it’s possible

it always hurts when my dreamy possibles 
walk 
into your all-too-solid improbables. 

neither are reality yet, but you feel as if 

you could most-assuredly stand upon 

your feelings of my improbability as if 
they 
were the parts of some grand 
cliffhanging 
observation deck, 
confidently secure and 
safely supported 
above those unseen known unknowns. 



meanwhile, on the other side of the canyon, 

i’m stepping out over my ledge onto a cloud, 

content to accept the possibility i won’t drop 

to my demise. even if my premise is nothing 

but misty mystery, it’s still always beneath 
an ever-blue firmament. 
i’ll take my chances 
on some ethereal possibility 
rather than 
someone else’s almost sure probable, 
just 
on a hunch you might like to share forever 
sunny skies with me.

Photo by Chandler Media on Unsplash

pour me another. would you? please?

i suppose one could call it sinning, 
if these rules shouldn’t be bent. 
and if you’re one who's bent them, 
there’s probably a mark it’s left.. 
not so deeply as when together we broke one. 
or was it ninety-eleven? i’d hoped they’d be 
filled like piñatas, cracking with the taste 
sin has that makes you want more. 
but even sweetness can go south, its stickiness 
inducing things to cling to you like dark doubts, 
the burn of unease and bitterness of guilt. 
but i learned to love coffee and now 
i’m addicted to that, too. pour me another.
     would you? 
               please?

Don’t ask. I just sat down and wrote. Photo by Eve on Unsplash

not one note

every song’s lyrics sound different, 
but, in my heart, many feel the same.
you’d think just one person wrote them all
but they each bear a different one’s name.

here. today i give you all i have,
all these poems for you i wrote.
the rhyming ones could be your songs,
but they’ve no melody, not one note. 

that doesn’t mean they can’t be sung,
because we know music’s everywhere.
and to your heart i pray you’ll take these 
pieces of mine, that show how i care.

yes, all these poems have different words.
but, in your heart, i hope they echo.
you know the one wrote them all, and 
whose heart he dreams you’ll never let go.
 

the rewrite

would that i could rewrite their story, 
the one with two bruised people 
who bumped into one another one day 
and tried to help the other heal. why 
was a mystery to both. they just did.
but, inevitably, they’d drift apart,
since they’d mended and felt stronger,
but would end up with new wounds from 
bumping into the known and unknown 
they found in their wanderings. somehow 
fate always would turn them around and 
they’d dizzily bump into the one who’d 
healed them before. again, they’d drain 
the blue from each other’s skin, rosy 
their spirits and, with a certain uncertainty, 
go out into the world again, only to turn 
and hobble back together once more. 

and this is where i would jump in, since
i’ve had enough of this boomerang story. 
i’d have him say, “ever notice for all the
times we’ve bumped into one another, we
hardly ever show any bruise for our
coming together?” and she’d say, “you’re
right, but there must be some reason we 
always part. maybe we’re just destined
to roam our lives away, getting hurt and 
hurting others as we bump along.” and he'd
ponder and say, “you’re right, we are
who we are. but it looks like we’ll always 
have each other, just not have each other, even 
if we might already.” she’d nod and they’d go 
their own ways, knowing the one who loved them 
was always ready to help, and people are always 
going to be who they are. the bruises left 
by any unwanted editor’s blue pencil are 
never going to change that. just the characters 
themselves.

I really don’t know what you could call this first draft brain cleanse. Poem? Story? I just know Writer’s Digest’s regular Wednesday poetry prompt called for a “reset” poem. And May 1 is also the first day of Story-a-Day May, the creative brutality with which I used to bash myself following Poem-a-Day NaPoWriMo. 

always. again.

if this was the end, 
i’d stop right here. X
but it’s not an end,
nor is it a beginning,
since we’ve been 
going round and round 
so many trips we've 
made the sun 
dizzy.

but those circles of
new life and old, 
beginning and end, 
never became that 
last moment or a new
magical first - just
another, as we fall
and fall, spinning in
endless embrace, 
always expecting 
to strike bottom, 
but never 
do.

that’s because we are
eternal, you and i, 
ever destined to meet 
and somehow wonder 
why we always love, 
and how we always know,
not worrying about 
when it’ll end. because 
it never will. 
there’ll just be
another. 
always. 
again.

On Day 30 of #NaPoWriMo, I was tasked to write a poem about beginnings and/or endings. But what if there are none? 

until i knew

until i knew 
where you hid 
the cracks in your life, 
not the scars of 
glued-together shards
that show your strength
for all to see, but the
shattered walls within, 
held together
only by glaze, shadow 
and will, fired in 
the kiln of childhood 
and refired in unquenchable
expectations and 
burnt-dry reality, 
i thought i couldn’t 
love you more. but then 
you allowed my light 
into your deep places 
webbed by worry and doubt,
unseeable until 
you’re poured out empty,
where a bump or 
thoughtless touch could 
bring the whole thing down,
and, oh, i found i could.

