Lenore
I wrote against night and forgetting
for a lady still as thought
we had a plain dinner
among the graves
the hill slept
in the manner of cut stone
Poems on the topic: stone
Poems on the topic “stone” on Poets.by.
Handy
my fear is
ready to hand
and concise
like a stone
to carry when
one travels
or a castle of ink
for the best
pit I know
Seizure
having a fit in the garden
my whole mind against
one stone
a rabbit at the fire
Hillbilly
A stone in a dish of peas,
I have come far.
Ladies look freely
up and down at me
and some walk
up and down the town,
which makes me think.
Cemetery tourist
A little churchyard:
graves tempt
with stone and gates,
old walls
and seeing nothing.
To-do list
Practice walking; begin in the yard.
Afterwards, talk to a stone.
Do nothing.
Let a black dog into the kitchen
and eat a great head,
too much to boil.
Hanging jack
My lute an office
where I expect to walk.
I found a stone in mourning
for the temple.
Bread and butter were discoursing
of the great eater.
I remember a hanging jack
to roast birds—that heat.
I played a while on my lute
and could not kill anything.
The Remains of the Night
the moon falling into a well
and not coming out
an 18-wheeler on an exit ramp
gargling with compressed air
the owl’s open eye
the owl’s closed eye
the hypothetical fact of a fox
a rumor of a coyote
the skillet under two eggs
sunny side up
familiar recorded music
the bits that still surprise
my heel where i landed hard
on a sharp stone yesterday
snag of a hemlock
its roots becoming tunnels
Psychogeology
the stone is no home
for solemnity
the stone must be open
to time and ruin
approaching the ground
with no earhole
green and slow
like a ship of fools
Brachiate
I don’t remember the dream that woke me, just that it seemed suddenly very important to breathe, and to go on breathing. To go on, despite fear, loneliness or depression. I thought of a stone I’d found on a walk that was too charismatic to just toss aside but which I knew I had no reason to keep, since I’m in the process of moving out (or was, before the pandemic hit). I put it in my pocket, and a moment later took it out again and set it down beside the trail for some child to find, with its red mineral heart outlined in yellow. I thought of Charles Simic’s definition of a stone as a mirror that works poorly.
brachiate
as if my lungs too
might leaf out
The Hollow (46)
at the bottom of the mountain
a small mountain
of gravel
riprap
just enough soil
for anise root
where the hollow empties
its silence into the gap
old cellar holes
locked gate
stroking the touch-me-nots
so they burst
The Hollow (42)
whispering against
the road from both sides
endless water
backhoe toothmarks
our complicated relationship
with the mountain
gabion wall
the quarried stones softening
with moss at last
a beech log’s pale skin
beginning to rupture
that rich ferment
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