Dusk of Fall in Two Frames: A Poem
Under ash-colored clouds the peaks of hardwoods going bald tremble like a hopeless remnant clinging to old, exhausted scalps. Watching the vault of heav’n the crowns of…
The Monologue of Lazarus: A Poem
Do not wonder why I am pale and ashen Do ask me if I have seen a ghost. I do not want to tell you: I have…
Remembrance
Burial The still, calm silence of the morning Breaks into hammering – hard, Sharp and ringing – metal on metal: Somewhere in a neighbouring garden I guess…
Mary Magdalene: A Poem
And when the fits were on me I wanted to abandon myself, strike my foot on a new mountain, sacrifice my voice. In me, the bride led…
At Twilight: A Poem
Nobody will come, nothing will change, The day will continue to drag its hours Through dusk, evening, then the night: The cold will intensify, lodge in flesh,…
The Shovel & the Song: A Poem
Chinquapin fields yielded more than just rows Of okra, cotton, or tobacco leaves Seventy years ago. A boy with hands Borne to work like shovel and spade…
The lecture: A Poem
I’m counting down the lectures I’ll never give again. Last week it was “Christabel,” Coleridge’s weird Gothic fragment. Did he really have a thing about lesbian sex?…
From Duncliffe Wood
1 We lie now in absolute stillness: I see this hollow of the wood, These trees, as if they were Joined with us - we with them…
Liberalism: A Poem
I retreat, yet I never quite escape. Hellish hounds, so familiar with our scent, Exhaust us till our very soul is spent, Then drink the spoils of…
In Isaiah’s Sandals: A Poem
Thus spake the herald: Look upon this holy hill; Where the sun spills over ever so brighter, Where waters leap over rock like flying buttresses Where the…
from Spiking the Canon: A Poem
Ulysses The critics give it ten out of ten, the literary equivalent of Zen. Is it Joyce’s folly or his ‘Good Golly Miss Molly’? Perhaps you should…
Enough: A Poem
Poor Catullus, end this idiocy; put a full stop to the story. It’s all over. True, you had days of blinding sunshine when she led you time…
Not Vanity: A Poem
It is not difficult to define the place that physical labour should occupy in a well-ordered social life. It should be its spiritual core. - Simone Weil…
Above Troy
From here you look down On the whole spit that divides The harbour from the coast, And see the long ocean beach, The littleness of buildings In…