subtext

Storytellers

2012-01-31T15:52:00.002-06:00

tendrils seek the light

vines weave through

the trees’ branches

birds build their nests

among the recesses

we talk over dinner

of trivial things

old jokes politics

recipes and children

from "Sonnet," (work in progress, Third Quatrain, line nine, syllable 4)

(January 2012)

Sea Change

2012-01-29T18:38:00.000-06:00

long waves

flow through me

days of relative content

only to wake into despair

another trough rolls by

pushing me toward shore

a piece of flotsam caught up

in the eternal lunar pull

from "Sonnet," (work in progress, line 8, syllable 4)

(January 2012)

Ten Poems from "Sonnet," line Seven

2012-01-25T20:37:00.000-06:00

Half

what’s missing he thinks is what’swrong

tell me what’s there to work withshe asks

both see the same flower beforethem

neither see the same flower beforethem

it is the glass which frames theproblem

with one step

we cross a border

such a brave new world

traveling all night from Nice toRome

we stepped sleepily into the citystreet

dazzled by the morning sun

and the speed of the foreigntongue

we were suddenly surrounded

then robbed by gypsy children

what gets taken

each time I see you

whatever vague thoughts

trouble my heart

only to return

as you depart

the frame of the door

the walls of this room

the language one uses

define a space that is

non-existent on its own

an absence

an opening

a new thought

a word

there is an art to hiding

in the open to exposing

yourself while you maintain

your sense of self

to move like waves of wind

across a field of wheat

one must let go of the earth

and dance with the air

he holds the brush

before the canvas

lost in thought

where to from here

one step

then another

trust

is a process

there is no end

the door closes slowly

I stand

indecisive

afraid of my choices

where are you now

it’s cold outside

fear weaves

like frost

(January 2012)

Two Poems, from "Sonnet"

2012-01-20T16:04:00.000-06:00

again

we bend

back to

ourselves

changed

and

unchanged

motion

without

movement

without time

the rose

rising

into

a bud

opening

into

full

flower

forever

---

near the garden

a hint of roses

edges toward me

a presence

on the periphery

like a trace

of laughter

after

she has left

the room

from "Sonnet", (work in progress, line six, syllables 9 and 10)

(January 2012)

social construction

2012-01-17T21:36:00.000-06:00

for hours

on the living room floor

my children build

worlds from plastic

bricks

each piece

follows another

for years

our world unfolds

from "Sonnet," (work in progress, second Quatrain, sixth line, eighth syllable)

(January 2012)

Navigation

2012-01-15T17:25:00.000-06:00

a scar traces a line

across his patched heart

like a dymaxion map

of the world unfolding

an unrealistic

representation

of his love

in order to expose

the all that is not there

from "Sonnet," (work in progress, second Quatrain, sixth line, second syllable)

(January 2012)

Sometimes It's Work

2012-01-11T17:27:00.000-06:00

it’scold outside

uncertain

hishouse safe

and

calm

if Imake

theright concessions

if Istay on script

I cansit near his fire

andspoon feed him my soul

from "Sonnet," (work in progress, 2nd Quatrain, fifth line, ninth syllable)

(January 2012)

Three Poems from "Sonnet"

2012-01-08T18:04:00.000-06:00

I woke

thenwalked

intofog

rising

fromthe nearby creek

toshroud the trees

andstreet

as if

inclothes

of thedead

thebald ugliness

of eachday’s

exchange

watched

nearby

so wego on

fumblingdown

thetrail

in thedark

ourhands fall

onrough bark

and welook up

beyondthe black leaves

somewhere

abovethe trees

themoon flows quietly

unseen

behindclouds

beneaththe talk

I swimmy past

drowningin shallows

(from "Sonnet," a work in progress, Second Quatrain, first line, syllables 1,2 and 3)

(January 2012)

but the money was good

2012-01-07T14:13:00.002-06:00

then there we were

home

from our cruise

turning the knob

on the oven

eating well

the wine tart

and ice cold

on the stereo

a saxophone

moaned

a smoky solo

one could

hardly hear

the screams

coming

from the neighbor’s

house

(January 2012)

myopic

2012-01-03T20:30:00.002-06:00

my vision is limited

I see what is nearby

the distance mere shapes

and vague shadows

I see you in front of me

your smile and your eyes

where I go next

shifts away

from "Sonnet," (work in progress, line 4, syllable 8)

(January 2012)

from "Sonnet," (work in progress, third line)

2011-12-31T15:09:00.002-06:00

memory is creative

filling in between

the shadow and the light

something new between

what is thought

and what is seen

- -

now

exists

on the cusp

of when

- -

such naïve terms:

still I wake

into a new sun

to wrestle my crystalline fears

with love and hope

for they shield

my metaphorical heart

as I naively long

to see

her eyes come

for me

- -

so many unspoken words

(like limits of secret pacts

these borders we cannot cross

without learning new language)

to speak to one another

- -

To find water at a stop in thealps

I jumped off the train

going from Vienna to Venice.

Lisa called to hurry,

flakes sparkled the night likestars;

I danced with snow for the secondtime.

- -

then there

you are

already

within

the familiar

- -

the air forms to your body

without effort

I breathe you in

- -

not so much a matter of will,

as it’s a matter of will not.

- -

a rose unfolds despite itsbeauty;

the weed despite our disdain:

he longs and obsesses

as easily as she coyly

plays with her hair

while laughing at him

- -

intent

(December 2011)

Three Poems

2011-12-27T20:19:00.000-06:00

the world exists

in front ofyou

with luck

a peripheral sight

expands you

enough to bend

back upon yourvision

to create a new sense

of self that cansee

how great a fool you are

Work

sing

shuffle your feet

another day is done

another dance

before the night is through

circle slowly

around the room

think again

what might have been

(from "Sonnet," a work in progress: syllables 8, 9 and 10: line 2)

(December 2011)

Me and Lisa, 1979

2011-12-23T20:22:00.002-06:00

among the crepe myrtle

and spring flowers

of austin’s japanese garden

we would feast

on canned smoked oysters

cheap wine and each other

from "Sonnet" (work in progress, 2nd line, syllable 7)

(December 2011)

the oyster

2011-12-21T07:44:00.000-06:00

the world pulses

whispers about me

a cocoon

my thought layered

in thin sheets

with the detritus

of all the others

who have ever touched me

from "sonnet" ( work in progress, third syllable, second line)

(December 2011)

The Day Before Ezra Was Born

2011-12-20T08:02:00.001-06:00

i held my breath

then sank

into lake pleiad

the summer heat

the deer flies

the long hike

the short swim

to the lake’s center

everything else

vanished

ice cold water

from "sonnet" (work in progress, third syllable)

(December 2011)

The Year Mom Died

2011-12-18T10:22:00.001-06:00

i sat in silence

as she slept

her breathing so low

I would bend my ear

down to listen

to air

from "Sonnet" (work in progress, sixth syllable)

(December 2011)

Seine

2011-12-16T23:03:00.000-06:00

the question on his part

seemed casual, conversational

innocent in the interplay

of the day’s end and drink

the question on her part

was a net, multi-purposed

catching minnows, as well as

an answer from the sea’s swell

(December 2011)

Threshold

2011-12-11T13:51:00.001-06:00

the meniscus trembles

at the cup’s rim

a hesitation

before a first kiss

a choice

I’m unable to make

dice fall

from her finger tips

(December 2011)

Always a Rationale

2011-12-10T08:09:00.001-06:00

how does one tell the truth

to oneself when the wolves

of doubt slaver at each word

waiting for any sliver of emotional

slither to drop from one’s lips

before leaping forward to feed

how does one tell the truth

to others when each word

one speaks bends back to obscure

the one word unspoken behind

them all which would unlock

the tightly sealed box of one’s life

to speak within a simple honesty

is to sit alone in silent dread

(December 2011)

High School Crush

2011-12-08T13:25:00.001-06:00

she comes into his class

and sits near by

it doesn’t matter

how hard he tries

to pretend a cool

nonchalance

what he wants to say

falls away

again into memory

yet even now repeats

as her brown eyes

befuddle his speech

the complexity

of simple words

troubles each step

he takes

not being a dancer

he worries

the least shift

in the rhythm

as if meaning

can be deciphered

from the day

to day inflections

or her intent

without a context

(December 2011)

