Poem: January 4, 2026

I think; therefore, I am

A pencil in my hand, 

pressed between my fingers

and thumb. I feel it there

as I scratch across the paper

and pause to listen to

the words that seem to come

from somewhere both me

and not me, and the pine desk

is solid, and my shoulder

solidly aches and has, I think,

for days. For Heaven’s sake,

I think, of course this is real,

but maybe I am mistaken.

Who knows what to make

of this red and worn sweatshirt,

the shadow the desk lamp creates,

my cold hands, the hum-um

of the washing machine and fan

in the room I assume is still there? 

Poem: January 3, 2026

Fantasy Dance

It’s been a while now

since we danced– 

hands on hips or shoulders

or holding other hands–

and I can’t help but think

how nice it would be

to find ourselves tentatively

reaching for each other,

experiencing a gradual

release in a dark room

under flying lights

and inside the thrumming

music that dances itself,

leaning into us as we 

lean into it and feel

the vibrations, our

Palpitations, and that catch

in our throats when we

fall into our lingering glance. 

Poem: January 2, 2026

Worn, Reworn

I would go exploring

on a green and stony trail.

Downward, downward

to a time when I

was so much smaller,

eight or nine,

into cool limestone and

the prickle-smell of pine,

and the thump-thump

of my steady steps

that pull back and

release forward, fighting

and chasing the slope,

deeper into the wonder

of a remembered world

I’ve suddenly never touched before.

Poem: January 1, 2026

Life

Let’s say I’m my own

experiment, some attempt

my consciousness makes

to understand

itself, the world, goodness

or evilness. 

The Why, The Truth,

the dot on the i of this life.

An experiment attempted

through the clumsy, 

scratched, dulled, and limited

instruments of my body.

And let’s admit that

the experiment is flawed–

awash in uncontrolled-for

variables, hopelessly

subjective and forever

ongoing with only

the squishiest hypothesis

to drive its questions.

How could this experiment

be measured, understood, trusted?

And how could it matter?

What rational mind would propose

or engage in this work?

What sentient creature could

ever do anything else?

Poem: March 12, 2024

No One

I run until I am invisible

and free from the tendrils

of the day and the treadmill

and the others who fill this space,

free of my ghostly reflection

that dances like a metronome

on the window, until, until

words are distilled into the thump

against my eardrum, the hip-hop hum,

the rhythm of heart and foot sung,

the lonely drone of breath, and breath,

broken down into the euphoric no one,

the untethered base note tone, 

the glowing glowing, solo, vibrant Ohm,

at one with the only unspoken one. Home.

Poem: November 6, 2023

On Strike

Of course the dishes are piled high,

teetering over the edges of the sink

and creeping onto the counter like

some kind of porcelain growth.

What do you expect when the muse calls

in its expectant tone- write me, you fool, 

write because there can be nothing else, 

and helplessly, I obey, I obey, I obey.

Are you really saying I must turn my head

toward the mundane? As if vacuum and dust rag

could ever speak to eternity, as if feeding

the cats could ever equate to feeding the soul.

I beg you to stay your harping commands, 

put aside your dull domestic demands.

I must be free from the constraints of

rubber gloves, wash tubs, sponges and drains.

Leave me to my silent, mystical drifting, 

my lifting myself above the earthly surfaces, 

and allow me the quiet, dusty spaces of my mind-

a mire upon which to build a mighty legacy.

Poem: September 11, 2023

A Discovery in the Library

We forget about the library
and its towering stacks--
the ordered labyrinth, the lines
that wrap around corners and
zag from top to bottom like
the path of an antique typewriter.

We forget we can travel from
Aristotle to Aristophanes, then
Herakles and Homer, Juno and Jove
and the collapse of whole civilizations
that lurched toward our own.
Ebbing and flowing. Exploding slow.

We forget we can get so lost in
the corners where no one has pulled
this history of textiles or that bible
of southern cuisine for maybe fifteen
years, but there they are, the voices
whose particular passions preceded us.

We forget there are treasures buried
in silt at the bottom of rivers of books.
We forget the lost cities sunk under
the weight of new cities, and thoughts
branched away from and returning to
themselves. We forget that libraries

remember.