Poetry
Self-Examination: Reflections in a Mirror Time once again for my six-months’ exam I stand before a mirror to assess This aging body’s state, each troubling sign I’ll need to show my doctor — lumps or …
Shelly Beach Sunday A girl climbs in the scarred pandanus, a boy digs a moat in the sand, a yellow sail glides on the swell, gulls and terns hang blithe behind the surf, then hit …
Security Light The glow outside our window is no fallen star. It is futility itself. It is the fear of night a neighbor burns with, nightmare of a stubborn child. I dreamed of chasing crows …
La Jolla Boys We sit here on the pier and think That, someday, we will drink. We tip our Pepsi toward the sun It’s vintage 1981. Still too young for real fun And rich La …
Happy the Man Happy the man, and happy he alone, He who can call today his own: He who, secure within, can say, Tomorrow do thy worst, for I have lived today. Be fair or …
Cocoon The zodiac, the dozen eggs, the twelve Apostles, roses, donuts, tribes, the hours That make a clock, the months that make a year, The years that make a marriage warp and weave, Your eyes, …
California Hills in August I can imagine someone who found these fields unbearable, who climbed the hillside in the heat, cursing the dust, cracking the brittle weeds underfoot, wishing a few more trees for shade. …
Small Business Man He says it’s for money – they all do. Hypocrites, you know, in their small way, pretending to be more worldly than they are. He works morning, noon, afternoon, far into the …
On a Pair of Dice We are little brethren twain, Arbiters of loss and gain, Many to our counters run, Some are made, and some undone: But men find it to their cost, Few are …
Catullus: LVIII by R. C. Trevelyan My Lesbia, that Lesbia, who alone Catullus loved More than himself and all who are most dear to him, Now in cross-roads and alleys trading her charms Fleeces the …
Horace: Ode I.25 How infrequent now the insistent tap Of bold young fingers at your well-latched sash. No sleepless nights for you: the door that once Rocked loose and lively on an easy hinge Clings …
When Narcissus had just turned sixteen he looked as much a young man as a boy. Many girls, many boys wanted him badly, but (in his lean body was such cold pride) that no girls, …
— For Loren and Janie Slye We’ve come by boat upriver some nine hundred miles along the Amazon, and reached its origins, the meeting of the Solimões and Negro waters, confluent but not commingled, flowing …
Off the Pond Sunset off the pond, uncountable sparks; Faces. Blood-fall color of oak shimmering On the path — rough, cheeks of grandfather arch Along the trail to the pier’s end. Standing Out over the …
Insomnia & So On Fat bed, lick the black cat in my mouth each morning. Unfasten all the bones that make a head, and let me rest: unknown among the oboe-throated geese gone south to …
The Fault Along the Floor The fault along the floor between these molten beds which we have made, to unmake, and in which we must lie still until the quake has passed us, and a …