Then I Knew Now I Know

2011-11-27T09:23:00.001-06:00

there was an answer to the questions I found

along the way always nearby around

the next bend of yet another conversation

on the next page of the next text

the question I found could be answered

early on I had to learn to listen

too impatient to unfold the speech

tucked tightly into other conversations

I attempted to speak but words fell

from my hands like wet rocks into sand

then when I felt I could follow the flow

the multi-valent and kaleidoscopic words diverged

holding one strand level became an endless quest

side stories pursued closely only looped

loosely into larger conspiratorial patterns

I ranted to anyone polite enough to nod

their head so caught in what I read

I failed to hear the sedimentary grit

in the words I spit forth my ears clotted

like Odysseus’ sailors oblivious to sirens

I find it hard now not to hear the whispers

beneath the constant chatter between books

scattered across the floor friends met

while shopping at the store and my thoughts

incessantly shouting be quiet listen listen

(November 2011)

Confession

2011-11-23T14:09:00.001-06:00

I say your name

as if I had power

to call you to me

my words curl

like burled oak

or smoke

rising in wisps

toward the lips

of a smiling moon

a blaspheme

against my state

much more to you

who sings forth

delight in innocence

of the strength you wield

there lies the fault

the moral cowardice

the fracture in me

I cannot become

the person I would

by invoking you

(November 2011)

Making Time for What's Important

2011-11-20T15:55:00.001-06:00

In a class on the Essay at Bread Loaf, Shirley Brice-Heathsaid that reading and writing are leisure activities. She said this in explanation of why so many writers in the19^th century, or any other time period, were upper middle classand/or wealthy. It takes time toread and time to write, one can’t be working all hours on the factory floor ifone is going to read and write. Over time I have hacked away at the “stuff” I teach that takes up thetime of the classroom; I have abandoned entire beloved lesson plans and unitsbecause they ate into the time my students have to read and write. My students live busy complexlives. They work at their jobs,often more than one, they have many classes in addition to mine and some ofthem have babies that they have to take care of as well. So I schedule huge blocks of time toread and write in class everyday. It is not a “Read-in” Friday, or “let’s write an in-class essay today”,but every day we are reading and writing together and alone. It is what is expected in myclass. Over time the students cometo expect the time they have to read and write and become irritable when theydon’t get that time because of scheduled and unscheduled administrativedictates. The time to read andwrite is important, because it is time the students don’t normally get. It is ironic, as Randy Bomer pointedout, that we banish students committing acts of literacy from the classroom inorder to provide time for state test prep, drill and bundle tests; activitieswhich teach the students to hate reading and writing. Maybe not so ironic as criminal.

(November 2011)

And Thanks for all the Poetry

2011-11-20T13:21:00.001-06:00

Inspired by a post on Checkoutmygrill

As we go into Thanksgiving I would like to thank some peopleand places for making poetry such an integral part of my life for the majorityof my life. Poetry has made my life richer, so thanks to all of you for makingme happy.

List of people, places, and organizations that have causedme, helped me and/or kept me writing throughout my life:

Public school teachers: Ms. Buffalo (first grade), Ms. Nugent (third grade), CliffBerkman and Ann Lockstedt Jones (high school).

College teachers: Albert Goldbarth and Kurt Heinzelman (the University of Texas), CarolOles, Courtney Cazden and Shirley Brice-Heath (The Bread Loaf School ofEnglish).

Relatives and friends: Lisa, Donna Neal, Ezra Neal, Quinn Neal, Lilith Neal, Steve Adams, HopeBurwell, Christine Derbyshire, Nathan Smith, Carol and Carl Trovall.

Places: PoetryWorkshops at The University of Texas and The Breadloaf School of English, TheOpen Door Writer’s workshop in Victoria (1977-1978).

Organizations: Memorabilia (Art and Writing Club in high school), The National Writing Project, the Heart ofTexas Writing Project, The Bread Loaf School of English

And of course the hundreds and hundreds of books of poetry Ihave scattered all over my house.

A Precarious Dance

2011-11-15T06:11:00.001-06:00

never quite falling or ever quite balanced

I stumble along catching the horizon

of my world in the parabola of a bird’s flight

until shattered across the shifting floor

like tufts of frozen feathers the mosaic

of my day fails to form a coherent web

to safely cocoon my troubled thoughts away

I focus down into the minutia of our conversations

worry each splintered reaction and half-word

as if the past could be rebuilt from simple wisps

of my memory or salvaged from a dry hope

for some transformation into an exotic other

so I return into myself before the words

let loose like butterflies lifting at once

from the nearby rosemary dazzling

the air with the delight of this dance

in the silent spaces spoken between us

(November 2011)

Central Texas November Evening

2011-11-08T19:18:00.000-06:00

the siamese sits

in the open window

ears twitch in the breeze

an owl prepares
for flight through
the quickening dark

the moon grins

between clouds

unfolding into the night

(November 2011)

Troubled

2011-11-06T22:18:00.000-06:00

It’s an ache at the center

Tight near where the ribs

Come together like hands

In prayer;

It’s a hunger for something

Anything other than now

Other than what’s here

Today;

It’s a longing to transform

My life from my life

Like a chrysalis

In spring;

It’s a desire to strip back

Layers of my soul

And cast them aside

Like chaff:

Can meaning be harvested

From these dry remnants

Of our fractious past?

Tell me.

(November 2011)

Chesire Cat

2011-11-01T20:24:00.000-05:00

he shows himself

in half-statements

metaphors to distract

his intent as he

skims the periphery

like a cat curled

on the couch

he silently watches

her as she moves

through the room

conversations end

or begin in middles

non-sequiturs bend

a mobius space

as he speaks with her

when she questions

he hides

his heart

in obfuscation

and whispers

oh Alice

what do you think

you see

when you

talk to me

(November 2011)

Landscape Suite

2011-10-30T11:09:00.000-05:00

“Ain’tgonna work on Maggie’s farm no more”

--Bob Dylan

it is not so much that there is no rain

but structures built to save us from storms

prevent any hope of moisture from making

contact with the dormant seed in the ground

* * *

listen to the conversation we are in

do you hear the words you are saying

dismissive sneers fall freely

from your lips like bits of venom

if we would just do as we are told

you would be so much happier

if the sheep would learn to sheer themselves

it would be so much simpler to skin them

* * *

I walk this path with ease

as others have done before me

the ground bare and worn

from penitents' shuffling feet

as they made their obsequious

way like cows toward water

winding through huisache

And bramble in ritual

* * *

ravens pick at bits of obscure flesh

hanging from thorns in the briar

a stigmata’s promise to all who attempt

to leave the way that lies before us

* * *

the open field grows fallow

the loam cracked and turned to dust

no rain for several seasons

rats gnaw obliquely on seed corn

a wind musters on the stark horizon

the earth rises to greet the dead sky

(October 2011)

Blake's Angels Walk the Street

2011-10-22T22:21:00.001-05:00

who am i

i am you and

you are what is

allowed by

my mind and yours

the strands of our

past knot a future

in patterns like frost

how can i separate

vision and dream

waking dulls thoughts

slows transition

clogs the mind

with corporeal matters

solidifies the world

in which we live

as i walk the street

i see angels

dancing in faces

twisted like thread

in thoughts

like tangled nets

in our dreams

which in turn

dance my life

in turn again

(Fall 1994)

Origins

2011-10-16T17:50:00.000-05:00

I dwell in a darker wood

an opening among gnarled oaks

Near a creek below a crag

Off to the north of this fire

The stars pierce the sky above me

Like silver-threaded tatting

Through which the moon flows

Dusting light leaves across the forest floor

I watch the fire as it dances

Shadows across nearby trees

Shapes leap from branch to branch

Hiding themselves in their own light

Exposed to the sky and to myself

I embrace a deep solace in the night

(October 2011)

Instruction Manual

2011-10-12T17:51:00.000-05:00

“The things not framed allow the mind”

--ClarkCoolidge

inside this container

you should find the requisite

amount of product

if the amount is

somehow deficient

more can be back filled

only a prescribed

amount however

for each container

ms. dickinson a loner

and an aberration

at best was wrong

when she wrote

“the Brain is wider

than the sky”

so please discount all

such ideas as nonsense

since immeasurable

(October 2011)

as syllable from sound

2011-10-12T17:49:00.000-05:00

the difference is meaning

an implicit intention

the wind through trees

a new widow’s sigh

(October 2011)

