East of Upstate Eden

I was raised by woods,

swaddled in ferns,

bristly oxtongue sandals,

clothed in pine needles

and black earth.

In the winter I became trapped,

sometimes digging through the snow for hours.

Tears freezing in my lashes, I would think

of a warm house with a fireplace.

Now I live in cities and towns

where the acrid air infests my lungs

and there is never not noise.

Distant neighbors are the wildlife.

But when I visit, the woods reject me.

They send mosquitos and gnats,

images of snakes and bears,

to drive me away.

So now I am in between worlds,

homeless limbo

dreaming of that golden green

but lost in grey cement,

and brown and red rust.

The Crypt

Beneath ages of layers of moldering leaves,

where moss lays thick and vines like entrails coil,

the fell crypt, ancient, silent, breathless waits

behind stone doors carved in forgotten tongues.

We impudent young inebriates lounge

outside the threshold of death’s very door.

Bacchanalian, we tempt, we laugh, we dare

each other to knock, provoke an answer.

Under the entry a fetid air seeps.

A latch rattles, low groans and muffled cries,

gurgling, scratching, a bilious wind.

Our firelight faulters, our confidence dies.

We never speak about that cursed night,

and if we sleep it’s always by a light.

The Spirit of Autumn

In the autumn cold, the smoke-sweet air 

laughter births vapor dragons rising up from 

red-rimmed nostrils, and warm clove nutmeg mouths,

making streetlights holy haloes of rainbows.

Mellow golden light of the café spills 

from the shopfront window 

splashing onto the redbrick walk leaf litter.

The front door uncorks

in a champagne foam of warm earthen air,

and music, ideas, voices in conversation.

Heaven is a crisp fall,

rosy apple cheeks, an undone scarf that smells of 

shampoo and cinnamon,

infatuated laughter over hot cider, tea, coffee, wine,

in a warm, wooden bar 

that never has a closing time.

Illumination

 

The sunlight that looks 

through blinds past dawn 

paints stripes across 

spectral spines of books.

I like the way that looks

sliding across the white wall

when I come down the hall

for coffee.

The slant will shift

the angle sink or lift

as earth sails the sun’s

seasonal winds.

But no matter the lumens

that sight of ceiling high 

shelves stacked bindings looming 

in doomed winter dark will

shine forth discursive blooms

words woven as if by loom

enough to illuminate 

a morning living room.

Play

 

Play in shadow until the light of days

Be the light first until dawn’s golden gaze

The corridor awaits light slow walking

From the window across the threshold floor

Crossing boundaries blending the colors

Above all the human limit breaker

Pass surpass purpose encroaching wasteland

Cease at the final barrier of night

Calling where only the echo answers

Blue stonework of hands under dead trees fades

Indigo the night roads dust iron rusts

Engulfed and concealed within the shadow

Play in shadow until the light of days

Be the light first until dawn’s golden gaze

Insula

insulated isolated

insides violated

outside noise

boys will be boys

bullshit excuses

for drugs that are juices

more noise

correct is erect

and false is fallen

reality a sheet

of histories calling

precepts agreed upon

rest of us trained

if truth is a rock

we’re brained

wax in the wet-work

mucking up signs

static automatic

designs by dasein

rabbit is repetitive

habits order panic

derivative robot

wires sparking in the attic

insulation on fire

turned a house into none

sifting through the rubble

‘cause it had to be done

there’s no malice in the miscellany

had to be done

paranoia patternless

had to be done

pocket poesy in the ashes

it had to be done

bones of an island

one

The Follower

Under purple skies

near end of twilight,

with the red-orange eye

closing on the horizon,

he stood on a cracked salt pan.

A figure he dared not look at

stood beside him.

In the deepening dark

he asked, Is that it, boss?

Is that all? Is it done?

Out of the corner of his eye

he saw the figure nod once,

twice, and then turn

striding slowly forward in

the darkening desert,

stopping once to wait,

extending a hand,

until the man turned

looking down

and followed.

A swamp-deep voice

came back to him 

and congealed in his ears

on a black wind.

You got a hell of a nerve.

But you got here,

and this is where you are now.

As the eye closed and

enveloped him,

he saw he was alone,

and smelled the ancient sea

dried, crusted beneath 

tattered boots.

There were no footprints

to lead him onward,

but he followed anyway

as that was all

he had ever done.

