Category: Book 1

(Poem #357 on new numbering scheme)

The clouds became a fortress hung
against the rainy sky
The buildings lurked beneath, alone
like animals too shy.

(Poem #356 on new numbering scheme)

Some words come like air,
others like sleep. Steam rises
from July's pavement.

[daily log: walking, 7.5km]

(Poem #355 on new numbering scheme)

Apocalypses come and go
like swathes of summer rain
They sweep across the warm, damp streets
and push leaves down the drain.

(Poem #354 on new numbering scheme)

At work, I sometimes get so angry.
This tends to arise out of doubts:
the quality of my work.
Am I making progress?
Students fail to learn.
Colleagues don't care.
Kids complain.
I can't
help.

(Poem #353 on new numbering scheme)

If I had said the rock was mystified
what would have been my meaning? Would a rock
have hoped to understand what I had said?
Or would the rock just lie there, doing zen?

(Poem #352 on new numbering scheme)

the trees hang, depressed.
traffic zooms through summer's heat
and humidity.

(Poem #349 on new numbering scheme)

The monsoon brought clouds
and rain. I ate some oatmeal
from my small glass bowl.

(Poem #348 on new numbering scheme)

The animals were gathered to discuss
a plan to make the monkey their new king.
The simian was giving them a grin -
in fact, he felt an utter disregard.

(Poem #346 on new numbering scheme)

To eat is not now any luxury:
a dull task that's devoid of pleasure which
I do because I must despite my lack
of any sense of taste and aimless tongue.

(Poem #344 on new numbering scheme)

Perhaps the trees were happy with the move.
The dirt was nice; the buildings gave them shade.
At first, the rain was beautiful, it seemed.
But winds appeared, and blew the young trees down.

(Poem #343 on new numbering scheme)

The raindrops tried to take my window's screen...
a beachhead might be made, for further floods;
the other raindrops offered their applause
but gave them no material support.

(Poem #342 on new numbering scheme)

moss on dirt, under trees:
sudden greenness; summer rain
licks at the gray air.

[daily log: walking, 8km]

(Poem #341 on new numbering scheme)

Collected colors, named and counted now,
and various important types of lines,
arrayed on screens or paper so that when
it all is fit together, you see worlds.

(Poem #340 on new numbering scheme)

It breaks my heart to have students so smart
begin to show such weak but obstinate
resistance: they've decided not to work
and lost their interest in learning things.
Perhaps instead I failed to reach their minds.

(Poem #339 on new numbering scheme)

inanimate things
take on life when abandoned:
a chair in the grass.

(Poem #338 on new numbering scheme)

The contrast medium went in
injected by the nurse.
The fluid flowed, wine-bright and hot,
into my veins, and worse.

(Poem #337 on new numbering scheme)

Arranging words like little particles
of light that bound through space like hunted prey
that hope to flee those ravenous weird beasts
imagined, I decide to take a break.

(Poem #336 on new numbering scheme)

The rain arrived. Each year's monsoon
Begins about this time.
The sky becomes a vacant gray.
A gust finds some wind chime.

(Poem #335 on new numbering scheme)

The people were distributing their souls
across the city, traveling by train
through tunnels and among the buildings strewn
around the elevated tracks like toys.

[daily log: walking, 9km]

(Poem #334 on new numbering scheme)

Representations will unfold.
Then, mirroring moon's dusky gold,
they hover with laconic tones
until clouds can press them on stones.

(Poem #333 on new numbering scheme)

A tangled moon was weaving rough black cloth.
The poets noted this, with their swift pens,
but all their exploitations of the fact...
they failed to yield a single line of verse.

(Poem #332 on new numbering scheme)

I saw a solitude in startled stance
it stared at me across a gulf of space.
But nothing more ocurred. Its silence forced
my devolution into emptiness.

(Poem #331 on new numbering scheme)

There is a kind of microclimate
amid the dawn redwoods that grow
along the pedestrian
pathways I walk to work,
in the neighborhood,
amid apartments
and children.
The air:
cool.

(Poem #330 on new numbering scheme)

A single line across a blank page makes
a line alone, which demarcates nothing
But many lines together start to form
a representation which shows the world.

(Poem #329 on new numbering scheme)

The angel polychromatic will come
down rainbows, seeking to convey the host,
in all its numbers, under kingdoms dark,
until they fecklessly arrive in Oz.

[daily log: walking, 1km]

(Poem #327 on new numbering scheme)

The cat was jumping in the shrubs and grass
that occupied the edges of the path.
No one was seeing it, which set it free,
just like a tree that falls in the forest.

(Poem #326 on new numbering scheme)

I have this inventory: broken things,
non-functioning, old things - not problems, just
invitations to live more simply, so
my ancient television only asks
that I not watch it. How can I resist?

(Poem #325 on new numbering scheme)

The sky like tarnished silver overlooks
a world replete with immaterial
digressions which the philosophers speak,
until at last the night consumes it all.