Ritual(s of my day)

2011-10-11T19:34:00.000-05:00

“The judges of normality are present everywhere”

-MichelFoucault

Fastened to a hurdle

Drawn by horse to the place

Hanged (almost to the point of death)

Emasculated

Disemboweled

Beheaded

And

Chopped

Into

Four

Pieces

Remains

Displayed

In prominent places

For reasons of decency

Women were burnt

(found poem from a wikipedia article)

(October 2011)

Fingerprints

2011-10-10T20:06:00.000-05:00

the creek tangles between the roots

of the trees clinging to the bank

the water bends back upon itself

swirling leaves into brackish eddies

like fingerprints upon the water’s surface

we talk in passing of trivialities

the mundane functions of the day

troubles at work what the kids are doing

until tangled in my silent obsessions

I bend ever deeper into solitude

the creek the trees the roots and we

shape each other against the other

leaving wisps and traces to swirl

about in latent ambiguities

(September-October 2011)

Ventriloquist

2011-10-09T12:49:00.002-05:00

he roams through his life

speaking to himself

when overheard

by others

by way of explanation

he jokes

“some one who understands”

he is lying

he holds long conversations

in the shower

on the drive to work

he talks out loud

eloquent arguments

casual jokes

pointed and precise ripostes

subtle entendres

then listens

silently

as he speaks for

his friends

co-workers

lovers

as they voice

his desired responses

(October 2011)

Truth Will Out

2011-10-06T16:57:00.000-05:00

of course it could be easier

to simply spit the words out

to speak with an honesty

beyond the bounds of decorum

I have played with words

for years hiding in metaphor

or with slant intentions

until what is true shimmers

a sun balanced upon an horizon

an oasis in an imaginary desert

manifests blending what I want

with what I have yet to know

the process unfolds more than intention

can encompass within our brief span

I trust that I don’t know much

of what I mean to say at first

but to speak as if truth were simple

would be to build a lie from my life

(October 2011)

Advice to Myself

2011-09-30T17:40:00.000-05:00

attend to the daily walk

down the hall, the simple

talk from friend to friend, attend

to the roses as they fall

petals scattered across the floor

(September 2011)

Explanatory Note

2011-09-27T21:51:00.000-05:00

i find it somewhat difficult

to speak, so stutter about

and mutter over chatter

as if it really mattered

my secrets unfold between

the mottled shadows pulsing

on this wall like the words

whispered beneath the noise

of all the voices I have heard

so listen closely to my heart

and trust that what I say

is true despite the layers

within these lines which hide

what I would speak to you

(September 2011)

Beat Down

2011-09-23T16:00:00.001-05:00

He sputters out his despair

Like bits of broken teeth

The blood and bone of his life

Pooling between his feet

He sits on the curb

Of his possibilities

Runs his tongue along his lips

Then spits for a newer luck

Such chances of change

Are trapped in routine

His daily ramblings

Along a long familiar path

So what should he do now

Hold on or turn around

(September 2011)

Embroidery

2011-09-21T19:50:00.000-05:00

She wove words upon us

Webs spun between trees

Let me tell you

Your father was so

Just wait, you’ll see

Constant talk

Constant stories

To teach

Inform

Warn

Control

At the end

She troubled threads

Bits of broken nets

Tell me something

Where are the kids

Who was that

Then memory let go of time

Her uncle’s state hospital

Became her hospice

Her age fell into flux

Her voice unraveled

Be sweet

I love you

Come back

(September 2011)

Her Hands

2011-09-18T13:17:00.001-05:00

Butterfly wings flutter
Through conversation
Alight briefly
A probiscus touch
Upon the pages
Of her book
The table
His shoulder

Delicate fingers trace
Thoughts through air
Twist a strand of hair
A casual distraction
Like a butterfly
Daring him not to care

(September 2011)

I Saw a Future at 3 AM

2011-09-14T17:09:00.002-05:00

to edward hopper and neil young

At twenty-three I saw him

Through two louvered windows

An alley between us

Maybe fifteen feet distance

I stood in the dark, invisible

Looking out my window

Sipping coffee blankly

Ready for work

Lisa still asleep

In the next room

In his window
A closet light glowed

Behind a thin old man

Sitting on the edge

Of his bed in boxers

Staring at a wall

Alone

(September 2011)

In Passing

2011-09-08T16:54:00.000-05:00

When tense
It calms;
When calm
It excites.

Each time
I want more;
Each time
Is not enough.

Your hand
On my arm;
Your hand
On my skin.

Touch me
Again forever.

(September 2011)

On Fashioning a Fetishistic Totem

2011-09-07T13:42:00.002-05:00

An object
Any will do
Preferably
Parallel
To the person
Upon which
Your obsession
Is fixed

But purely
Disconnected
Except through
An association
Known only
To you
Will do
As well

The projection
On your part
What you will
Upon the subject
becomes for you
The world
To widen
To welcome

Be wary
The words
You say
To yourself
Will be
The way
You believe
Despite yourself

Speak softly
Succinctly
Each sound
Sends echoes
Locating
Both you
And your
desire

(September 2011)

Reality Check

2011-09-03T21:07:00.001-05:00

Where do we go from here?

An implied past purpose,
As if here arrived
On schedule
Riding in a pumpkin coach.

A more pressing question
Presents itself in opposition
To these futuristic obsessions:

How did we get here?

What circuitous route
Turned our wheel
To this position:
A yes, a no,
A drive to believe
In the righteousness of our response;

Or tied to the rack
Our balance wanes
Into a renewed spin,
Until our lives rattle like a ball
Dancing from one allotted
Slot to another never quite
Coming to rest before being
Snatched up and tossed again.

(September 2011)

The Long Heat

2011-08-31T13:25:00.000-05:00

In the garden the cat pauses
to lick the dew from her paws.
In morning the day is still forgiven.

Night's chill lingers in the grass.
A dove dips water from St. Francis' feet
before vanishing between hackberry leaves.

Like hens protecting chicks from a hawk,
Oaks pull back their shadows;
the sun circles the empty sky.

The cat ignores the mockingbird
chattering from a fence post.
Sunflowers umbrella her like saints.

Later the air hides beneath hawthorne.
The basil bends its head to the ground.
Only a butterfly struggles across the yard.

Rising from beneath the deck, the cat
stretches before slipping into the house.
The grass continues its crisp watch.

By midnight the air breathes again;
the sidewalks glow like morning beds
still holding our shape's warmth.

(Breadloaf, Vermont Summer 1990)

to Erato with love, of course

2011-08-22T20:21:00.000-05:00

I find it amusing to watch in awe
All of your sundry manifestations
As they blossom in waves around your mind

The way you dance your delight with laughter
Across the room into my silent life
Sparks my mind like dry leaves off a bonfire

Your hand upon my shoulder in passing
Pushes all my random thoughts instantly
Onto the focused clarity of you

Your presence inscribes my heart with desire
To pour forth like a bottecelli spring
A voiceless plea to beg on bended knee

For the chance to tell you that I want you
To give me words to sing into your mouth

(August 2011)

Prime Mover

2011-08-17T18:39:00.000-05:00

As a child in a movie theater
The projectionist would stream light
Through the smoke and dark
Twitching the thin beams like fingers
Nervously tapping a chair’s arm

I would tilt back, watch the strands
Above my head dance across the room
Tracing with light a story upon the screen

I would try to catch the coordination
Between the light’s slight shift
With what was happening on the screen
Searching through the dark for the cause
Of the events unfolding around us
As we sat transfixed, waiting.

