Poetry

Landscape was never a subject matter, it was a technique, 
A method of measure, 
                                a scaffold for structuring. 
I stole its silences, I stepped to its hue and cry. 

Being born at all amounts to peering out from a cliff
Over the sea. The great jellyfish who spread their arms
Out on the sea tell us how deep our ignorance is.

The pigeon on the window ledge
beat its wings against the glass.
The student in the narrow street

I can’t imagine breaking up with you.
Instead, I think about the neighbors’ problems:
His anguished look seems punishment for truth;
his “other half” is thin and Puerto Rican.

A misty rain, no wind from the west, 
Clouds close as smoke to the ground, 
                                                      spring’s fire, like a first love, now gone to ash, 
The lives of angels beginning to end like porch lights turned...

Have you noticed the horses galloping past us?
Perhaps they are horses with no riders at all.
Perhaps they are riders who have turned into horses.

There was the knife and the broken syringe
then the needle in my hand, the Tru-Cut
followed by the night-blue suture.

On seeing you that second time last night,
Pat Benatar a disembodied blare
amidst a night yet ravenous for dares,
I thought I’d talk to you, to ask you why

To bring the night sky to life,
                                          strike a wrong note from time to time.