Old Poems

These are a few old poems from back in 1999/2000.  The first poem came about one morning as I sat in the Panhandle in San Francisco sketching these homeless men who kept on flocking to a single bench, never seeming to speak to each other.

The Panhandle, 1999
What is it about that bench
a solid tree-green bench not unlike any other
that calls the old and weary to rest and lean and crouch around their cigarettes?
The bearded one only appears occasionally,
lingering in the background
a chameleon whose battered blue jeans and gray-green jacket
materializes when company arrives
and sits.
They don’t speak to each other
just mentally prop each other up
and watch the wind snatch away their smoke
and silently wonder if it is snatching away their breath, too.

Untitled
speak with your hands
with rhythms
the silk scrim before your eyes
filters through truth and forgiveness
for lost hours and miles apart
the yellowed gauze covering your senses
blocks words
but not hands
and rhythms
should you accept their graces
should you call out
should you call
should you call for tidal flows, squalls,
and the red beacon of shore-warning.

Conclusions, 2000
A conch shell’s ocean
plumbs deeper depths
than the folding of these words
but intent, dear friend –
that pale, delicate morality
so fragile in its astronomical positioning –
is my natural thread
bringing closure to the arrows of this night

Tagged as: Poems