(Note: smoking was allowed in theaters when I was a child)

(August 2011)

Imaging the Other

2011-08-14T13:49:00.000-05:00

When fixated upon a mirror
All he sees is himself
Reversed

(august 2011)

A Test

2011-08-13T07:09:00.000-05:00

the color of truth
so ingrained in the wood
of our lives the christian
clergy still wears it

black and white
an obvious demarcation
a quick sidestep dance
between yes and no

this and not this
as if words could be
milled to such precision
filed within a dust of difference

true not true
one goes forward
to make better lives
we are told

ever vigilant for normalcy
the other's tossed
quietly onto a pile
a simple quality control

where no deviation dwells
where no heresy is spoken
no tired eyes from sleepless nights
no worry about the wife's cough

or where dinner will come from tonight
nothing to stop the winnowing's purity
everything's perfectly replicable
all here in black and white

(August 2011)

Sustained Silent Reading Why and How: Common Sense, Not Common Practice

2011-08-12T11:46:00.000-05:00

We keep saying that Johnny can’t read because he’s deprived, because he’s hungry, because he’s discriminated against. We say that Johnny can’t read because his daddy is not in the home. Well, Johnny learns to play basketball without daddy. We do best what we do most, and for many of our children that is playing ball. One of the reasons Johnny does not read well is that Johnny doesn’t practice reading (Reverend Jesse Jackson quoted in Raspberry, 1976 as cited in Thurlow 1984 p.267)

I used to feel that I had to explain the way I teach to people. Sometimes I still feel that way. Fellow teachers in the copy room will ask by way of making conversation, “So, what book are your students reading now?” I used to try to explain how all my students were reading different books; so I really couldn’t tell them off the top of my head why my students were reading. Then because of the way they would look at me, I would feel like I was an incompetent teacher. I could see the thoughts running through their heads: he doesn’t know what they are doing in his class; or worse, he doesn’t do anything in his class. So I felt the need to explain in detail how all of my students chose the books they read, that those books then became the “text” book from which they worked out the reading skills required by the TEKS, that I really did keep track of every book the kids were reading, all 150, and yes, I could tell if they were actually reading the book without giving them a scantron test. And best of all, the students read two books each six weeks. Eventually I just settled on saying, “No, we aren’t reading anything together right now.” Which was true in a way.

We read together all the time, just not the same book. One day a couple of months into the first year I moved to high school after teaching for 15 years in the middle school, my students were reading their books silently. Some were sitting at their desks, others were lying on bean bags, and about four of them were encamped in the hall on the floor. I sat in the doorway on the floor, so I could see both the kids in the hall and the ones in my room. I was reading whatever I was reading at the time. The students knew if they had a question that I would see them and come to them, or they would just come over to where I was reading and talk quietly to me. A history teacher on conference period walked down the hall, saw my students reading in the hall, saw me reading in the doorway and said, “I wish I could just sit and read during class and do nothing.” She walked on, my students erupted, indignation flowing from them like lava roiling across Pompeii. It took me several minutes and a cooling smart-assed comment directed by me toward the history teacher to return my students to a more stable state of being. They were pissed because she assumed we were doing nothing, because they were reading silently to themselves. Reading is one of the two main purposes in my class, the other is writing. They were doing something. For some of them it was one of the hardest things they had ever done in English class: read a book.

At that point in the year, and still around the end of the first six weeks every year, a student, sometimes more than one, will end their first book talk with me by confessing that the book they had just finished was the first book they had read since middle school or the first book they had ever finished. They tell me this with pride. Not that they had managed to pull the wool over their former teacher’s eyes, but with pride that they had finished a book, and they liked it. There is something wrong with that picture. Seniors in high school, all seniors in high school, should have finished a book, and what’s more, one that they enjoyed reading. I am not blaming the students for this lack, but the way we teach reading.

It all seems so simple, in a head-slapping-duh simplicity. In order to read better one must read; it is an activity that improves with the doing. For years I have been instinctively following this guideline in my classroom without any documented research to prove what I was doing had any validity. It just made sense to me. Yet, the teacher down the hall had the same gut feeling that what she was doing was just as correct. For years I had followed the same kind of teaching. I had built elaborate units with interconnected writing assignments and projects; however, it did not seem right to me to say my students were reading when what they were doing was listening to me read to them and mechanically constructing essays that I had come up with for them to formulaically follow.

Most of the “reading” time in my class, now, is spent in Sustained Silent Reading, where the students read from self-selected texts. I have been frowned upon for wasting time in class instead of teaching. So being fairly pig-headed about most things, a few years ago, I did a bit of reading on the effects of reading silently in class from self-selected texts for a literature review for a doctoral class on the teaching of reading. I found quite a lot to show that my gut feeling was not just my nervousness about not doing what everyone else was doing down the hall. It was the right thing to do.

Bibliography for Lit Review

Armbruster, Bonnie B., Wilkinson, Ian, A.G. Silent Reading, Oral Reading, and Learning From Text, The Reading teacher vol. 45, no. 2 October 1991.

Cunningham, Ann E., and Stanovich, Keith E., What Reading Does for the Mind, American Educator, Spring/Summer 1998 pp.1-8.

Fisher, Douglas. Setting the “opportunity to read” Standard: Resuscitation the SSR program in an Urban High School, Journal of Adolescent and Adult Literacy, 48:2 October 2004 pp. 138-150.

Hunt, Lyman C., The Effect of Self-Selection, interest, and motivation upon independent, instructional, and Frustrational Levels, The Reading Teacher, Vol. 50, No.4 December 1996/January 1997 pp.278-282.

Parr, Judy M. and Maguiness, Colleen. Removing the silent form SSR:Voluntary reading as Social Practice, Journal of Adolescent and Adult Literacy 48:2, October 2005 pp.98-107.

McCallum, R. Steve, Sharp, Shannon, Bell, Sherry Mee, and George, Thomas. Silent Versus Oral Reading Comprehension and Efficiency, Psychology in the Schools, Vol.41 (2), 2004.

Methe, Scott A., and Hintze, John M., Evaluating Teacher Modeling as a Strategy to Increase Student Reading Behavior, School Psychology Review, 2003, volume 32, No. 4 pp. 617-623.

Olen, S.I.I., Machet, M.P Research Project to Determine the Effect of Free Voluntary Reading on Comprehension, South African Journal of Library & Information Science, 02568861, Jun97, Vol. 65, Issue 2.

Swalm, James E., A Comparison of Oral Reading, silent Reading and Listening comprehension, Education p.111-115.

Thurlow, Martha, Graden, Janet, Ysseldyke, James E., Algozzine, Robert. Student Reading During Reading Class: The Lost Activity in Reading Instruction, Journal of Educational Research, May/June 1984 (Vol. 77 (no.5) pp267-272.

(August 2011)

The Danger of Talk

2011-08-09T08:02:00.000-05:00

With my blunt tongue
I bludgeon the flesh from my bones

Shhhh listen

Blood slips away in silence

(august 2011)

Creeper

2011-08-02T00:48:00.003-05:00

“So they sang in sweet utterance
and the heart within me
desired to listen”
-Homer, The Odyssey, Book 12

He listened to the bits of residual conversation
He could remember and reshape like wax to his ear

When he spoke to her now how could he be certain
That what he said mimicked what she heard
The words seemed to move with such easy exchange

Within his assumption of mutual understanding
Her non sequiturs translated his heart
As if all she said danced only his dreams

Yet most of what he heard were only his echoes
Projections of light and shadow upon silence
A rehearsed monologue ignorant of its irony

And to follow that call that hope of consummation
Would be to fall broken into jagged rocks
Desire's flesh hanging mute on each of their bones

(August 2011)

Geometry

2011-07-25T22:11:00.000-05:00

He has this plan this projection
It fans out before him like dominoes
If he can just align the right conversation
Angle in that phrase at the acute point
At which he will shine in the reflected
Light of that one specific person’s eye
Then he will prove to himself like truth
Tables that a equals b equals c

Yet narratives never unfold like origami
Back into a perfectly square explanation
Lives are lived in spastic exaltations
Random ricochets like billiard balls
Or ions through the thermosphere
Dancing the borealis across the sky

(July 2011)

Let the day proceed without interpretation

2011-07-24T10:42:00.001-05:00

How much layering can be excised

The day trembles with conjecture
He troubles each casual statement
With a doubt, a mistrust
Of what was said by/to you

He dusts off phrases like artifacts
To be cataloged then placed
Piece by piece into a context
He surmises is not his own

An objective exegesis of subjective
Encounters he continues to pretend
The conversation occurs without
His being a party to what was

As if he was not a part of his world

(July 2011)

Introvert

2011-07-19T23:05:00.000-05:00

He was caught in his thoughts
A mobius strip treadmill
A reconfirmation of beliefs
Without the effort of questions

He walked through his life
Opening doors without entering
Worried by the chance
That change might be change

The obvious was never as clear
As others made it out to be
He stumbled into walls he built
Each brick laid firmly into mind

He danced in boots made of lead
To a music he thought he heard

(July 2011)

At Seventeen With My Father

2011-07-16T23:11:00.000-05:00

With finality,
His last breath left with a gasp:
I shut his dead eyes.

