Year: 1996

  • (Poetry) Returning Home


    Coming around the hill, on the Interstate at the Ridgecut, the city sweeps into view: the trees on the roadside edge are only partly blocking nighttime lights, only partly obscuring the upside-down skyscape of white streetlamps garnished with red and blue from signs and towers and the spray of light from cars in motion. To…

  • (Poetry) Speaking Up


    Is this some lingering embarrassment we hide from ourselves? “Without truth, there is no hope.” I mean to say — if anything can be right, then anything is right: and nothing is wrong. And my hopes, my dreams starving, dying, R.I.P. (as if there were peace when anything is true.) I say, if life is…

  • (Poetry) Mindset and Match


    Icy rain hits the windows of his apartment as I smile and nod, as I sit on a cast-off armchair and listen: “The entire organization of salesmen has been turned upside-down. But I believe I can make a special deal for myself.” A deal, no doubt, that’s pure commission mixed in with blind optimism —…

  • (Poetry) On Selling Air


    I’m not the only one Who sees the truth Beneath the skin Of our stated promises and ideals. Perhaps: my task, the skin to unpeel. This issue from my work’s not said in jest, in fun; And I’d rather not be mean, nor ruth- Less in my avoidance of this apparent sin. Still, in a…

  • (Poetry) Ninety-Six Ice


    Beginning on a Thursday night The rain became sleet, became ice — Later falling as snow.On Friday there was A give-and-take: The gift of weather (A day off from work) And the inevitable tax (The power went out). I remember Saturday, But I don’t much recall What I did: The power had been restored, And…

  • (Poetry) An Hourly Rate


    Trying to look forward Into my uncertain future, What I am feeling Is more or less A sense of gain shadowed by cost. Yet, it “shouldn’t” be so hard: The calendar, binding like a suture Stretched across time (for healing; Adding to the stress), Stems the flow of days lost. I do admit a perspective…