Cacophony Swathe

What a mess it is 

outside and under my mind 

today biting

scratching to get in 

Computers crashing

plastic plane toys scattered 

pieces all 

over the living room 

napkins blowing by 

newspapers rolling flipping 

over down the road

The grating reverberations 

of the industrial park 

belch and saw mill through 

an air rich with a thick vein 

of fumes festering 

garbage and acrid exhaust

But my that summer ending

wind is nice and reassuring cool 

foretelling of a needed rain and 

bearing aloft the warm safe

smell of grilled dinner and charcoal

An early fall wood smoke and 

that electric hum is steady reliable 

punctuated with the static 

hiss of sporadic

cars traversing asphalt

The world is howling 

in its dying

but i am in this moment 

home

Black and White Cartoon

critical mass

canaries coal mines 

dead 

beat dads pockets turned out

like the cartoon poor

stubble face homeless don’t

hop trains no more

running on all that

black matter

smashed flat and

squeezed flatter

carbon sequestered

a mashed stash of 

fast cash for the fat

hungry rich pockets

to get fatter

Shallow/Deep

shallow, 

surface, superficial, facade,

outside, external, 

visible, perceptible, observable, noticeable, evident, 

palpable, tangible, touchable,

substantial, 

considerable, sizeable, significant,

profuse, abundant, extensive,

spacious, huge, immense, 

vast, boundless,

bottomless, unfathomable, 

deep

Month One

So, I’ve been at this a little over a month now and still going. If I listened too closely as my inner critic vituperates about my poetry, citing the exact number of hits my blog is getting as evidence, I would likely quit right now and save my pride. 

But what is this pride of which you speak?

As much as the time constraints rob me of layers of depth that I might be able to build into these poems, I believe I’ve still had a few slightly less shallow successes. In sheer volume alone, this may be the most poetry I’ve written at a single stretch, and I believe I can do more, and better.

Time to let you all in on something … 

I’m working on finishing the first draft of a fantasy novel I started two or three years ago. Part of starting this blog is to establish something of a daily writing routine. 

I picked poetry for this project – as opposed to short fiction or flash fiction – because of its compactness. It forces me to more closely examine my word choice, trains my ear, and I think those things will also make me a better writer of fiction. 

I know they will.

SOME OF MY GOALS:

• Try to have a first complete draft of my novel done by the end of November, which is National Novel Writing Month anyway, providing me with an additional layer of motivation.
• Begin rewriting/second draft after a short break.
• Send that finished second draft to some personally picked readers for feedback and corrections by the end of the year.
• Next rewrite/third draft taking feedback into consideration.
• I may try looking online for some freelance editors in late winter.
• If I can't use the only contact (I think) I know to get an agent, I will likely start looking into self-publishing toward the end of the spring/summer of 2022.

And I will keep writing poetry each day at least until the one year anniversary of this project.

I am aware of how optimistic the above timeline is, but I feel committed. 

Thanks so much to those of you who are still reading. I appreciate any feedback you want to give, and can definitely use your support/encouragement.

Be good to each other.

~MS

Green Glass Door

We used to play this game in school

that I wish we played at home.

about what kinds of things could pass through a green glass door

and other things that could not.

It was a game of riddles, which could go through the door,

as could puzzles, but not the jigsaw type nor word games.

There were different ways to play

depending on the solution,

which I also liked, but 

sometimes it was frustrating to get the wrong answer for a long time.

It felt like everyone else understood some great secret,

while I was left in misery and ignorance.

You see I always liked cooperative games,

rather than competitive ones, so

in a way I was already passing,

and I liked the art of argument, but

not lasting disagreement 

(disagreement could pass through the green glass door).

Then I got suspicious, because you could be in love,

but the green glass door only permits marriage,

unless you want people to start

making assumptions, 

which they could take in with them as they pass.

No jobs, only careers.

No growing up, just adulthood,

and if you want to play with your children

too bad. Only teens can pass.

Even after I apprehended the gloss of the riddle

I knew I would never want to go through.

It sounded shitty through the green glass door,

but it’s all some people attempt.

I would say it can go screw itself,

but there is no screwing through the green glass door,

only diddling

and it would like that.

Fighting Is Better

Sometimes when i’m anxious

i get angry

and tired and

i can’t tell if i want to fight

or sleep and dream of flight.

Sleep feels good when you’re 

finally giving in and

you sink into the 

comfort of

the dark

empty,

but

then 

eventually

i have to wake

up and i’m back to
anxiety inducing reality.

Anger 

feels empowering

and motivates me to strike

while my spirit is hot iron armored.

So i think fighting is better

because even if you lose

anxiety didn’t win

and probably it

learned who’s

boss.

