Whoever created this art
Must have sensed the zeitgeist
Its imperfections are stunning
The more you look at it
The more flaws appear
And the more it appeals
To our distorted ideals
And submissive aesthetics
Tethered to culture
Whenever I see it
I’m reminded how near
We have remained
To our own failings
Our sublime dereliction
Impoverishing poverty
Denying earth’s dying
Praising the monstrous
Believing in art and in others

“Poetry heals the wounds inflicted by reason.” Novalis

“Somewhere in the world,”
my poet friend liked to say,
“there’s a stone that wants to fly,”
and I want to believe
there’s a stone that wants to fly,
maybe some magic stone
that doesn’t know it’s falling,
or like the Rosetta Stone
that doesn’t know its speaking,
or beach stones skipping waves,
arrowheads lean with hunger,
David’s stone and malachite,
moonstones to fly by night,
pumice clouds in the sky,
all stones that want to fly.
It could also be any stone
you happen to pick up
and weigh against life,
tell me it’s not flying
and I’ll know you’re a liar.

The sky wears monks’ robes
and walks with bowed head
but you can’t tell if it’s faith
or melancholy that pervades.
Thunderstorms as expected.
Days wear shaded garments.
Deep night follows deep light.
Raindrops drip from leaves
like birdsong turned to stone.
Even a butterfly struggles
to lift the light, flower to flower.

There’s something about this spring day,
it’s like a choregraphed stage production
of what spring in spring is made
with a comparable mise-en-scène
and singing of sylph chorus,
rain clouds adding distant drama,
sunlight streaming from the rafters,
the performance of a lifetime
from this cast of leaves and flowers
dancing to their birth,
swaying to their being in being,
and bowing to their end, as in love’s future.

Clockwork

A plum dropped into the brim-full
hour of summer
and to keep the edge of time
along the edge of space
fate rippled over the barrel head.

Moon Pearl

I reached my arm down into night
and raised up a moon pearl
which spilled back into the barrel
so that the heavens could hold a mirror.

Round Words

To hold the rain
the barrel must be saturated.
To be full of love
the body must be saturated.

Gyrosystem

The barrel sinks into soil,
grows roots, attracts lichen and moss,
insects and birds, bats and snakes,
and at the height of summer
morning glories entangle the barrel,
creep over the rim
and grow back out
blossoming wildly
like life twice born.

Tondo

Sometimes hanging grapes and leaves
are reflected in the convex mirror
of a brimming barrel, and deeper down
an idiotic Bacchus face looked up
having drowned drinking the barrel.

poems made of rainwater
collected in rain barrels
spare part poems
that squeak like a bicycle
Sunday poems
when nature is in worship
poems like rolling carp
eclipsing gold in shallow water
well-groomed poems
like the sons of barbers
poems like mirrors
hiding in plain sight
poems like floodlit fields
with empty soccer nets
sadly smiling poems
for having won and lost
imperfect poems
for being all too human
poems like children
laughing and crying
poems like vessels
in which the wine ages

After browsing the wretched news
I go out and see chalk flowers
adorning my driveway.
Starting today the children of the world
will be spared from our brutality.
Starting today all hate
will wash away like chalk rain.
Starting today all guns
will be drawn in chalk.