Of the Sea I Sang

 

In the waves of the ocean she sat.

Not like a bar of sand.

She was like the soughing trough

Of waves bobbing up and back:

Amphitrite herself.

I was no Poseidon

You can bet.

No boaster of offspring

Of heroes and men.

Though she was spread

Before me like the ocean bed.

It was the way she moved

That expanded my chest: bedecked

In conches, chambered nautiluses,

And a seaweed dress:

Dancing with the plants of the sea,

She had liquid feet and liquid

Was most desirable to me.

I would call for a storm

And she would perform:

An army of waved arms.

And, so it was with calm.

For this I loved her best.

Her willingness to submit

And stroke my trident

Once and again.

                                                                bio       printable

I Was Riding on a Horse

 

 

I was riding on a horse.

The horse wouldn’t stop.

Down a narrow trail

Bordered by leafless trees

We did our best

To not be caught by thorn and branch.

I let him run free

For he knew the trail better than me

And we cantered upward to the grassy grounds

Where wild horses run around

And the clouds are free.

I held the reigns loose

To encourage the horse’s truth,

For he was the best of steeds,

One that moved when he saw the shadow of a whip

And needed no more encouragement than this.

I was the rider.  He was the creator.

Everywhere his hoofs struck

The woods were covered in stonecrop

And lit by creeping flowers.

We reached a graded glen

And I got off and patted him

And he took off like a line of verse

That burst like blood to the earth.

Whether I had brought him to this pass

Or he had drawn me up was unclear:

Certain it was that I could not fly with him

To Mount Olympus and claim kinship

With those who resided there.

We went down as we had climbed up.

On the steppes and in the lowlands

Together we composed words and tunes

To share with men and that was enough.

                                                                                printable

I Lay Down to Sleep

 

I lay down to sleep prepared for anything.

The windows had turned blue, before they went black,

The color of a slate at school.

I had learned something that day.

The living don’t know what to do:

The dead are as certain as they’re closely fit

Into the satin lining of their coffins without shoes.

The man from the chapel opened the lid,

So I could identify the person within.

Father looked different than he had

: He looked beautiful.

Color was returned to his cheeks by rouge,

And he was dressed in a jacket and tie

He would never wear otherwise.

I kissed his forehead.  It was cold

As the refrigerator he had slept inside

While the moon passed over the buildings’ roofs.

It is words that the living stumble over:

My father was planted in the earth

In a casket that looked like it would split

When the plowed earth was thrown over it.

Silence was my father’s way alive and now:

In that box of sticks he was perishable.

Besides reading psalms and the Mehilah,

The only sound was my wife’s tears

As they struck through dust and years

“And the pity of it.”

I was dressed in black like a crow:

The only bird my father ever shooed

With his hand and never a sound.

He knew the end of it.

I went to sleep from the dark to the dark

And saw no sign of him.

                                                                                    printable