Anthrogeology

the slow carve of time

wash the grit down

a thousand tiny knives

rounding stones

smoothing edges

spits the delta 

or ice melted

left a rolled dragged rock

strange not from here

the question

not why did it happen

how

our pathos 

too erratic abrasive

for time

Cradle

rows of windowless dull 

rusting metal heaps 

ancient dinosaur skulls 

blasted wheels on cracked 

pavement dried vein 

or stone scar sealed 

with black tar opening

crumbling at encroaching

roots 

power lines down

grid of rubble 

dust ash 

yellowed bone

in shadowed valleys of towering 

progress some rats starve

halfway between 

this borough barrow

and the next 

the tube’s lone serpent 

cradles her silent eyeless 

without complaint

continental teeth grit

chews into throaty trenches 

cleaned its slate plate swallowed

what thoughts? what philosophy? what laws? what triumphs? 

what despairs? what justice? 

what 

injustice? 

what resources? what humanity? what great

inevitable

dying?

the oblivion complete 

eons pass until the

star swollen with unknowing 

chaos consumes the last vestige 

of a small 

brown 

dot

 - - -

in the night

the sound of wet

wind-blown leaves

car tires rolling over 

the smell of rain-soaked streets

inside sleeping

my beloveds breathing

desire 

for their happiness 

fills my whole heart

purpose

soothes me back 

to dreaming

Dawning

morning squeezes            children quartered                curious control this

vice grip and push            in schools                             ritual morning

birthing                             adults drink                           horizon fire rises

the adult light                   coffee and labor                    sets kettles to boil

of newly broken sun         or dredge screens                 children to their

out and walking                data mine                              breakfasts coal 

or else                              answer emails manager        to burn cogs

commuting                       meetings boss customer       turning they call it

                                         service consumer                 the grind

dawns on me

why i’m a night 

person 

 

Inside Outside

inside within interior

private secret hidden

masked covered invisible

unseen covert surreptitious

unknown mysterious clandestine

unnoticeable furtive obscured

blocked barred barricaded

protected guarded sheltered

sequestered safe comfortable

familiar known unconcealed

revealed open outside

One From Google

I got it into my head 

to search,

“Who built the great pyramid at Giza?” 

The result was 

Khufu,

(Snefru’s son, also known as Cheops in Greek),

Pharaoh.

But how could one man

even in an entire lifetime have quarried and 

dragged those enormous blocks of stone

and placed them so expertly atop 

each other?

You may as well say the 

plantation owner 

harvested his cotton

or that Union Pacific,

in a Pinocchio-like miracle,

became a person after

the Civil War, 

like Paul Bunyan chopped

down all the timber required,

rolled its own steel,

and laid its own 

railroads.

Why is it

that one name, 

one face always 

consumes the many?

The wealthy have always been hungry

for the toil of the masses,

devour it,

and say “Look what I did!

What a good boy am

I!"

so that

four and a half thousand

years later

even Google gets it wrong.

Unrealistic

Maybe it’s unrealistic

to expect to work and be a 

good father and

a poet

to toil with words 

after bedtime and in-between the 

child’s feverish cries against

an impending day in daycare 

It starts to feel pointless 

to write a verse

when there are so many real things

to attend to

as though words aren’t real

inherently meaningless arbitrary 

sounds and symbols

to indicate a thing 

that exists outside

the poem

rather than plugged into it

like those spotted bananas

whose smell has overtaken

the kitchen and 

drawn fruit flies

onto a nearby sketchpad

(the bananas are good drawers)

or the washing machine playing

that little song when it’s

finished a load of drawers

or the sound of my wife

taking the load from the dryer

and putting the warm jasmine scented clothes 

into drawers

It’s no use to play with words

when the blustering wind outside

this poem

could blow the powerlines down

and the sheets of heavy rain

in the washing machine

could overflow the gutters

I guess i just can’t

help myself.

Old Journal

Found an old journal

and flipped through the pages

reading writing that was

mine at one time, but  

i didn’t recognize him.

He was slimmer,

smarter maybe

and hopeful. Optimistic 

about the future and

still with a capacity for joy.

i couldn’t root for him

because i knew the next chapter

so i put the journal in a box

and told myself

i would come back later

to mine it 

for fresh ideas.

Beige

Beige is offensive on an office wall

Its open hand smacks of enforced blandness,

the white corporate type, red-faced, all smiles,

internally shouting “Get back to work.”

Tell me beige is neutral and I might say:

Beige vomit of spoiled milk on bathroom tile;

A beige foam of scum on a morning tongue;

Beige pus spooned from infected open wounds.

Beige stings my nostrils like disinfectant.

My eyes water. I feel nauseated.

There is no more vulgar color than beige.

When I Say I'm Fine

fine like refined

programmed trained and

training takes time

as in life sure is fine

and a limit

life is fine up to a 

fine line

a fine is a penalty

for causing injury

one might pay a fine for

crossing a fine line

related to finish

this fine life

is finite and 

comes to a finish

how are you?

fine.

mentally fined.

internally confined.

finished.