(July 2011)

The English Major Reads Her Life

2011-07-12T10:45:00.001-05:00

She traces a pattern in the conversation,
Troubling each nuance’s intricacies.

There is always a way into the labyrinth,
Some key cut in what they say,
A phrase coalesced into a symbol
Through which meaning can be extracted.

Perhaps the way he leaned into her door
When he said those things to her today:
So innocuous, casual in their importance,
As if anything accidental can be so simple.

Did he only mean what he said that time
Or was there more? Or perhaps is there
More resonance in her interpretation
Than can be read upon this page?

(July 2011)

Arid Supplicant

2011-07-08T22:12:00.000-05:00

he holds out his hand
to uninterrupted blue
no blemish of rain

(July 2011)

Caught in a Trap, a Wolf Will Often Gnaw Off Its Leg

2011-07-02T14:03:00.001-05:00

I wonder quite often how these poets get away with their rambles
Pickup an off the cuff kind of élan slip it on like a watch band
Twist the strap with a self-deprecating smirk just to let you know
Mon frere with a wink that the façade is still within your grasp if not those
Others so self aware to catch the irony a simple twist of fate
As it were even if allusions are passé modern in this post after world
We live in if not then at least around in a peripheral bourgeois manner
For god knows since no one else can that we have to have something
To react toward and the rich don’t care anymore if ever and the poor often
Are such a bore what with having to explain all of the jokes
It’s easier to talk to yourself or in this case myself when no one understands
How cruelty can be funny especially when gnawing on your own flesh

(started circa 2006, completed July 2011)

At This Point Always on Edge

2011-07-02T14:02:00.000-05:00

Early in the evening
On edge as usual
I walk in the park
A partial moon rising

I lift my arms
A simple dance
My edges dissolve
Into the night sky

No center point
Just fractured centers
All equidistant
From an expanding edge

(July 2011, extracted from notes circa 2006)

Rose Petals

2011-06-30T17:19:00.001-05:00

soft beneath my touch
the petals almost slick
as I run my fingers
across their surface

i bury my nose into
their scent drinking in
the odor like a balm
to my tired senses

i wish that I too
like the hummingbird
could flutter my tongue
deep into the flower’s heart

and be enveloped in
the primal fury of love

(June 2011)

The Answer is Yet a Dream

2011-06-30T17:17:00.000-05:00

Fear lies in the answer to my question;
A question I am too afraid to ask.
Thus the quandary lies in indecision - -
To resist my tendency to resist;
To risk humiliation in my hope;
To cease whispering quietly from the dark;
To stand in broad daylight and speak plainly;
To blatantly state my desire for you.

Of course I would have to change my nature,
Unsettle myself enough to shift shapes
From my predictable stance and engage
With the possibilities unfolding
Before me like rosebuds in sequences
Of dreams throughout this never-ending night.

(June 2011)

Adrift

2011-06-30T17:14:00.000-05:00

I’m drowning in metaphor, the words flow
Like water breaching tightly-packed sandbags
Flooding my thoughts with too much to say and
Not enough talent to make them cohere.

Beneath these words I hide myself from you
Too embarrassed or bashful to speak plain
I float up yet another abstraction
Praying for a transformative response.

When I finally break through the surface,
Breathe in the cool life in great gasping gulps,
Coughing out my silent lungs to the air,
my focus follows the flow of your mind.

In waves I am lifted enough to see
The momentary salvation of land.

(June 2011)

Enclitic: a Short Wren Goes Through a Drought

2011-06-24T18:03:00.001-05:00

the heat whips the trees
shade pants crisply beneath leaves
not much chance of change

a sharp demarcation
between me and you

as if a copula
is enough of a word
to engender a metaphor

this is not this
but yet it is

grammatically independent
but phonologically dependent
on another word

my meaning depends
upon you

(June 2011)

No response, No Echo, Only Silence

2011-06-15T09:18:00.000-05:00

“Wow, I felt like I just entered a black hole,” she said.

In open air beneath the sun
I open my mouth and speak
What words I can into silence

Stripped of small talk and idle chatter
My speech forms its own horizon
Abutting up against your silence

Between all the stances I can take
Amid the ambiguity of reception
Falls a monolithic silence

All my lonely lamentations
All my whispered secrets
Mean nothing to the silence

All my words and talk
All my confessions of love
Mean nothing to the silence

(June 2011)

walls

2011-06-07T11:37:00.001-05:00

I desire to dance
arms raised
to the stars
praising the night;
instead,
I talk to walls:
my voice
echoes the space
I pace between.

(June 2011)

apples

2011-06-03T20:46:00.001-05:00

orderly rows of trees
lie fallow
after the harvest

apples full-red and crisp
fell alongside others
some green some gnarled

i tend to the trees
lopping old limbs
a necessary pruning

there is always more
than the season allows
the trees are here now

the fruit will grow
despite ourselves
the work remains

(June 2011)

Talking to Myself, Yet Again, After a Conversation at Lunch

2011-05-30T15:56:00.002-05:00

“a responsibility to the trace of the other”
--Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak

you move through your day,
like a bird through branches
bending between the briars,
oblivious to the consternations
of others as they talk around you
you remain caught up in
the net of your abstractions
“the absolute alterity” of everything:
colleagues, clients, trees,
squirrels, clouds shaped and
dispersed across an endless sky,
the reduction of the world
to your purview, the horror
that what you see is you

(May 2011)

whisper

2011-05-23T17:47:00.000-05:00

i watch
and wait
and wish
we could talk

of more
than day
to day
trivialities

tongue-tied
and remote
by nature
my words

fall fleeting
like dust
or butterflies
ephemeral

instead
i whisper
these poems
to you

(may 2011)

Wisps

2011-05-13T15:13:00.001-05:00

Last night I dreamed of making love to you
I awoke and could still feel your smooth back
And soft brown hair between my fingertips

During the day your soft smile from the couch
The way your smooth hair falls framing your eyes
Makes me desire to press my lips to yours

This vision as much a dream as at night
Slips away among the constant tumult
Of the separate lives we lead alone

So I write yet another poem for you
A soft lament for possibilities
That hover on the verge of my waking

Thoughts of you interlace my days and nights
Softly like spider’s silk upon the wind

(May 2011)

from Primogenitive folly (40)

2011-05-04T21:45:00.000-05:00

If what I have to say is of so little import that I have to say it repeatedly, like an ad blaring from a newspaper or television, then it is worthless enough to write down so that it may, possibly, be read more than once. Is it fear of being misunderstood that drives me to scratch my cramped hand across the page with such diligence? Or an obsessive desire to control the message, if any, or to exert my will upon the text? And what about all those metaphors embedded in the words: scratch, cramped, desire, control, exert, embedded? The message, if any, takes on a meaning of its own like the darkness a thief cloaks himself in after slipping out the door. Yet now as I paused to read back what I wrote - - I stumbled on the stairs, thinking: That’s it, that’s the point! - - So I missed a step, (both literally and metaphorically) as it were, and wound up on another tangent without hope of reconnection to my original,yet banal, thought.

(August 2001-April 2003)

Where Was the Son?

2011-05-01T19:19:00.000-05:00

I have a student’s father who wishes for his son to pass the year. His son never comes to class. If he does come to class he comes 20 minutes late, so he is technically absent. When he does come to class he does not bother to find out what the class is doing; instead, he plays with his phone, or puts his head on the desk. I have talked to the father repeatedly, both in person and through email. The father, at the end of each six weeks, comes and gets work for the son to make up. The son does not do it, or does not do enough of it to pass. I am meeting with the father tomorrow, the father wants his son to be able to make up the work for the the six weeks that have already passed by. I feel it is an insult to my class and my students; they have worked all year, coming to class, reading books, writing essays. They are passing. He is not.

