My Blog

Blog

  • Tying my shoes

    There comes a time when
    shoe-tying is
    serious business.

    High stakes.

    Like, I’m starting to think
    all my shoe-tying up till now
    was just about
    getting ready for

    < bends >
    < ties >
    < upright >

    like that.

  • Take off your glasses Dan

    Take off your glasses Dan
    let the trees blur
    soft let the sound
    cotton fluff let
    the smell haze pulse
    let your thoughts
    melt like a plastic bag
    you flicked with a lighter so
    the words drop and
    splash the ground take
    your glasses off.

  • A friend’s recollection of 9/11

    Post-it notes in the air.
    Finding his way

    from the east side, near Grand Central
    to a friend’s place in Brooklyn

    over the Manhattan Bridge
    by foot.

    Everyone was walking in the same direction.

  • No matter what sidewalk

    Finding your rhythm
    there are familiar patterns you can scratch at
    to remind yourself
    your feet are your feet.

    You drag them along in new sneakers

    no matter what sidewalk
    you’re pounding
    it’s still

    those same toes.

  • Dad’s watch, again

    I’m wearing dad’s
    watch again to turn
    my left arm into his left arm

    to give him an easy way
    to remind me

    how time works and
    that the world keeps turning, the face scratched

    by him, by his dad, and now me.

    The seconds in
    some kind of rush who
    the hell knows why.

  • A couple

    surrounded by trees surrounded by
    Pittsburgh ruins
    that will be rebuilt

    dressed
    both in blue
    with just enough quirk to their style
    you know they put time and thought into it.

    Waiting for the wedding photographer
    and when you and your wife and daughter walk by
    and you say:

    “you are the best-dressed muggers I’ve ever seen.”
    the guy says:

    “That’s so nice. Give me your wallet.”

  • Your arm

    A were-child

    a little were-girl with ponytails and
    a bike with a basket and bell

    can eat her own weight in about
    an hour. Which doesn’t

    sound like much but you know

    that’s more than your arm, your leg,
    your head.

  • A case

    Is there a case to be made
    a first affirmative delivered in defense
    of collating those second-rate thoughts

    you might not see again (or even miss)?
    Shake them out of your hands, those
    drops of borrowed blue electric ink

    to make room in the sides of your fingers
    for some top-notch scribble sent down
    like a message

    in a lunchbox on string
    you once lowered through a bannister
    to rest on the carpet down below

    just in case
    someone curious walked by.

  • A beep

    A beep from the phone
    a text from someone and
    why not let it sit? Perhaps it wants to sit.

    Maybe it will
    ferment or blossom decay
    or dissolve
    into a small pinch of
    dirt in your slacks

    given
    enough time
    a little time

    time to rest and

    some loving lack
    of attention.

  • Wonderful, powerful

    Wonderful, powerful, important words
    I found today in Deuteronomy:

    “for our lasting good.”

    “Our” in this case, a people. Not a person.
    “Lasting,” to think past the moment.

    Now there — there is a phrase worth diagramming.

    Worth pondering, worth knitting, worth chatting about over breakfast.
    Worth adding harmonies to. Worth writing down.

    Worth being reminded of.

    Worth passing along.