will you drink more often
if your water is flavored with flesh
or will you stay stubborn

with dry gums and dashed dreams
wincing at each in-breath
inadvertently hitting the wrong keys

again you have your personal code
found ever at your elbow
and an uncapped pen

it was that look, from over there,
that primed the well
for drawing

again you offer your matching gift
of silence from afar
when your breath in my ear

would quench this thirst.
an empty bucket on a rope
dangles over a blank page

setting a setting
to convey intrigue
and coax

secrets encoded in color
evocative of what is not
yet open

a rolled wax candle,
burned just at it's long wick's tip
in our matching hue

not every dream
is a good poem
but every poem is a dream

Nothing Twice

by Wislawa Szymborska

translated by Clare Cavanagh and Stanislaw Baranczak

Nothing can ever happen twice.
In consequence, the sorry fact is
that we arrive here improvised
and leave without the chance to practice.

Even if there is no one dumber,
if you're the planet's biggest dunce,
you can't repeat the class in summer:
this course is only offered once.

No day copies yesterday,
no two nights will teach what bliss is
in precisely the same way,
with precisely the same kisses.

One day, perhaps some idle tongue
mentions your name by accident:
I feel as if a rose were flung
into the room, all hue and scent.

The next day, though you're here with me,
I can't help looking at the clock:
A rose? A rose? What could that be?
Is it a flower or a rock?

Why do we treat the fleeting day
with so much needless fear and sorrow?
It's in its nature not to stay:
Today is always gone tomorrow.

With smiles and kisses, we prefer
to seek accord beneath our star,
although we're different (we concur)
just as two drops of water are.

your face - as clear a vision
a conjuring, a plea
an ideal moment in a possible future

your voice - an echo in a tunnel
to my weak heart
unheard and unspoken

I will surely disintegrate if I am too far
down your earthen path
when I am so used to sand

this world - though stitched
with golden thread
defines the drape behind which you keep

silence amplifies our love
and our dreams of an ideal moment
in a possible future

and in our bravery - when we speak
our radiant joy, though it will not last,
will be a shard collected

what is never framed
cannot beautify, but sits instead
unloved in a pile

under the Nile, the silt
flows under the boats though
no one notices

smiles from beyond surround us
so sign up for more
and be satisfied

Gentle Admonition

thinking about doing
what is right is not the same
as doing what is right

what is most important
only has impact
if it is made most important

sunshine and birdsong
seep into your soul
only when you venture outside

so venture and make
your soul what is right
let light seep in and impact

Those who turn the many to tzedakah shall shine like the stars
-- Daniel 12:3

walk strong and point so
what is far away and continuous
appears as a point on the horizon

despite a dirty window
or our ugly impositions
a blue sky's abundant beauty

Occupy (11/9/11)

acknowledge the reality
assert your power
peaceably assemble and make your voices heard

we may not sit together
in quiet conversation
I fear

you come running to love
but meet a closed gate instead.
and yet,

you come running again --
all the world should learn
to love the way you do

Into A Fall

you live in my lap
as I drive through the wind
and struggle to breathe

Welcome Home

for Gilad Shalit

deep in the night
we cannot rest
we wait for your crossing

from icy night
through the narrowest opening
to your own back door

where we prepare to wash your feet
and feed you
and find your lost song

lingering in the grass
and in the sunshine that rises
this glorious day

found poem

Across
"And ___ bed"
Personification of desire

life's daily mess
invites me to jump in
and get dirty

your name passes before my heart
bidden by the clouds
both illuminated and ominous

everyday sustenance allows you to bypass
expenses, lessons and stats
in favor of happy and excited and tired

mysterious gurgling to the left
patience to the right
you at the center

another attempt at cleanliness
side by side
we scrub

instead of waiting to be fed
smell the grass or nap
in the delicious sun

your heart beats the skins
through the open door
I hear your beautiful cacophony

You Shall Further Instruct: Epigram

“An Epigram is a short, witty poem or saying that is easy to remember and is written to be remembered. …Epigrams have no particular form except their brevity (two, four or six lines) and their way of getting right to the point.”
-Handbook of Poetic Forms, 67


My Lord, I thank you for the honor
of anointing me and my sons
but we’d rather not smear warm blood
on our ears, toes and thumbs
 

Sent Away: Couplet

“The couplet is a couple, or pair, of lines of poetry, usually rhymed. Basically, by having two equal parts, the couplet is a simple and fundamental structure that reflects so many other basic structures in and around us, such as the human body’s two eyes, two ears, two hands, and so on, as well as our thought patterns of yes/no, up/down, and good/bad.”
-Handbook of Poetic Forms, 57,58


The Lord hurled the Pharoah into the sea
Both to gain glory and so I could be free

In thanks, I sing praises and work as I’m called.
True glory for God: joyful freedom for all

good news in the night
energizes and calms
like steaming green tea

Mild Dysplasia

Belly full of gratitude held tightly
to your chest, you will be brought, strapped to a board,
to an expectant place by an as yet unknown wind.
Toothless, you poke at my heart
every three hours in a dreamstate, your lips
pursed to kiss the cherubim that are an unshared secret;
I fancy myself a secret-sharer though I am, in truth,
simply a receptacle akin to a plastic bottle or a casket.
(You too will become a simple light bulb, abandoning
these days of neon waves without understanding. It is a fruit-bearing cycle.)
You live in a fortified moment
while I, joyfully, pump myself dry.

Renewing Poetry

This first true tear in a page
is my freedom to be more brutal and more liberal.
Bitter flow, foaming shouts, flowers on a darkening street.

The way words work between chubby fingers,
the work words do in the world,

words work on the world like lipstick,
chicken soup, nausea, and unexplained explosions,
often all at once.

I imagine myself dancing in black hot pants and boots,
wild and uninhibited. I also imagine myself as aloof
as everyone else. Somewhere in between is my song.

Time is a dwarf, a cut flower.
I will lose myself in the matching and choosing.

I will enter and be entered, and my face
will glow. Sweet smells will rise
from my fingers because it is no sin to uncover nakedness
before the beloved and I am here
to love you.