Layering

2011-04-26T21:41:00.001-05:00

I run through my obsessions
Like penitents over wooden beads
Chanting the same words
Until all obliterates beneath
The mortar and pestle of language

How can I trust others
When I cannot trust myself
So many layers of belief
(all true) to move through
like archeologists through

sedimentary rock
What was once seafloor
Shows sea life on mountaintops
There is always an explanation
If I sift through enough silt

Finger each thickened lump
Until it dissolves in my hands
I might glean some truth
Upon which to layer like an oyster
A balm upon all that irritates me

(April 2011)

Responsive

2011-04-18T11:29:00.002-05:00

We dance but without choreography
Meaning flashes then evaporates
An interpretation requires a template
A duet is never more than two solos,
Enmeshed solely through proximity
I move one direction, you another
In stage combat no one gets hurt
The outcome is predetermined
The curtain falls, everyone’s fine
I desire a script, what to do and say
Improvisation frightens me
Each move opens infinite possibilities
A pratfall follows a clumsy stumble
I want the answer, before I ask

(April 2011)

Eros Flits Briefly Across the Room

2011-04-13T18:45:00.000-05:00

I, of course, instantly notice
The bare skin of your back exposed
Between the top of your blue jeans
And your blouse as you, oblivious
To my wandering gaze, sit reading.
I wish, like a boy on his first date
Longing for a kiss, to lightly run
My finger tips across your patch
Of skin as a prelude of caresses
Still to come. Yet, as is too often
The excuse, there is too much to
Do for the day: another paper to
Grade, a dinner to plan; so I move
On toward yet another distraction.

(April 2011)

Tumbling and Fumbling

2011-04-08T11:45:00.003-05:00

“So close and yet so far away
And all the things I’d hoped to say
Will have to go unsaid today
Perhaps until tomorrow”
- -Townes Van Zandt

Again I fall before your charm,
My brooding befuddled by small talk;
I think of light replies too late
Driving home replaying conversations,
Reshaping meaning to suit obsessions.

The delusions of my truths
Trouble with their desert shimmer;
An oasis I desire, yet fear exists
Only in the thirst for it to exist,
“and that leaves only sorrow.”

(April 2011)

Among the Ruins

2011-04-06T20:50:00.000-05:00

I pick through the rubble
For remnants of my heart.
All these troubled, shattered
Parts (my students, my friends,
My family, my self, all
The detritus that falls
Along the way) stand like
Broken teeth cutting my tongue
As I try to speak of things
Best left unspoken. Not
Out of some misguided
Etiquette do I keep silent,
Rather a deep exhaustion
With having to explain motives,
Rationales, deep beliefs
Developed through time, both
To myself and the ever-present
Judges of normality, while
Remaining cognizant of the
Fragility of our souls
To hear the unfettered opinions
We speak when we are alone.
It is hard enough to follow
The blade of pointed self-reflection
As it descends deeper through the layers
Of deception I donned with such ease;
Much less so to slice into the soul
Of another for the sheer delight
Of proving I can eviscerate
You as easily as I surrender my own skin.
And so I move through the smoldering heaps,
The maudlin nodes of my mistakes,
Treasuring each emotional shard
I unearth as if it meant something
More than what I make of my life.

I feel a Disturbance in the Force

2011-04-05T21:39:00.000-05:00

I am frustrated with the world. I blew up in class today. The genetics of my father flowed out of me: one crazy red-faced Irishman. But that was the end result of an overall deep downturn in my psyche over the last couple of days. I am not sure what caused this fall. I noticed years ago that I tend to fluctuate between feeling ok, and being depressed and gloomy. I have assumed that I was not manic-depressive because I did not have the ecstatic emotional highs. Sadly. I suppose this current emotional collapse is just a culmination of events comprised of Lisa’s loss of a job,the layoffs occurring on a daily basis in the building where I work, the state of education in Texas where 100,000 teachers will be fired this year, and the general turn to a fascist state exhibited by the Republican party’s attempt at gutting everything created for the good of people since the New Deal. But that would be too simplistic. I really am not that paranoid.

A friend, one of the more intellectually complex persons I’ve worked with in years, always wants to know how people feel about things; so instead of trying to analyze cause, I will describe effect. I have a tight constricted ball located just below where the ribcage comes together. It feels like the moment before one vomits from too much liquor without the dizziness or nausea. I want to cry over anything and everything: newscasts, sappy television, poems I have read for years, words. An overwhelming sadness sweeps through me, similar to how I felt, in waves, the year my mother was dying before I was prescribed antidepressants, and then felt nothing.

A few months ago, an old friend from Bread Loaf came through town. When she came to dinner she asked how I was doing. My quick, and honest answer was that I was happier than I had been in years, which is still true. I feel (think) that I am writing some of the best poetry of my life over the last few months (even though I feel no one reads it). I enjoy the conversation with the friends I have made over the years on both an emotional and intellectual level. I work with a collection of big-hearted, smart, funny, articulate people whom I love deeply. My three children are wonderfully fascinating young adults who I delight in listening to as they negotiate the world they are creating. I am still in love with the woman I fell in love with thirty-one years ago. And all of this makes me want to cry.

What Writing Poetry Feels Like

2011-03-25T15:09:00.001-05:00

for an "assignment" from C.D.

Many years ago I felt when I wrote as if a geometric figure rotated slowly about three inches above and in front of my forehead: a green figure glowing red along the edges of each facet. I would trace lines (words) along the edges of this figure as I wrote, or thought about what words to place on the page.
That, however, is not a feeling, but an image. The image did create a trance like state - - a mandala, as it were, to focus my attention - - to not be distracted by the noise of the world, nor by the noise of the words. So in that sense I feel calm, centered and safe when I am working on a poem. I feel closer to myself, in a place I can speak with a brutal honesty, a space of stark self-evisceration, a space to hide beneath metaphor from myself and others; a place of enlightened obfuscation.

Otherself 2

2011-03-18T09:50:00.000-05:00

My skin itches as if something needs to get in,
A constant trend toward a location not here.
Angstroms of ephemera swarm like the hum
Of bees, the chatter of others; but not the bees
Nor the others: I am who I am,
A patchwork facsimile of all I hoped to be,
As are you as well. We are never apart:

Whitman’s atoms, Lennon’s goo goo g’joob,
An interlaced amalgam of each interaction,
Of each handshake, each mumbled explanation
Of the last big game, of her last affair, of god:
Each a part of the tale I tell to myself
When too tired to push back sufficiently
To create space enough to breathe on my own.

(March 2011)

Shapeless

2011-03-13T11:47:00.002-05:00

Half-awake at five a.m.
A line, then a poem forms.
But the mind, like the poem
Shifts, a play of metaphor
Between the thing
And the thing
Translated.

So, I can’t follow,
Or remember
Beyond a trace,
An outline:
Not enough to reconfigure,
To replace, the ineffable
With the shape of words.

(March 2011)

Response

2011-03-10T11:24:00.002-06:00

“Do we communicate in mirror languages, through some inherent sense of form, in every respect but touch? Do we ever know each other; know who we really are?”
--Susan Howe

I become an echo
To what I wish to hear - -

My voice to your voice
A whispery misdirection:

In case I eavesdrop
Words meant for another,

I worry your lines
Like a scar, a palmistry

Read in a different text,
Weaving new cloth

From unraveled sleeves;
An old fool’s motley hopes

From wilted narcissi
Beside a still pond.

(March 2011)

Otherself

2011-03-01T20:56:00.000-06:00

My skin itches as if something needed to escape:
A writhing turmoil with the liquidity of smoke;
The curl and twirl of a rose unfolding in time;
The abdominal ripples of a child tumbling
And fumbling in an amniotic swirl;
Wax as it hesitates between itself and fluidity
For an instance neither one nor the other:

We are all more than we are within our skin,
A permeable differentiation between
Our belief and where we wish to wander.
We hold our beliefs loosely, like a cloak
On a warm evening, or the reins of a horse
Who knows the way home without our
Unnecessary awareness of where we are.

(February/March 2011)

Can’t Deny My Love

2011-02-27T14:16:00.000-06:00

I don’t want to be here;
I don’t want to be who I am;
I don’t like it here anymore;
I don’t understand happiness;
I don’t want to be anything more;
I don’t like the array of options;
I don’t want to ignore any options;
I don’t understand the choices;
I don’t like the complexity;
I don’t like the simplicity;
I don’t like the view from here;
I don’t want to change position;
I don’t think grass is greener;
I don’t want to do this yet again.

(February 2011)

untitled

2011-02-08T17:07:00.002-06:00

I am tired of connecting the stars,
Telling stories across the night sky;
My soul is hard enough to maintain
Against the unrelenting onslaught.

What did he say? and what about her?
They all speak at once, demanding
What I must define myself against,
That I justify my self to their limits.

The sea is a dangerous place,
Yet, so is the shore; jagged rocks
Flash through surf like wolves through flesh.

