Middle Linebacker
A smattering of autumn yellow in the trees lining the quad banners waving gaily above the stadium framed by clear blue sky the marching band plays the…
Roman Ruins
I stood atop the forum’s steps, where words once were spoken of truths eternal—love for wise and good existence. I walked between the stones and pillars, that…
Hope’s Wisdom
Wisdom…Discernment… Traits difficult to embody Sort between fact & fiction Allowing hope to set us free Hope does not tolerate lies Hope never calls virtue vice Hope…
I Saw An Old Man Smile, Enjoying a Book
I saw an old man smile, enjoying a book, And leaves died lovely deaths in autumn; A skipped rock trickled to the creek’s bottom, And a poor…
Address to Psychoanalysis
For Zoe Unorthodox healing art, akin more to Joseph the Egyptian’s craft of insight than to the Greek lexicon of medical wisdom, a match to archeologists’ hand-digging,…
Poetry of the late Tang: Jueju Quatrains of Du Mu and Li Zhong
Jueju (絕句), or ‘cut-off verses’, are the shortest form of Chinese poem. Though precursors can be found in earlier poetry, they were developed during the Tang dynasty,…
From The Seat Behind
Yes – look - all these people - I made them, animals Too, plants, insects --all You can see. It rankles How they waste their lives -…
At the Revolutionary Graveyard
(On Death, and the desecration and desertion of the once-living by the future-dead) I am the resurrection and the life; whoever believes in me, even if he…
The English Department
In 1969, in the Fall semester, darkly painted leaves, broken from their stems by a season dying and grasping, danced across winding university walkways. The English department,…
Now What’s the Matter?
Now what’s the matter? I thought, in the still-dark kitchen with my water glass hearing a recurring noise like a creak in my seventy-year-old house. But after…
Returning on a Summer Day
It’s June again and the tide’s rising as a pod of silvered monodon flash like a remnant on the Atlantic. Pen in hand, I contemplate the photo…