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POETIC CLARITY

Poetry is defined less by opacity than by negative capacity.   Things remotely intonated have the reader’s eyes awaited;   like Perseus with his mirrored shield, a reader may see what cannot be revealed.   Some say it has all been said before, yet poetry wishes to impart more;   one poem: the same, but each time new, because of all that we’ve been through.

LIBERTY

What is Liberty, if not a sacrifice made willingly against its enemies, domestic and overseas; as an individual, in spite of war and disease, to stand bold like Pericles, saying where there is a people, a conjoined will, there is a country? A human sacrifice made generationally, against tyranny, fought heretically,  against the majority. The unity within a democracy must be individuality.

SPIRAL STAIRWAY

Ambiguous light falls upon an unsuspecting hour. Memory, that silver star, refuses her curtain calls. I am enchanted by a spiral stairway— shadow play before and beneath it— and a single candle.

Block Printing

In mid-November, I started making block prints (e.g. linocuts). I had been drawing for two years as a kind of counterpart to my efforts in writing. Lately, I have been working on visual arts much more than my writing...

HIGH AND DRY IN SANTA FE

It is snowing. Looking out the window- I sit in my room waiting (no car, unmotivated [city on COVID lockdown], oh well).  The snow looks like Dippin Dots. It rests on our balcony. My wife went out, came back in; now cotton candy-like fluff all over.  Only water. I wish I had my car but I really don't have anywhere I want to go. My eyes drift to the yellowing leaves, intermixed with fading greens. The ivy, by contrast, is going red. I want my car. I have nowhere to go. Without it,  I feel stranded in the middle of a desert.

PRINCE AT PLAY (Seoul Pets #2)

Prince of Gangnam, those other dogs are your friends.  You must be kind to them. But instead, your young strength longs to be first always.  Do not forget your comrades. Fast-runner, majesty, slow down. Do not humiliate them because they are your loyal friends.