Writing Is Remembering

But not remembering the past.
It is remembering the future.

How do you know a word is right
when you know it is?

It feels right—but why?

Is it because you’ve already written it
and are presently recalling—
yes, it belongs there.

*

I know that buried somewhere
there is a sweet suite of poems
with my name on it.

In a basement or an attic.
In a box under a heap of rubbish.
In a basket in a corner of a café.

It is a musical composition
using the stars in a night sky as notes.

I remember peering, perhaps even
with a telescope through dark clotted clouds.

The trees, the birds, the wind
all speaking a foreign language.
My pen moving quickly.

I hope one day, if I wait long enough,
I’m able to read what I wrote.

Invisible Colors

Felt but not seen,
like silent music,

or blood
beneath skin.

A blue
in a room
subdued
by shadows.

Undercover
colors
surprising us
with their
subterranean hues.

Hard to know
what to call them—

like stones picked up
in a blind man’s dream.

Obsession

The way up is always fun.

Turning a thought-form this way and that,
checking it out under different lights.

Adding things: sand, feathers, an orange stripe.
Subtracting things: reality, red meat.

Watching it grow rapidly
until it blots out everything else.

A giant stone-faced idol
that slowly opens its eyes,

demanding love, breakfast,
obedience to its every whim.

Now we’re getting somewhere.

Long Time

Gosh, but it’s good to see the ragged shoreline
of your face—as welcome as Noah’s pet dove.

Homer had your number,

and the troubadours too knew
through careless wandering
how to reach you.

You are old and young by choice.

You are seductive as a hermit
in a fir tree coat.

Don’t pretend it’s not you—or me.

Don’t try to disappear, like a sunset,
behind those mountains of trash.

Stay and have a drink.

Help Wanted

When will you stop

flossing your brain
with cotton candy—

dreaming
at your age

of running away
to join the circus?

Not that there are
many anymore

and the ones you do
see on TV

require a CV
and headshots.

P.S.: All the clowns have
PhDs in comedy.

(Image: Joan Miró’s Constellations: Femme et oiseaux (Woman and Birds), 1940)