Day 29, the penultimate (one of those poet words) day of NaPoWriMo 2024. The prompt of the day was to write a poem entitled “Until (something).” I didn’t know what to do for a while. Not uncommon. But I hate staring at a blank word processor page - I think it might be the blinking cursor tapping its toe in impatience. So I tapped back “until i knew,” because that was quite true. That cracked open my shattered pitcher of thought and imagination. And here we are. (Photo by Elena Mozhvilo on Unsplash.)

trompe la mort

if i was told to stop to catch my breath
would that mean i’ve been without for a while?
if that’s the case, you'd think i’m closer to death,
who so far I’ve dodged through dumb luck and guile.

i’ve stared into its face, felt it hot on my neck,
even spied it sly in the far corner of my eye.
there’ve been times when i said, “oh, what the heck,”
but i guess slippery me’s time wasn’t quite nigh.

through childhood this and that (even polio back then, too),
threatened by knives and guns in dark hallways.
don’t know why i’m still here, though bet it's for you,
i never imagined our times two was for always.

so i’ll keep panting while walking my race each day.
no, doesn’t make my last breath simpler to grasp by death.
you see, i’ve cheated - trompe la mort - as the french say.
death doesn't know you long ago took away my breath.

On Day 28 of NaPoWriMo (after taking a day off), I come back to a prompt for a “death” poem. Jeez, don’t I mope and whine enough for you, Robert? Anyway, this is what I came up with. I must be getting soft in my old age.

either side of the poet’s window

he sits in front of me 
hoping to spy something 
to say today. squirrels 
squeal around the oak trunk’s base 
as they chase one another 
wilder and wilder. but his
mind wanders, pondering what
you’re doing while he’s stewing.
he considers brewing a cuppa
coffee as a red-headed wren
alights on the sill until he
looks up to find no knowledge 
in nature. just winds whipping 
and whining, no new lines.
he’s pining again, sighing
at how he’s here and not there, 
here in his chair, which doesn’t 
take him anywhere he really 
wants to be when the world 
is waiting outside, where 
you are. you, his north star, 
his direction home as he sits
alone dreaming of days he’ll
probably never see. how can he
if all he does is sit in front
of me staring out at nothing 
while a whole world stares 
back at him and you’re not on 
either side of the poet’s window?

On Day 26 of NaPoWriMo, I combined prompts. One asked for a persona poem, written in the persona of someone or something other than the poet. The other asked that I write a poem full of alliteration, assonance and all that legerdemain of the poet’s craft. Quickly spit out this. 

a rose by any other name would mean you stood up

in my job i don't 
have to lift any great 
weight. wait, there’s a mite 
of a problem the poet might 
have to heft. 
words.
sound-alikes like the homophone.
there, their, they’re, i won’t 
take two, to, too, long.
among all homonyms, though, it’s the darn old homograph 
that i import 
from the greek that has the import 
of messing up these projects. 
see how it projects from the
sea (oops, homophone) 
of words above?

normally i’d never spend a minute
of your time discussing such minute
things (not to mention minutia)
i worry about. oh no, i know our
time’s up and we don’t have an hour 
(sheesh) for me to buffet 
you with the buffet 
of weirdness i love about my job. 
you, too, would need the patience of job.
often, it even tears 
me up, though doesn’t bring me to tears. 
hope you’ll be present 
again when i present
another present
of a present
day poet’s
life.

Day 25. You figure it out. LOL

In My Muse’s Hands

And I took her hand.
This poem should end with a line 
like that, but it’s hard to reach the end 
when you can’t reach your muse, 
don’t hear her voice, can’t see her eyes, 
all through which the world bends to my whim 
as if she is the light and I’m a prism.
“But I don’t know how. And I never want 
to feel the weight of your words on my shoulders,” 
she said, as my eyes followed the line 
of those shoulders to hands that hold nothing 
but the sight and sound of magical things 
only I perceive. I glanced at her and 
took my glasses off — they were still singing.
“That’s how a poem begins,” I said. 
And I took her hand.

Day 24 and I used the prompt offered by NaPoWriMo.net, which challenged me to write a poem that begins with a line from another poem (not necessarily the first one), but then go elsewhere with it. I fudged the rules, as I almost always do, but I did use the final line(s) from one of my few favorite poets, William Stafford, who is the guy who helped me decide to be a poet, too. The line is the last from his work, “How I Met My Muse.” If you want to see how I’ve used him to write a poem before, check out my poem “Tell Me” from last April 3rd.