Because Her Heart Is Tender, for Beth
She scrawled soft words in soap: “Never Forget,” Dove-white on her car’s window, and the wren, Because her heart is tender, might regret It called the sun to wake her. As I slept, She
At Wilfred Owen's Grave
A week before the Armistice, you died. They did not keep your heart like Livingstone’s, Then plant your bones near Shakespeare’s. So you lie Between two privates, sacrificed like Christ To politics, your poetry
A True Story, for Jeremy
Jeremy hit the ball today, Over the fence and far away. So very, very far away A neighbor had to toss it back. (She thought it was an air attack!) Jeremy hit the ball
Fountainhead
I did not delight in love so much As in a kiss like linnets’ wings, The flutterings of a pulse so soft The heart remembers, as it sings: To bathe there was its transport,
Excerpts from "Poetry"
Poetry, I found you Where at last they chained and bound you; With devices all around you To torture and confound you, I found you-shivering, bare. They had shorn your raven hair And taken
Tremble
Her predatory eye, The single feral iris, Scans. Her raptor beak, All jagged sharp-edged thrust, Juts. Her hard talon, Clenched in pinched expectation, Waits. Her clipped wings, Preened against reality, Tremble. Originally published by
Will There Be Starlight
Will there be starlight Tonight While she gathers Damask And lilac And sweet-scented heathers? And will she find flowers, Or will she find thorns Guarding the petals Of roses unborn? Will there be starlight
The Octopi Jars
Long-vacant eyes Now lodged in clear glass, A-swim with pale arms As delicate as angels’ … You are beyond all hope Of salvage now… And yet I would pause, No fear!, To once touch
Flight 93
I held the switch in trembling fingers, asked Why existence felt so small, so purposeless, Like a minnow wriggling feebly in my grasp… Vibrations of huge engines thrummed my arms As, glistening with sweat,
Fahr an' Ice, Apologies to Robert Frost
From what I know of death, I’ll side with those Who’d like to have a say in how it goes: Just make mine cool, cool rocks (twice drowned in likker), And real fahr off,
Discrimination
The meter I had sought to find, perplexed, Was ripped from books of “verse” that read like prose. I found it in sheet music, in long rows Of hologramic CDs, in sad wrecks Of
Memory
A black ringlet Curls to lie At the nape of her neck, Glistening with sweat In the evaporate moonlight… This is what I remember Now that I cannot forget. And tonight, If I have
Mother’s Smile
For my wife, Elizabeth Harris Burch, and my mother, Christine Ena Burch There never was a fonder smile Than mother’s smile, no softer touch Than mother’s touch. So sleep awhile And know she loves
Redolence
Now darkness ponds upon the violet hills; Cicadas sing; the tall elms gently sway; And night bends near, a deepening shade of gray; The bass concerto of a bullfrog fills What silence there once
Rainbow (II)
You made us hopeful, LORD; where is your Hope When every lovely Rainbow bright and chill Reflects your Will? You made us artful, LORD; where is your Art, As we connive our way to