Tuesday, January 31, 2012


LINES FOR JANUARY 31

Wash of the universe,
wash of constancy,
certainty that

what is, is.

Monday, January 30, 2012


LINES FOR JANUARY 30

“You want to play music,”
the old guy said,

“you need to do a lot more practice,
a lot less fun.”

That's like writing poems,
I've found.

Sunday, January 29, 2012


THREE from
THE OLD POET SAYS

"Hope is
the bucket

with a hole
and no

handle."

*

"Off-handedly
easy

is so hard."

*

"Why do you keep asking
how to

when what you need to know
is why?"



Saturday, January 28, 2012


THREE from
THE OLD POET SAYS

"You would make lines?
Listen to how

the language breaks."

*

"Hard to tell
if it's a church
or a bank.

That's the way
the want it,
I suppose."

*

"You want to
write? Listen
to the voices,

else you have to
imagine them."



Friday, January 27, 2012


LINES FOR JANUARY 27

Great sorrow?
I do my best.

Work with it.

Thursday, January 26, 2012


LINES FOR JANUARY 26

City brightens
like the coming day.

Wednesday, January 25, 2012


LINES FOR JANUARY 25

I've promised
what I've promised.

One doesn't break that,
even now.

Tuesday, January 24, 2012

LINES FOR JANUARY 24

Great sadness
like a cloak.

The calling
silence.

Monday, January 23, 2012


LINES FOR JANUARY 23

"Below zero!"
the crows
keep saying,

while I
keep calling
"Spring! Spring!"



Sunday, January 22, 2012

THREE from
THE OLD POET SAYS

"Driving with
tank on empty -

the poet."

*

"Of course the
sons-a-bitches
never stop -

that's why we call them
sons-a-bitches."

*

"It's
enough

if it
sounds

like it
makes

some sense."


Saturday, January 21, 2012

THREE from
THE OLD POET SAYS

"Always it's the naked chickens
complaining about the storm."

*

"Keeping your ON
button constantly

ON, you run down
the battery, yet

how else poems?"

*

"A poem is
the only few

words that mean
anything."


Friday, January 20, 2012

LINES FOR JANUARY 20

Smear of clouds
where day would break.

It's always something.


Thursday, January 19, 2012

LINES FOR JANUARY 19


Wraith, specter,
air. Yet more

than air - a chill
where air has been.


Wednesday, January 18, 2012

LINES FOR JANUARY 18

Hawk high in the tree.
Below, grass and snow.


Tuesday, January 17, 2012

LINES FOR JANUARY 17

Grey sky.
Grey-winged death

sliding sideways
on frozen wind,

all God's creatures
digging in.


Monday, January 16, 2012

LINES FOR JANUARY 16

Bird
perched down low,

hoping for sun,
getting snow.


Sunday, January 15, 2012

THREE from
THE OLD POET SAYS

"The hard lesson is
learning to call it

what it is, not what
you wish it to be."

*

"Keep writing," he told them.
"Even a monkey-brain

can make a poem."

*

"How to count
poems like these?

Stomp your foot
on the beat -

that's one, that's two,
that's three and four.

See?"


Saturday, January 14, 2012

THREE from
THE OLD POET SAYS

"So much easier
to just watch the road

than to watch for poems."

*

"You say
you believe
in angels?

Put your
god-damn
pants on."

*

"People,
how can I
write poetry

when you
call me all day
with money

questions and
insurance problems?"


Friday, January 13, 2012

LINES FOR JANUARY 13

Four below zero
this morning -

the chickadees
talk of nothing else.


Thursday, January 12, 2012

LINES FOR JANUARY 12

Winter so bitter
you can still taste it.


Wednesday, January 11, 2012

LINES FOR JANUARY 11

Sun on the wall of snow.
Long shadows on the road.
That which is lovely,

always before me.


Tuesday, January 10, 2012

LINES FOR JANUARY 10

Web of the trees
against the evening,
as if a net.

Even in the dead
of winter, the river
wends its way east.

I am headed west,
against the grain.


Monday, January 09, 2012

LINES FOR JANUARY 9

Not sunset
this mid-winter evening, but an ember
smudged out.


Sunday, January 08, 2012

THREE from
THE OLD POET SAYS

"You don't know
when lightning strikes,

nor when a poem."

*

"Sometimes I have to
hope I run out of

poems before I
run out of paper."

*

"You punch
a poem's

button,
you can't

un-
punch it."


Saturday, January 07, 2012

THREE from
THE OLD POET SAYS

"Does not matter
how many

you throw away.
Only matters

what you keep."

*

"Sometimes they come as neat couplets
and sometimes they get away from

me."

*

"Another day.
Another poet

with nothing
to say."


Friday, January 06, 2012

LINES FOR JANUARY 6

Winter goes
about, snow

between her toes.

Thursday, January 05, 2012

LINES FOR JANUARY 5

Up before the sun -
but in January

that's not saying much.


Wednesday, January 04, 2012

LINES FOR JANUARY 4

These woods
in winter -

darkness
at the edge

of light.


Tuesday, January 03, 2012

LINES FOR JANUARY 3

Snow
like dust in the air

and wind
like winter remembering

the hard times.


Monday, January 02, 2012

LINES FOR JANUARY 2

Trees against the snow
like capillaries -

morning so bitter cold
the blood won't go.


Sunday, January 01, 2012

THREE from
THE OLD POET SAYS

"It's like fishing," he said. "You've
got to keep a line in the water,

watch the bobber, set the hook."

*

"Put your
words
on paper.

Let them
crawl
around."

*

"Prose is
a kind of speech.

Poetry,
a way to see."


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