A Ghost of Autumn

a ghost of autumn

haunts the summer evening air

and future falls past

four buildings red brick

heavy, tall, anchor corners

of corridored walls

with archways midway

within the square’s open heart 

a wide green courtyard

these well-worn walkways

through grass and stout-rooted trees

quietly waiting

footsteps through dry leaves

the swish and crunch and crackle

papery whispers

smells of hot coffee

chai with cloves and cinnamon

steam in low gold light

laughed conversation

yellow sweater, faded jeans

blue eyed poetry

now decades later

planted on a barren lawn

logy sunlight fading

dim recollections

kindle a last orange spark

to guide the spirit

Guardian Angel

At first it was a wooden angel painted

burnt sienna skin in a burlap robe

a yellow pipe cleaner halo

wire and white paper wings

affixed upon a fence post 

with a length of brown string

by small pale hands

Then with time and rot

or teenage target practice

the head fell off and

it was just the outline of wings 

some glass beads and chicken wire

Then in the rain the rust claimed it 

the shining tear drop beads lay in 

the high green and yellow grass 

and the dust blew west in the wind

Orchard

Untended boughs that bear fermented fruit

make sweeter shade where I may bide and drowse,

awaiting fell intoxicating loot

to gather up before the swarms can browse.

The feast replenishes a lost reserve,

a well inebriation unalloyed,

that filled us and surrounded us at birth,

and in our death will occupy the void.

In our youth with drunken lightness bounding

we staved off adulthood’s dull forgetting.

Panic says to heed this warning sounding,

“Find a laden tree and set to netting!”

or stroll with me down through the orchard gate,

and drink the atmosphere here while we wait.

Palimpsest

When earth shook 

we sheltered beneath you

and when the plaster fell

the white dust coated the floor

in a negative rectangle.

Dinner was ruined,

so we snacked and swept

and went to bed.

When foam darts flew,

and laughter filled the house,

we put you on your side for cover.

“Get behind the wall!” we shouted.

You were perfect protection until

someone whined it was no fair

and we tipped you 

back onto your legs.

When you were stained and scratched,

you went to the workshop

to hold tools, and nails, and glue,

and we made a birdhouse on you,

model planes, a box kite, a rabbit cage.

Later, when someone asked, “Where’s the hammer.”

and mom said, “Out on the workbench,”

we knew what she meant

because we were here for the change.

Then, just last night,

retrieved from storage,

scrubbed clean, and draped in a table cloth,

you were a palimpsest

set with plates and flatware.

We sat and ate and talked over you,

a practical place to gather for dinner.

And to think, 

sometime before we were born,

a carpenter received an order

for a table.

July 5th

There were explosions in the air

and blood on your hands.

Our child, afraid for you, barricaded his door.

Our child, afraid of you, said nothing when you knocked.

You must have been certain your heart would never be your own,

certain you would never be free,
labelled a madwoman.

When your husband left that night, with a red patch on his pale white face,

he told you that you didn’t mean it. And you wondered,

what else you could possibly have meant.

The next morning despair washed over you like an ocean.

You could scarcely get out of bed.

You took your pillow and a roll of tape

to the attic

where there were also shells.

You brought our blue child 

a little happiness with his favorite distraction,

and went to the far side of the yard,

just out of the white-hot July sun,

into the cool blue of the shadows.

In the air, even the day after the holiday,

one could still hear the muffled reports of

independence.

You should be here now 

only to know

his heart is not his own,

but it will be.

Sometimes he blames himself.

Reminders are many, 

but never inescapable,

and while a once happy distraction

is now a source of dawning despair,

there are other ways to be happy and free,

and he will know them.

What else 

could you possibly 

have meant?

Early Spring - Fredonia, NY

 Subtitle for this one should be: Hey Look At What I Used To Do. I Used To Be Not Bad At This.

Oil Pastel and Colored Pencil on paper, Spring 2012 or so.

Three Brothers/Garden of the Gods

The Eldest

the god of battles

and of arrogance.

The god of sons fist-fighting

alcoholic abusive fathers

to protect their mothers 

and siblings.

The god of running away 

to avoid remembering and of

willful forgetting.

The Middle

the god of art

and of giving up on art.

The god of intuition

suspicion

and conspiracy theories.

The god of mimesis

confused longing

unquestioning obedience

defensiveness

and of short fuses now.

The Youngest

the god of song

and of aloneness.

The god of caged birds

aimless freedom

and of could have done more

and didn’t.

The god of precocious children

whose parents want them to be

seen and not heard

and of being compared

to brothers who 

weren’t there.

They went for a walk in their garden - 

ancient rocks worn by sand and wind and rain 

in precarious balance - 

together for perhaps the last time

and silently regretted the past.