Tutor

A Clean, Well-Lighted Place (Online) October 2012
A Clean, Well-Lighted Place (Print) March 2013
A Clean, Well-Lighted Place (Audio) May 2013

The trick, he said, is to sit
by the lake, write about water
and sky without using words
like expanse or dome; without
comparing one to the other;
without mentioning robin’s eggs
or azure; without resorting to
a recollection of other summers
spent by some other expanse
of azure, under some other
dome of robin’s egg blue.
The trick, he said, is to see
across the lake to the other
shore; to make the other shore
anything at all but distant; keep
the clouds from becoming cotton.

Fly Away Home

Poetry Breakfast (Online) October 2012

While you’re away this time,
and because I can never sleep
when you’re gone, I’ve had to buy
a big old sack of potatoes
to balance out the bed.
It’s not the same thing, really
but I have to admit: it’s not too bad.
Sorry about the sheets.

That meatloaf you made
before you left for the airport
lasted almost half a week,
then I just started ordering
pizza and Chinese take-out.
While I waited for your return
I carved a pumpkin. I tried
to make it happy, but it just
wouldn’t smile. Nobody came.

This morning it’s just me,
up early as usual, with
Jack Nicholson, Five Easy Pieces,
and the lovely Susan Anspach.
She, too, has beautiful hair.
I miss you terribly. Please try
to make it home for Christmas.

Bring me someone’s autograph.

Whither Thou Goest

Poetry Super Highway (Online) April 2012
(14th Annual Yom HaShoah--Holocaust Remembrance--Anthology)

Again the dream: the boxcar and the
long march. The camp. Last night, again,
selection and weeping. Ash in the air.

Don’t ask me why. Don’t ask me if
I miss someone I’ve never met, I
don’t. Except in dream, I was not

there to bear witness; was not there
at all. I don’t believe I’ve ever met
anyone who had to let their lover go

or let their father or their mother go
—I must have; must have met them,
but I can’t recall.

...........................This morning, though,
it seems I know them all. It seems I
stand beside them, waiting in long lines,

waiting in the cold on hard red ground,
surrounded by even harder faces, late
winter snow and traces of ash in the air.

Catching The Dalmatian

egg poetry (Online) April 2012

Just before he wakes up he reaches
for another jumbo shrimp. The cooler,
nearly depleted, is a mix of slushy bait
and warming beer. He snags one or
the other –he’s not sure which—
and wishes the odd lights at the bottom
of the dark pool weren’t so…what?
Hypnotic? Inviting? He sips his beer,
stabs another jumbo on the barbed
hook, flicks his ash and, with a flick
of wrist, casts the weighted bait.
A plop and a wait.
                            Half in the bag,
it’s hard to tell how long it takes
to finally sink to the bottom.
He’s had better days, he thinks;
he’d like to think that better days
are still ahead, but the bottom
of the pool beckons.
                               A sudden tug.
He jerks the rod to set the hook.
His head reels; “Dogfish,” he thinks,
“Or something worse,” and cuts it
loose. He lights another smoke,
reaches for another beer, watches
the neighbor’s spotted dog
squatting on his August lawn.

Heart

right hand pointing (Online) March 2012

It's not convenient now, is it,
having one that breaks, daily;
having one that fails.
When I heard you on the phone
I almost escaped knowing your voice.
Here, the leaves are changing;
out on your flats there is fog
and little or nothing to do,
nothing to be done.