I seal myself within this sarcophagus
Of talk, my tropes, my clichés,
And cower beneath the untamed stars.

(February 2011)

Illiterate

2011-02-05T12:04:00.000-06:00

Your hand upon my arm
Transient like spider’s silk
As you speak to me
Not there, yet there still

I’m lost falling, following
Stray strands of meaning
Weaving from desperate threads
Tattered rags into a motley’s truth

Such small scraps feed me
A casual toss of your hair
A phrase plucked from conversation
Create tremors for days, rattling

Like bones in a cup, an
Augury I cannot read

(February 2011)

Visions of God: Seven Poems

2011-01-30T16:07:00.002-06:00

1. Text
circa 1965

In the doctor’s office
Waiting eternally to be called
Studying the Child’s Illustrated Bible,
Or in Sunday school, fingers tight
Around old broken crayons
adding color between the lines:
God hid behind the clouds
Except for fingers of light
Slicing through the air
To illuminate some distant goal
Some promise to come soon
If the people pictured, Caucasians
Dressed like Arabs, standing in verdant
Fields of sheep, if they would just
Keep moving toward the picture’s
Vanishing point, then they would
Arrive like the nurse at the door
Calling me by name.

2. Summer 1980

We had eaten them like the Eucharist
A communal act draped in mystery
Trusting our hope to be transformed.

Soon I was kneeling at the toilet
Every bit of blood and bone of my body
Crawled up my throat like porcupines

I was in my own level of hell
Every atom of every strand of hair
Screamed through eternity for release

Then a voice outside of myself
Like my sixth grade science textbook
Spoke in sonorous reassurance

“This too shall pass . . .”
And within that instance, it did.
I rose again,

Brushed my teeth
And walked back out
Into the bedazzled day.

3. Flying on the floor
1984

the words outside had become too much
too many perspectives to follow
too many bunny trails into the briar patch

inside only music, no people
to twist my thinking past coherence
inside only me, calmly breathing on the floor

so I lay there, breathing, watching the ceiling
like clouds, creating patterns of possibility
vague, comforting, whimsically transitory

the Rolling Stones sang on the stereo
of time, sympathy and power
a perfectly simple single narrative

when splayed between the bumps and lines,
a full-color Byzantine Jesus manifested
hands open, stigmata dripping love

before I could wallow beatifically in blood
silent gunfire pocked the fresco
plaster dust coated the air like fog

I stood quickly as the song changed
Stepped back onto the sunlit deck
Back into a conversation with the living

4. After Being Apart
Burlington Airport, 1989

I wandered aimlessly about the terminal
early
with little to do

I found the gate again
checked arrival and departure times
again

watched the model airplanes,
the history of flight,
that hung above the terminal floor

I returned to the gate
sat next to a pillar near the escalator
I waited, pretending to read

then there they were again
her eyes I fell into
years before

5. Silent Cliff
1991

Rain and light fell from the canopy.
In the air, patterns of shadow danced
With the mist falling from the leaves.

The deep green immanence of the trees
And brush darkened the light
Into dusk along the thick forest floor.

The humidity flowed like rivers about the path,
as I negotiated between the trees slowly
moving up the side of the mountain

The trees were unrelenting and oppressive:
the sky obliterated behind the thick green;
I trudged on switchbacks toward Silent Cliff.

I crouched over a creek on an improvised bridge;
Tired, frustrated, claustrophobic and almost lost
I pushed on through the never-ending woods until

Finally stepping out beyond the tree line to cliff’s edge
And nothing but empty air for twenty miles but
The blue haze of the Adirondacks on the horizon.

6. Improvisation
New Orleans, July 2005

In the cobbled grey streets slick with rain
Lilith slipped her shoes off and
Walked bare foot across wet stones
Near the St. Louis Cathedral

As she slapped her feet
The rain still swirled
Lightly dancing the afternoon sun
Like glitter through the air

The world widened like an iris in delight
Gathering the light from my darkness:
In that
I live forever still

7. the eyes

her eyes, always her eyes
dark brown spattered about an iris
which I fall into forever

to watch them as she speaks
to see her mind move within them
a bright dancer between her words

during sex their sudden widening roll
as she leaps and sings beyond herself
eternally fuels my desire

(January 2011)

Listening Closely

2011-01-28T07:06:00.000-06:00

The words become soundings
A tap on a wall, a test
Of what lies beneath the façade.

Was what you wrote a reply,
Your own sound check,
Or a disconnected comment?

I sense a depth, but fear
My meanings echo only
The emptiness of my desires.

(January 2011)

Metaphor

2011-01-06T22:02:00.000-06:00

A hummingbird bends
toward the rosebud tickling
his tongue across the dew.

(January 2011)

Fetish

2011-01-05T19:30:00.002-06:00

I hold this votive out;
Its small flicker, a sign,
A symbol, of what I offer:
Not much light, nor warmth
Within the glow of my palm;
Yet, still a hope for both
From my hand to yours.

(January 2011)

The Ugly Duckling is Still a Duck

2011-01-03T21:10:00.001-06:00

A Review

When even the clichés cringe at the clichés
They are forced to co-habit with, who cringe
At the inevitable next step, the slow tread
Moving toward the gallows, when someone
Should have screamed out in anguish, someone
Surely could see how innocent of ideas
It all was, and stopped it before too many
Well-meaning people were arrayed in formation
To make elemental claims to authenticity
Until they are forced to believe the words
They mouth otherwise the vacuity would collapse
Upon itself like a black hole devouring space.
Yet the obvious stayed silent, the parade passed,
The emperor’s tailor danced in delight.

(January 2011)

How Does It Make You Feel?

2011-01-02T16:26:00.002-06:00

To C.D.

As if the mosaic of my emotions
could be summarized in simple
platitudes others would want to hear - -

like the greeting, “How are you?”
if answered truthfully, the full
force of existential anxiety

would annihilate the listener
with its dark pathos, nothing
remaining but a shadow’s smudge.

“How does it make you feel?”
is best left unanswered, or deflected
by a fine, an OK, or an easy joke;

best not go too far beyond the surface,
too easy to become entangled
in the causalities of my emotional

Sargasso Sea, too easy to drown
flailing about on the sea bed,
stretching for air just out of reach.

(January 2011)

from primogenitive folly (23)

2010-12-31T16:20:00.001-06:00

(pastoral)?

devastation crumbles
formed sand washed
drips delicately
grain by grain

a cascade a flower blooming
in reverse

a low grumbling

mutters of discontent
thunder across dry hills
or laughter followed by a hacking cough

rough-cut saws through wet wood

buildings silently mark the space
a division of here from there

blind reflective glass
shadowless clouds
intermingle with passersby

patterned by the false
symmetry of rain on glass

(cityscape)?

where reality
and metaphor blend
where meanings made manifest
i speak with you

(August 2001- April 2003)

Bakery Blues

2010-12-29T20:47:00.000-06:00

Just another jerk,
taking pride in his work.
Timbuck Three

The alarm goes off at 3:30. The Dunkin' Donut commercial jingles through my head, "Time to make the doughnuts," despite the fact that we don't make doughnuts at the bakery. Some Arabic folk song ululates on the public radio station. "Who the hell listens to this stuff at this time in the morning?" People like you, asshole. Get out of bed. An hour later I start up the Toyota and begin the thirty minute drive into town. Another Saturday morning slinging croissants at Texas French Bread.
Walking into the bakery, I wave to Lori, one of our delivery drivers, who stands in front of the bread slicer bagging the night's production for her route. She and the other drivers have already been here for an hour, and except for her, they've gone on their first runs. I don't bother to say anything because of the noise from the slicer. I need to remind John, the maintenance man, again, that the machine is about to break down. At the time clock, a note from Leslie, the manager of the drivers, is attached to my time card.

Kelly, old buddy of mine, I've been hearing some disconcerting rumors about what David is going to do to the delivery routes. See what you can find out and let me know.

