I felt the floor move beneath me
Downstairs activity tremored my tree
Nuts fell all around, inedible, indelible.
So I went to the park, sought out shade
Set my things below a large post oak
Its armlike branches reaching down
To ruffle the grassy hair of the ground.
I tossed a blanket
Ate a butter and bacon sandwich
Tried to get comfortable...
1
I was struck by the rightness of a Morandi still life, leading me to believe (again) I could paint something similar, or should try in any case. Are my old oils still any good? Am I better with either color or depth?
2
"There's a dead branch out there," she said, pointing out the window.
"You dissembler," he said, raising a knee and tapping it with the opposite hand. Then raising the other knee, tapping it with the other hand. "These are my new calisthenics," he said.
The sound an airplane makes
is what it means to cut the sky with a knife.
Contrails are not clouds but sutures—
scars left behind, eventually fading,
no soil in blue.
Sadly, I have no more visions.
I foresaw neither Connecticut
falling into the ocean nor
the tremulous sinkhole it bred
in my second-floor apartment.
Pelted again with
the stones of incorrectness,
I’ve had to evacuate the state.
Keep the borscht cool.
See you in November.
To narrow wins,
to fat ones,
to pretenders.
To the factory shut down
then sent away. We
welcome you back
under different rules.
Everyone got drunk
when Congress worked together.
This time it’s different,
turn the page.
Cracks like these like those
in the earth’s crust. Take
time to heal, never heal
completely. Not wise to build
on but people do it anwyay.
Earthquakes the moments of
raw words and return.
JBR.com 