Monday, January 30, 2023

A few haiku

December dawn

a blue ring dances

beneath the teapot


fresh snow

on a withered fig

the eyes of a deer


also

in this hurricane

ensō


a splash of Shiraz

the wail of

a wounded dear


puzzle peace

nothing about us

without us


Dupont Circle Metro

sunlight rings the bell

of a saxophone


brushing my nose

and her hair

morning breeze


at Woodley Park

the unbroken stillness

of an escalator


a taper of red

outside the grill

September sunset

Wednesday, January 11, 2023

Can’t stop, won’t stop . . .

 

AN IDEA OF IMPROVISATION ON THE LIBERTY BRIDGE

Maybe you’ve already heard about how

one night I allegedly gave her a ring 

of rust on the windowsill of her heart, 

or how I couldn’t see that her name could 

begin with the number e, but let’s pretend 

that Emily, my ex in cat glasses and 

a floral sundress, didn’t hand me back 

a bundle of fresh daisies, then dash 

across a bridge—frfr—just as my iPod 

cued Ahmad Jamal’s cover of “Wave.” 

Both waves and tears can be falling water. 

A wave can be water or a flag rippling. 

Some flags can be read. And surely as 

the Em Dash is named for Dickinson, 

before wrestling with her texts, maybe 

I should’ve taken an ESL course: Emoji 

as a Second Language. Perhaps she fled 

because I didn’t know the difference 

between semaphore & metaphor or 

perhaps because I couldn’t play a more 

dominant chord, or perhaps she simply 

longed for the longer fingers of a pianist 

to key the silent C of her efflorescence.

Maybe I crossed north over a cantilever 

bridge in May to toss a bouquet of daisies 

into the Monongahela. Perhaps certain 

pockets accumulated a few scents toiling 

overtime in the olfactories, but why did

my Beloved flee just as Jamal began 

fingering falling water? Here I should be 

frank, right? Forget that, even if it’s true,  

I didn’t misread Emily due to the wavy sines 

piercing my ears. Simply say, in place of 

her neck I nosed a bottle-blue scarf she’d left 

on the arm of a sofa. A steel cantilever 

here only holds up reality. Who could’ve 

smelled farewell before she high-heeled 

out the door? Before late sunlight outlined 

her path and I came to believe in God

as perhaps metaphor or sugar pill? I still 

didn’t imagine tears as more than waves 

of salt water under the bridge of my glasses. 

Didn’t Emily beg us to “dwell in possibility” ?

Let’s pretend I didn’t cue Jamal playing 

her name until crows wings darkened 

the day’s eye and my heart tapped out 

a refrain that rhymed with the fragrance 

of daisies.