The Middlewesterner

“What if this silence
lasts? What if I have
nothing more to say?

One door is closed.
Is another ajar?”

*

“As if I've
worked my whole life
becoming someone

I can admire.”

*

“Yes, I know the world is larger
than three lines can hold, yet
three lines is all I can get.”

My sadness
at leaving

tangles my feet.

A face
in the window -

the shy moon.

Leaves speak,
as if the wind.

Oh, the first stroke.
Oh, the brush

that makes
the stroke.

Oh, the hair
of the brush.

Oh, wind
in the hair

of the man
who made

the brush
that makes

the stroke.
Oh, snow

on the mountain
cooling the wind.

Oh, the thousand
petals falling

like snow
on the mountain.

Oh, butterfly
under the stroke

I've made.

All day a swirl
of grey rain and

nothing but sadness.

“Ah, yes, the line,”
he said. “How you

break it is how
you make it.”

*

“Why
this word and
not that?

This is
not that.”

*

“Make plans and you
will be disappointed
by your progress.

Do not make plans and you
will drift on any wind.

Disappointment is
the only way forward.”

“How much can you
leave out?” they asked.

“You can leave it
all out,” he said.

“What we add isn't
necessary.”

*

“Sometimes you rhyme
to show you can,

and sometimes you don't
give a damn.”

*

“I can write
my poems on
anything,”
he said,

“best of all,
your heart.”

Nothing is
forever.

Nothing is,
forever.

The swirl
of mist,
as if

the earth
is breathing,
as if

breath
is life.

The fog
dances itself
to rain.

The rain
dances
a river.

Hawk or post or
mark of the moaning

sky's unhappiness?

Out of thick fog,
a surprise,

a catch of breath,
its suddenness.

Then, once again,
the grey wall.

“Memory is a ride
to Gramma's house

in the backseat
of a '51 Ford.”

*

“These
imaginings,

like tunes I learned
in childhood.”

*

“Sometimes,
words.

Sometimes,
the beat

insistent.
Sometimes

only
the memory

of what
has been

lost.”

“Wait quietly.
You can't hear them

if all you do
is squawk.”

*

“Useless rush
and chase of words -

let them
come to you.”

*

“Imagination
is thinking

you can see
turkeys fly.”

Everything
is too much.

Everything and
a hungry heart

is not enough.

A great sadness, like the ruffling
of hawk's wings in high wind. “There's

a lesson in falling,” Cathryn
Cofell says. I haven't learned it.

The joy of going
is always

in the coming home.

Drive hard. The day
relinquishes

nothing.

Going back to the earth,
like an old cow

the barn goes down.

“Sometimes this is
what it comes to -

word salad and
tricks up the sleeve.”

*

“And sometimes silence.”

*

“Too much
barely gets me

warmed up.”

“We keep making
history. We can't
stop, even when it
doesn't make us proud.”

*

“Why music?
The joy of
banging

an instrument,
no need to
make a poet's

bit of sense.”

*

“Not going is not
necessarily staying.”

Enough of
sadness -

rub sand in
your eyes.

Another crow
in the low sky.

The news is
never good.

Trees
on the land

like
a disguise.

The day
gets slippery.

Grab enough
wires, yes,

you find a
live one.

Crow against
a grey sky -

caw, the cough
of morning's cry.

“Wanting and not
wanting - both

the dangerous path.”

*

“There's nothing
there. Look -

there's nothing
there again.

*

“A fine affection,
this need for silence.”

“Terrible mistake at
the Chinese restaurant -

my fortune reads:
You should do well

at making money
and holding onto it.”

*

“No,” he said,
“I do not

know what most
of the others

are doing.
What I know

is what I know,
and I know

it's not enough,
not by half.”

*

“High or low,
the right note

lingers.”

What you grasp
eludes you.

The force of
your wanting

undoes the gift
of getting.

Abrasion
of wind and sun.


Evening comes.
Soothing touch,

the rain.