Wings: Fortsetzung But let’s get back to the chicken wings, the apogee (were she to know of it) of my wife’s moral disapproval of the man she, in a long-ago fit of passion, romance and thin air, married. The chickens, as we all know, are tortured– raised and injected with hormones and antibiotics in cages so […]
Wings So here I am, as I am every morning at precisely 11:00, at the Seven Eleven, ordering my six pieces of fried barbecue chicken wings for $3.21. Six pieces are all I want, and all I can eat, at this time of day, though they are ten for $5.00– a better deal, especially when […]
Blood When Rui Urayama’s fingers began to bleed while performing Bartok’s Piano Sonata BB 88 at the Cincinnati World Piano Competition in 2015, she just kept on playing, she played right on through the Allegro moderato and then the Sostenuto e pesante and the Allegro molto she played on through the dissonance of the […]
Exploration for Lee Petsonk My friend Lee says I am in new territory. My back hurts, my legs, there is metal throughout my body, a shooting pain down my left buttock. Yes, I say, it’s new territory. Every day, I cross things I loved from my list: racketball, tennis, skiing, my bright future in golf. Soon, […]
Piano These keys of elephant ivory or alabaster or whatever against my fingers are like my lover’s flesh: whether I press hard or softly quickly or slowly there is music and even I, who am not musical or adept, can make sweet sounds from time to time without dissonance I can feel the solidity […]
How Not to Die Diet is a good place to begin Then exercise, of course, And as much love As you are capable of, spread In as many directions as possible Sex, too, is a good thing, Especially when accompanied by tenderness And generosity And don’t forget the weather– All kinds, inclement and otherwise. […]
New Year’s Letter, 2018: How Not to Die Diet is a good place to begin Then exercise, of course, And as much love As you are capable of, spread In as many directions as possible Sex, too, is a good thing, Especially when accompanied by tenderness And generosity And don’t forget the weather– […]
Doctors They descend on us like seraphim in their white coats armed with pens, clipboards and prescription pads, stethoscopes dangling from their necks like opera glasses, visiting us in the small cubicles they have set aside for those seeking salvation, armed with battalions of note-taking residents and interns, adulatory nurses. They come in […]
Treasure I dug I dug I dug I dug through stone I dug through dirt I dug through the fault lines of the earth All my life I dug Throwing dirt over my shoulders Casting boulders aside Ignoring the old skeletons of animals And of my ancestors I dug through the pain in my […]
How to Live Forever Diet is a good place to begin Then exercise, of course, And as much love As you are capable of, spread In as many directions as possible Sex, too, is a good thing, Especially when accompanied by tenderness And generosity And don’t forget the weather– All kinds, inclement and […]
Missing You It’s not just your body that I miss, though I miss it dearly. I miss your face– all of it, the pretty, ravenous nose, the perfect mouth I miss your ears too especially when I am licking them and other parts of you that need not be mentioned here Oh baby, […]
Abundance There are too many words in the world too many poems too many I love yous whispered into thin air There are too many speeches given by too many politicians too many public officials too many critical issues too many proposals on the table, too many weather reports too much weather even […]
Morning Song The sun shines on your face in the garden chair the tufted titmouse sings in the bowing acacia the moles commence excavating their tunnels you inhale deeply the scent of your morning coffee one breath follows another light slowly swallows the shadows on the grass. You are. The world is. This […]
Fallen, Risen You have fallen down stairs many times, risen and dusted yourself off and you have fallen on ski slopes, toboggan runs, off skateboards of many kinds, a broken bone here or there but never a tragedy. And you have fallen in love, of course, as we all have and lived to […]
Postcard for Winston Fuller There is no absence of self in such poems. The whatness of the moment is always someone’s awed account of having been there. It is always a postcard from one soul to another. The curtains float from summer windows as in a Wyeth painting All the little mountains dug up […]
Just Life The man whose son’s brain has been virtually eviscerated by shrapnel in Iraq and who’s been reduced to a caregiver 24/7 says it’s just life that it’s happened this way he says, without a trace of self-pity, it’s just life, as does the woman whose schizoid son has just been admitted to an institution, the […]
All the News That’s Fit to Print The news has spread among the blackcaps, greater tits and nuthatches in my backyard that there are fresh sunflower seeds in the feeder and a brisk wind blowing from the south not a word about Donald Trump has been uttered not a syllable about the markets even […]
Stone-Hearted “Hide your God, for as He is your strength, in that He is your greatest secret, He is your weakness as soon as others know him.” Paul Valery, The Art of Poetry I like working at a university where there’s a building called Mineral Industries and another called Pharmaceutical Studies. It […]
