Poetry | Short Fiction | Creative Nonfiction
A short fiction of mine called Temping, is included in Crack the Spine’s Issue no. 257. Thanks to publisher Kerri Farrell Foley and her staff for selecting this piece. A synopsis might look like:
“A talkative homeless man on the bus rambles on, delivering a sort of fever-dream term paper about the burdens of a life structured by time, his philosophical insights into such a dilemma, and his effective status as an outlaw due to his contraordinary behaviors and being without means or property.”
Every moment is bundled
with a multitude of beginnings
and endings and we feel we’re right
in the middle of it.
But this locale, this fixation
is penciled in with a wink
and cannot be held, numbered
ordered, kept or used.
Gathered up, possessions
summon the negations, come
then clap, the knowns disperse
like startled pigeons.
Who can make way in all of this
without faith or handholds
when enlightenment is the activity
of no one in particular?
A tricky business
this name-dropping the Buddha.
May all beings find grace and good fortune
under the wide and dispassionate sky.
May the wisdom tradition that speaks to you
speak to you. And may we hear.
Don’t be quick, don’t dash or start
or do one thing beyond the pause
of pristine silent gloom
Light outside’s been slowing down
in days of narrow corridors
that all lead to my room
—Solstice, December 21, 2019
poem was plywood ugly
so I burned it, and the smoke
wiped its greasy fingers
on the lower skirts of sky
and flicked, for good measure
a bit of ash in my eye
—name one word
that doesn’t hint at what
it doesn’t know
—name one move
that doesn’t meddle, but
mingles with the flow
—name one time
when stay stayed put
and didn’t up and go
—name one oath
with passing time
did not fade yes to no
before I knew you well at all
I filled your gaps with charmed ideals
when now and then you think of me
you’ll know exactly how that feels
breaking up the ice for the
lack of warmth to melt it, float
a smile, sample the kool-aid
can we ever say anything
that finds its mark, or hear anything
that doesn’t confirm a conceit?
icebergs have their own momentum
parts unseen, underneath
we mobbed the place
in formations, like teeth
crowding into a mouth, behind lips
pressed together in a hum
a lullaby, in the face of it
I can count on the fingers
of two-and-a-half thousand hands
the deflections all the many mouths
have muttered, the reasons for
not seeing what no one
wanted to see
the impossible thing
in plain view
And the elder gods looked down upon us
and all that we had done, and with grave countenance
called upon the Faerie Oracle for guidance, and came she
into the hall, emerged she from her trance, fixed them
all with a haggard and frightening grimace, and
proclaimed she, “send Greta!”
You don’t get to keep anything
Outside of these temporary configurations
The coil is always the coil, it’s the
Dispositions, born mortal, that shuffle off
We are bell-strikes with ears, clinging
To our own sound
Soothed in this melodious gestalt, let’s
Stay, just a while longer
