On:

I. Alice Everlasting Sure, the Dodo had its raceand I got my thimble backbut pattern recognitionhas been daunting ever since,the air marked by so much passing,blurry with regret. It’s hard to trusta shape, a beginning or an end,when all is crossing borders trailing ghostsof other minds and the remnants ofContinue Reading

On:

So why not use a classic form but bend the rules from norm,like this, which borrows artistry of classic sonnetrybut switches ’round the flowing sound which sonnets will perform,whose shards came down from greater bards whose words had been set free? Should this be done? Would anyone of sanity agreetoContinue Reading

On:

A Sonnet on Robert Frost’s “Mending Wall” Two neighbors both bring bricks in burly hands,their gnarled knuckles ready for the taskof keeping neighbors friendly when demandsof conversation’s more than they would ask. They’ll share a calloused smile once they’ve returnedeach spring, to make sure neighbors will atonewith reparations for theContinue Reading

On:

There was an old woman. I was quite young and green to the ways of the world. She looked like she might be a homeless person wandering about the mall in her shabby topcoat and unkept, mop-like gray hair. But she wanted to read something serious, she said, and thisContinue Reading

On:

Mendacium1 Blavabarbae maximum erat quod fuit una atque unica regula2: uxorem novissimam aliquid quod cuperet3, dummodo illud solum libidinosumque — non figere4 pusillam clavem in pusillam seram — ne ea ageret5, agere posse. At vero hoc fuisse modo principium, modo probationem scimus. Uxor cecidit (atque ut fabulam narraret6 haec similisContinue Reading

On:

An Evocation of Elizabethan Drama We look in the world’s eyeto ask if we are so wise now.When all is not well words dare not failto be the questions that answer allthe world will ask of doubt and shame.Our will is articulatein finding the meaningof a balance of possibilities.We winceContinue Reading

On:

An Evocation of Herman Melville I seek to speak all I knowof my life at close quartersin the ocean’s experience,having sailed its heartless swell,its dark night of the deepseven in the sight of landand there the peaceable bounty. My flesh is frost-witheredin cheerless chill deadening.I feel my heart’s hungerthat eatsContinue Reading

On:

Little brass welt how dare you try to mock meWe’ve come farther in one thousand & oneNights than any blue-eyed continental explorerI should shove you in a junk drawer & lose youFor letting in the nameless men of the palaceWho have become accustomed to measuringThis cursed room for their nextContinue Reading

On:

They keep doves in the palace & release themCeremoniously each sunset to mark the workOf women greeting husbands return from warThey light candles to hide the scent of sweatIn the red bedchambers while children watchMaids turndown sheets warmed w/ stonesFrom the garden where their mothers weepSilently mid prayer let usContinue Reading

On:

Remember that words have power when spunThe way they turn spider silk into tapestriesRemember your enemies laugh themselvesOnto the floor for the same reasons as youRemember the sound of my voice as I rockedEach of you to sleep during the rainstormsIf I cannot see you off to be married doContinue Reading