Sleepless in a chair
I glance at our bed:
Pale light on the pillow
on your sleeping face.
Not a poem. Not a dream.
I hear your winter breathing
and close my book.
* * *
MEDITATION
When his wagon became
trapped in deep Russian snow,
the wood-gatherer, my grandfather
cut loose his horse
and came to America.
Why do I think of this now?
* * *
Midnight.
A car alarm wails.
I pray for the thief’s swift success.
* * *
A SUBWAY POEM
Close up
the tall beautiful woman
at the far end of the car
is a boy.
* * *
A BICYCLE POEM
I look ahead
the hill is steep.
I look behind
the valley’s deep.
I look straight down
the road is flat.
* * *
Saturday night outside my window:
shouts, squeals, honks, laughter–
the raucous roar and splatter of life.
There is no noise.
* * *
THE LIFE I ENVY IS MINE!
In all his wandering, meditation
and joyful drunkenness
playing ball with the children
visiting the ladies
Ryokan, great hermit poet Zen monk child-at-heart
never got to imagine himself
sitting in an eighth floor apartment
in new York City!
Hissing waves of traffic
rising and falling slowly–
this cold March morning rain.
* * *
One brief horn honk
thru the cool morning rain
reveals the world.
* * *
Enjoy your writing
While you write–
Tomorrow your critic
May overthrow your muse.
* * *
FOR MY FATHER
Today a client sat with me
eyes swollen in tears
refusing to speak
of his dead young son
lest that death become
real for him.
Thirty-nine years have passed
since you left this floating world.
Where have those four decades gone?
* * *
Do I like meditation, you ask.
No…no, I don’t like it
nor do I dislike it.
What, you then ask
do I get from it?
Nothing I can
put my finger on.
* * *
A patch of sunlight
a window’s shadow
moves off my leg
an across the bare wood floor.
Now long ago
friends and I
would pass warm aftenoons
in the timelessness
of shared wine.
Where are they now?
Do they live?
Do they remember?
(Not all that long before my friend Ed Rothkowitz passed I sent him this poem. He replied, “Here, yes and yes.”)
* * *
When my father died
Spring flowers died
and all shades of Summer green
became the same.
Air was airless
the brilliant sun blinding.
* * *
Sadhu One of tens of thousands Just like you and me– Really.
Leave a Reply