Shaving the Ghost
An old man nicks his chin shaving and hears
his dead father sigh, sees his father’s hand
search the cabinet for the fat styptic pencil
that got dumped in the trash fifty years ago.
Category / Poetry
Les Nouvelles
It was the kind of news should come
in a light blue envelope with French stamps
and my name and address in cursive, in black ink
or typed on an Olivetti with keys in need of cleaning,
Poem About the Wind
I’ve always wanted to write a poem about the wind
doing what wind does: speaking
in leaves, shaping
sails on horizons, lifting
the pappi of dandelions into sunlight
over parking lots, or purring
in the cracks of shut rooms,
wind at the shift of seasons screaming,
While My Mother Worked the Night Shift
My father dipped me in milk gravy
so thick and velvety I wanted to play
with it, mash it into the palm of my left hand.
He offered cathead biscuits before
school on dark January days after the
Christmas hangover. It was almost enough.
Farewell Tour
Gradually, the rock bands of the Sixties
announce their final concert tours
as their members turn wistful and eighty.
They try to salvage that early glory
one more time for us, the loyal fans
who have followed their tabloid story
and will pay anything to see them perform
A Nice Girl’s Temptation
She met him on the way to Sunday school,
his hair unruly and his shoes untied,
fresh face of a boy, eyes of the man who’ll
never give in, nor bend, neither abide
Shark Reef
We went out seeking eagles.
We found two ravens and a gull
and strands of bull kelp left ashore
in fraying shawls the driftwood wore.
We found bones.
A seal had washed up in the stones;
August
As if drought could ever empty it
the well of grief glimmers full
topped up like a bitter drink
we never ordered.
What Won’t Last
Before they put me in a grave or an oven
to be taken up by the power of elements
chewing or burning away my decaying flesh,
I’m putting words down that won’t last
through the drying of one or two shed tears,
Nightcall
when night presses down
and muffles all sound
when your wings are weary
and you would be chained