—eighty-three now poems
—a choka
at eighty-three now,
gone thru a-hundred sixty-six
changes of the clock,
time-zones, date-lines, hangovers,
syllables and lines…
shifting celestial movements
keeping me always right on time
**
cloudless November
blue sky peeks past drawn curtains,
its own celebration
**
a long hotel night
drains from limbs to crumpled sheets,
morning light watching
**
and then, it rains—
dark morning rooftop rain-songs
searching for drinking roots
**
five-seven-five counts
de-compose, concentrate…buds heard
speak of blossoms
**
I’ve been told
haiku simply tell us
of the world offered
and so, from the chair
set aside for scribbled counts,
words tumble about…
waiting pages taking
each bit, eternity-charged
**
from the window’s top
down to bottom’s right, moon’s drop
fills morning’s sky
**
turn your palms
to your face
here is found
**
it’s fall, I forget
until the storm, remember
the red flannel shirt
**
the storm
wakes me
but there
with me
warms me
under
blankets
there just
for it
**
nubbed numb fingers cramp
in wet jacket pockets—rain
blowing its last
**
—Jimmy,
doing what sustains
what we love
isn’t discipline,
it’s what we
animals
do
**
we sleep, our bed rests
in a thin-ceilinged sun room
rain falls sound of wind
**
random utterance…
sense sound-clouds
passing
**
Kenko followed his brush
where it went
poems fell
like winter leaves,
no thoughts of summer
**
winter mornings, these
and all that follow, the last
no matter the count
pre-dawn breaths, waking hillsides—
light, and its shadows
**
wondering sometimes,
I think I do, where a life
without writing
might have taken me, other…
I feel for the pen
**
some days pages turned
pull the pen unendingly,
tirelessly home…
space untouched by the clock,
open, soft, clear—breath on breath
**
underneath it all
all these years it’s been, it is
the religious life
persistent quiet presence
where time
is the unfolding
of…
**
in winter
we cover
trees bare
leaves leave
***
****
…after I have given up words,
I will become what I have to say
—David Lee
It can be solved while walking.
—Saint Augustine
