currents play it finds its silent way. It floats all dreamless through the star struck night.If something like a dance it does, it knowsno step and nothing of enchantment’s mightthough phosphorescent from within it glows. Between wet and wet it’s sheer filament.It seems a ghostly rag, stolen from fog,this pale aimless form, home to no intent,white jellyfish, inexplicable cog. The close stitched seams, the catenaries sweet:What knows no enclosing meets no defeat....
Feb 18, 2008 | Poetry, Sonnet |
How many minnows, unnumbered as stars,hang silver still in these warm tidal pools,a vast progeny cradled by sand barswhile the sun unwinds as from golden spools I am huge among them, these tiny fishthat hang just below the air’s interface.I think of Faberge, that school’s relishin the miniature, in pride of place. The minnows surround me. I am the hole in the doughnut about which they revolve,each a limpid instance, fish without bowl,each a riddle no art can solve Singing so, I paint fleeting immersionOf breath, each has only his own...