I fold the note place it in my pocket. I'll think about the meaning of this later. Now I need to get the store open for the hungry hordes of consumers. It's cold and raining; today will be busy. Bakery items provide some strange comfort; the body must call for high carbohydrates and sugar whenever the sky turns gloomy.
Upstairs, I turn the espresso machine on. It takes thirty minutes to warm up, and if I forget, inevitably, the first customer of the day will want one. Back in the office I check the special orders and read any messages the night manager has left for me. Taped to the front of the special order book is a note from Oscar, the first person scheduled to come in after me at six. He sprained his ankle playing basketball last night and won't be coming in this morning. I grimace and look up at the schedule. Who can I wake up? The choices are slim.
The first try: No one answers. Smart.
Second call: A chipper voiced answering machine.
Third call: "Oh. God. No. Sorry. No. I just got into bed. We went to see the Butt-Hole Surfers. Jees, What time is it?"
"That's fine." He probably did too many drugs to be able to function even if he had come in.
Fourth call: "Well, if you can't get anybody else I'll come."
"I've already tried everybody else."
Pause.
"Oh."
Pause.
"O.K. I'll be there soon. Bye."
Back to the special orders. Nothing out of the ordinary. The Law School wants a hundred assorted croissants. Some lady wants six dozen cocktail croissants. Another wants a 12x18 inch carrot cake shaped like a dog biscuit with "Forty Fucking Fabulous Years" written on it in pink icing. I bet the dessert bakers loved that one. I post the orders on the doorway leading down into the bakery.
"O.K. Let's get this show boat on the road," I say out loud. That first sleepy-eyed customer will be standing outside at six o'clock when I unlock the door. They could stay in bed, after all it is Saturday, it's not like they have to be at. work. Forty minutes later, at ten till six, with every thing ready for the days onslaught, I pour myself a cup of coffee, and wander downstairs and out the back door to smoke a quick cigarette. Lori is still standing next to the bread slicer, she nods as I pass by.
Leslie drives up. I wait. She steps out of the van, stabs a cigarette into her mouth and angrily lights it. "So, did you get my note?" I nod. "It really pisses me off. I come in and the first thing I hear is that David is going to reschedule the entire delivery routes. He has no fucking idea what we do, and he thinks that he can do this without even asking us."
"Who told you this?"
"Jesse Duran said as I walked in here at four, 'So, did you hear that the night shift is going to start slicing and bagging the bread?' What the hell does that mean? We do that. Is David trying to cut our hours? The night shift can barely do their job. How the hell are they going to start doing ours too?"
"David comes in at ten, I'll ask him then."
She stomps her cigarette out as Nathan, the person I woke up, walks across the parking lot. He nods and walks inside. A car drives up. I check my watch: Six o'clock. I walk up to the front door, unlock it, step inside and pour two cups of coffee. Jason and his wife, Mary, walk in smiling at the coffee waiting for them. I slide over to the counter. "An onion bagel, cream cheese. A sesame bagel, strawberry cream cheese. Do you want an Oatmeal muffin today?" They collect their breakfast and sit down. The bakery is open.
Erin bounces in at seven, even when she pulls it back her dark Pre-Raphaelite hair forms a halo around her head. "Good morning, everyone." Jason and Mary wave to her.
At eight, Rita slouches through the front door, pours a cup of coffee and slinks into the back room silently. Everything is normal. The Law School picked up their order and the dog biscuit cake sits on the walk-in shelf. People stream in, papers tucked under their arms, demanding coffee and baked goods; no one is too obnoxious.
"Do you have any doughnuts?"
"No, ma'm. Sorry." Look in front of you.
"What isn't fattening?"
Nothing, this is a bakery. "How about a muffin?"
I help forty customers in thirty minutes. "Good morning." I stuff their bags, hand it across the counter, place their coffee order. "You can pay at the register." A human assembly line shuffles by me; I turn to the next person. "Hi, can I help you?" The record is stuck.
The day goes on. At nine-thirty, Jonathan, our sandwich maker, arrives. He is wearing a hot pink beret to cover the razor cuts he caused when shaving his head a week ago. "Greetings and salutations to all."
"Hi, Jonathan."
At eleven we begin to run out of croissants. We are not running out of customers. I walk down into the bakery and tell Ke that we need at least four more trays. He nods. Kenny, the purchaser, walks in, pulls an envelope off of his clip board. "This came for you. Judy has read it." Judy owns the bakery, and does not like to hear complaints no matter how invalid.
"Yeah, and. . ."
"Just read it."

Dear Texas French Bread,

Friday morning I came into your store on Red River.(I wince). At the register was a rude asshole. I did not get his name but he was wearing a pink hat. Cool out this jerk.

Good-bye,
(unsigned)

Kenny laughs. I sigh and trudge back up the ramp to find Jonathan. Jonathan is talking to Peit, a Belgian mechanic who comes in every day. "Yeah, I thought about shaving my pubic hair too." Customers at a nearby table look up from their newspapers and stare.
"Jonathan, can I talk to you a minute."
He smiles obliviously following me into the office. I hand him the note.
He reads it. "Whoa, who do you think they mean?"
I point to his hat. His eyes get wide letting the insight in. "I know that you don't mean to be rude, but some of our customers aren't aware of your oddities." Or want to be aware of them as far as that goes. "So why don't we watch ourselves a little bit?" He looks at the floor. He seems genuinely hurt that someone would think he was a rude asshole. "Can I have the note?"
"Sure."
"I want to make a T-shirt transfer. Wouldn't that be great?" He grabs the letter out of my hand and dances back to his station. I think about my last class of seventh-grade students. Kenny walks up behind me.
"So, what was Judy's reaction?"
"She was pissed off."
"Does she want him fired?"
"No, she's pissed at the person who wrote the letter. She can't believe that they didn't sign it."
Twelve o'clock: an hour to go before I'm out of this place for two days. I think I can make it without anything else occurring. Judy calls. "Where's David?"
"I'm not sure. Let me go see if he's in yet."
I look downstairs. The drivers and David are out in the parking lot. Leslie, Lori, and Chris are all talking at once. David looks contrite. "He can't come to the phone right now, Judy. I'll have him call you." I hang up the phone; Skip, the dishwasher, is looking nervous next to me. Skip is paranoid and taking medication. Somedays he becomes paranoid about taking his medication. I sense today is one of those days. "Kelly, I'm having a problem today." I nod, looking him in the eye. He sweats, and looks at his hands, then back to me. "You see, I'm having this problem reconciling the conflict."
"You mean with David and the drivers?"
He looks out the window and contemplates the drama. Leslie is waving her arms at David as if she were a crazed symphony conductor and he an incompetent flutist. "No. No. They're fine. I'm having this problem reconciling the conflict between good and evil."
Don't we all.

(Summer 1990)

Among Leaves

2010-12-29T20:32:00.000-06:00

to W. Walt Rinehart, 2 months

If I had time
I would speak
of light's manner
upon leaves. Yet,
language has not
mastered time
for me:
no memory
past the present.

Light is green
upon a darker green
that shifts, not again,
but now
where once
has never been.

The wind and
light are leaves.
No cause to think,
simply watch
what-is:

light
among
leaves.

(July 1986)

from nothing, something

2010-12-22T19:33:00.001-06:00

for K.C.

a wine cork
tied with thread
to an arcing twig
stripped bare of bark
twirls nonchalantly
above the mantle

(june 2006)

Making Time

2010-12-17T21:08:00.001-06:00

In a class on the Essay at Bread Loaf, Shirley Brice-Heath said that reading and writing are leisure activities. She said this in explanation of why so many writer’s in the 19th century, or any other time period, were upper middle class and/or wealthy. It takes time to read and time to write, one can’t be working all hours on the factory floor if one is going to read and write. Over time I have hacked away at the “stuff” I teach that takes up the time of the classroom; I have abandoned entire beloved lesson plans and units because they ate into the time my students have to read and write. My students live busy complex lives. They work at their jobs, often more than one, they have many classes in addition to mine and some of them have babies that they have to take care of as well. So I schedule huge blocks of time to read and write in class everyday. It is not a “Read-in” Friday, or “let’s write an in-class essay today”, but every day we are reading and writing together and alone. It is what is expected in my class. Over time the students come to expect the time they have to reading and write and become irritable when they don’t get that time because of scheduled and unscheduled administrative dictates. The time to read and write is important, because it is time the students don’t get.

(begun as a quick write during a presentation by Amber Futch at a Heart of Texas Writing Project conference December 2010)

Driftwood

2010-12-13T21:06:00.002-06:00

in silence lies escape
no scrutiny of beliefs
when no words can escape

(an assumption of complicity,
with no words to disagree)

with no friction of resistance
a wave’s force flows past
with no fiction of resistance

(along the shore the sea
becomes more and less of me)

(December 2010)