Blogolution

I’m taking ten days off from blogging to complete the work of the school year—exams, final grade reports, and the like. I will continue to post daily haiku, but my next real post will be June 4th.
This hiatus comes at a good time. Since the beginning of this blog, I’ve been ambivalent. [...]

My Son On the Way to School

Walking,
I look east
and see you
walking,
your dark shape
another
among others.
Eclipsed, eclipsing,
you materialize
between bodies
and vanish again.
It’s easy then
to see you
as an animal
only half
in this world.
Once we saw a fox
and you asked
if he lived here
invisible
all the time.
Remembering,
I realize
I had no answer
to satisfy you.
I stop as if to speak
and up ahead
you stop—
for a moment,
a distant reflection,
a mirror known
and not
all at [...]

Messages from Trouble

The blog category I least like checking is “angst,” yet angst has always been one of the chief motives behind my writing.
I’m not proud to say so. If I’m absolutely honest, I’d much rather read work that—at least sometime—promises mild weather instead of future storms, earthquakes, and suffering. The writer who relies [...]

Hypnagogia*

As you walk among us,
in the flat sun of an overcast day,
you throw no shadow. You carry it
with you, drawing light
from everything you pass near.
The world pales.
Ink drawn from pages, you paint
absence onto day. Every face
resists sight. When, unseen, the sun
slips in its climb, you feel it
and cry its hidden name. This [...]

The Longest Line

I have a new philosophical question: when does the line to Starbucks begin?
Teaching at a city school means students can leave the building during the day, and often we leave at the same time. If I suspect they’re headed where I am—the Starbucks across the street and down the block—is it rude to [...]

Walking Home II

In the city, most noise
is something loose,
a part wanting freedom
from its body.
We’re free and pass
amid and inside these objects
trafficking sound.
Sun bounces from metal.
Wind stops at walls.
Our shadows take the angles
of buildings and sidewalks
they fall on, folding to fit.
And down the street,
brakes scream
as if one wheel meant to flee—
right now, its cry
the only audible lament.

98 Pounds and Sand in My Face

I’ve come to regard being tagged in a meme as being called out. These tasks seem to expose me as a ninety-eight pound weakling. However, when they come from a blogger you respect and admire, how do you say no?
A week ago Christine Swint at Mariacristina tagged me—
Think of THE song that most [...]

Walking Home

At intersections
people gather
to await the light
The pauses
are ours
and each signal
releases us
in choreography
like tides
the flow of bodies
like tides
if we could set them
to obey moons
of our own
invention.

A Real Prince

Every so often I give an assignment I later regret.
Two weeks ago, after my history class read a little of Machiavelli’s The Prince, I asked them to apply what they had learned to a real life situation they knew well. They were to assess one of their teachers as a “prince”—changing his or [...]

Haiku Sonnet: Third Floor*

The surging train sound,
sturdy heels on the sidewalk.
After distant hours,
the world turns its head,
or its ears. Someone has moved
the taciturn dawn
to become Sunday.
The air stirs budding branches.
A square of sunlight
falls between buildings.
A window opens nearby.
Below, two people
laugh. A bird marks seconds with
its usual song.
*After Pierre Reverdy