Poetry

The Artificial Tongue

The dead around the tower seized
the artificial tongue,
which lapped half-truths in worn designs
and sang what had been sung.

They placed it gently in its box
and waited for false dawn
and ringed the tower in distress
when each had tried it on.

But when the dawn did not arrive,
they held their measured breath,
returned again to their graves
and died another death.

The Interment of another Man

I should be fixed on the preacher's words
but backhoes idle out of sight,
horseflies hum in mausoleums,
children snap their gum, bluebirds
dive and dispel the no-see-ums.
The sun is shedding little light.

And when I spied the billboard girl
in a choral spate of woolen grays
striding toward infinity,
I first surmised this somber mural
scene did not portend divinity
but was an ad for all that decays.

Søren’s Boat

Remnants of Nature in our Lives

Memphis Fall

Far from Pedestrian

The checkered sneakers stolen from a child
and yoked together with a knot of laces
now hang suspended from a power line,
transcending hopscotch, tetherball, and races.

Until a lineman comes to cut them down,
the pair will slowly twist as nature pleases,
darkened by rain or fading in the sun,
their soles tap-dancing in the lightest breezes.

Transit

From Tuliptrees

     (For T.H., 1982-2007)

Supernova

99 Bottles of Beer on the Wall

That summer when I couldn’t see
for grief — for who could guarantee
he’d ever walk again? – I’d sing
this song and pump my rusty swing,
till every bottle left the wall,
then start da capo (it was all
or nothing) in a voice, though small,
as if the magic chant might bring
my father walking back to me.