Tuesday, November 13, 2012

The Grind


A girl is a girl until she is a woman,
Which is more how she
Enters a room
Than lust

We met so many times I forgot
To forget your name

And I think you forgot to
to fake the same

we parted in July
unable to speak fully
as explosions colored the sky
-------------------------------------------
you remain despite all this;

Which is strange

Because ‘all this’ is stretching
into open air
and cannot be contained
By the length of your hair



























Everyone forgets that Icarus also flew.
It's the same when love comes to an end,
or the marriage fails and people say
they knew it was a mistake, that everybody
said it would never work. That she was
old enough to know better. But anything
worth doing is worth doing badly.
Like being there by that summer ocean
on the other side of the island while
love was fading out of her, the stars
burning so extravagantly those nights that
anyone could tell you they would never last.
Every morning she was asleep in my bed
like a visitation, the gentleness in her
like antelope standing in the dawn mist.
Each afternoon I watched her coming back
through the hot stony field after swimming,
the sea light behind her and the huge sky
on the other side of that. Listened to her
while we ate lunch. How can they say
the marriage failed? Like the people who
came back from Provence (when it was Provence)
and said it was pretty but the food was greasy.
I believe Icarus was not failing as he fell,
but just coming to the end of his triumph.
Jack Gilbert 1925-2012 RIP
























































The greater purpose of life involves tossing things into the air, watching them rise into space then letting them spin uncontrollably until they strike the ground. To set something into motion and witness it react completely out of your control. To both make motion and be completely unable to stop it.

Friday, November 9, 2012

Ian Barry

Its been over a month since you passed, but sometimes it still feels like yesterday. I am never going to forget that morning in the hospital, I am never going to forget how familiar your hand felt even after you had left your body. I am never going to forget seeing your Mom and Dad, that was the hardest part.
Some wounds never fully heal, and in a way I am OK with that. I don't want to ever stop hurting when I think of you. The hurting is the thing that makes me really appreciate who you were and what you meant to me. it makes me want to be more like you. Its a beautiful pain you cause me, Le Friend, I am blessed to have known you and I am blessed to carry you with me still.







 I remember the river,
And slipping into it while
Screaming at you
Through the snow.
I remember you laughing
As you helped me out

I remember your birthday
When I fell onto you in the ice rink
And my skate split open your finger;
How we had to bandage it up and leave,
And you wouldn't talk to me in the car

I remember the flower fields
And crouching beneath reds and yellows
Hiding from our parents,
Giggling as they called our names

I remember New Years
When we drank Martinelli's
And stumbled through the yard with sparklers,
When midnight felt like staying up until sunrise

I remember that week
You were obsessed with digging holes
And I helped you move dirt in your backyard
Without ever questioning why

I remember when the waves were big
And I was too afraid to go out
So I watched you from the cliff

I remember the flannel you gave me for my 18th birthday
I still wear it sometimes
even though the buttons are broken

I remember when you cried
After I threw your hat into the lake
I didn't know then how strange the world makes us

I remember your hand
And how it felt when it pulled me from the river
I remember how it felt in the hospital too
I can still feel it now

Thursday, October 18, 2012

Soliciting the Soul




There's an art
To the interruption of lives
 a gentle knock that deceives
of friends stopping by with
 honeyed-news; and they sock-
shuffle to the door, speculating what
passing pleasantries will be
exchanged on the other-side,
only to be jarred by foreign features
and a shameful glimpse at the unexpected


The woods are the book
we read over and over as children.
Now trees lie at angles, felled
by lightning, torn by tornados,
silvered trunks turning back

to earth
-Wyatt Townley







Wednesday, September 26, 2012

Flat Side of the World


We say
pinhole.
A pin hole
of light. We
can’t imagine
how bright
more of it
could be,
the way
this much
defeats night.
It almost
isn’t fair,
whoever
poked this,
with such
a small act
to vanquish
blackness.
-Kay Ryan






We could never become raindrops
Regardless of our tries to dive after them
They return to the bent foam
And we splutter to the surface,
Half intact and wholly alone amongst
The rimless flood