Tag: poetry

On a dry day, the woods become a galleryof broken trunks and exposed grain.I walk beneath thick leavesand find the fallen treesas if they had been arranged for study: a rib cage of branches,a canted spine of wood,a sunlit tangle of linesthat seems to belong to both accident and design. Goldsworthy would know this language:stone … Continue reading Revisionist Poetry – “What the Woods Make of Loss” – A Bit of Goldsworthy & Adams, v.3

The sun presses through the leaves on this dry afternoonas I wander the small suburban woodsearching for fallen trunks,for branches bleached open by weather and time— the kind of accidental arrangementGoldsworthy might have welcomed,the kind of lightAnsel Adams would have sharpened into silence. The ground gives under my steps,a brittle crackle of leaf mold and … Continue reading Revisionist Poetry – “Suburban Reliquary” – A Bit of Goldsworthy & Adams, v.2

In the thrift store’s farthest corner,under a ceiling fan ticking its slow blade,I found the gargoylehalf-buried in dust and dead price tags. It was small enough to fit in one hand,but its face was all old menace—a snagged lip,a blind, bulging stare,teeth like pebblesforced through a grimace. Its concrete body felt dampthough the shop was … Continue reading Revisionist Poetry – “The Thrift-Store Gargoyle” – Bargain Store Gargoyle, v.5

In the back of the bargain store,where glassware clinks softlyand a cracked lamp throwsits yellow pool on the shelf,I find a gargoyleno bigger than a loaf of bread. Its concrete skin is pitted,its nose chipped,its mouth set in a permanent scowlthat somehow looks more like concern. I turn it in my hands.A little dust lifts … Continue reading Revisionist Poetry – “Little Guardian in the Thrift Store” – Bargain Store Gargoyle, v.4

In the cathedral of a bargain shop,dust gathers like incensein the corners. There, small as a fist,a gargoyle crouches—not carved from the proud cliff of historybut cast in ersatz concrete,its face half-feral, half-sad. Still, it keepsthe old architecture of dread:the hooked brow,the lip curled against weather,the starethat seems to have survivedcenturies of rain. I lift … Continue reading Revisionist Poetry – “Bargain Store Relic” – Bargain Store Gargoyle, v.3

Why are we drawn to gargoyles,those stone monstersperched on cathedrals and towers,leaning over usas if listening? Their warped mouths,their fierce and weathered faces,hold our gaze.We imagine the livesthey have witnessed,the old weather they have endured,the silence they keep. Then, in a bargain store’s dusty corner,I find one reduced to hand size:an ersatz concrete gargoyle,a shabby … Continue reading Revisionist Poetry – “The Small Guardian” – Bargain Store Gargoyle, v.2

Note: I reworked this one while reading Italo Calvino's masterpiece, "The Complete Cosmicomics". I got inspired to write an absurdist conversation between the builder/narrator and... well, everything else in the poem... At first, the river had no opinion about stones.It simply carried them, as it carried everything else,with the distant manner of a clerkwho has … Continue reading Revisionist Poetry – “The Day the Stones Learned to Balance” – Uncertain Sculptures, v.6 (A cosmic daydream conversation…)

Along the riverbank I wander,collecting stones for my doomed little architecture,as though the universe had not already made clearits opinion of permanence. I choose my rocks like an undertaker chooses florals:with care, with dread, with faint embarrassment.This one is a knuckle.That one looks like a tooth.Another has the cold authority of a gravestoneand the personality … Continue reading Revisionist Poetry – ““The River’s Little Undertaking” – Uncertain Sculptures, v.5 (A bit of gothic daydreaming)

By the river, I stack stonesbecause nothing here stays putand I want to make somethingthat knows that. The water moves.The sun warms my neck.My hands learn the shape of each rockbefore I place it where it might hold. A tower rises.It wobbles.It survives. That is enough for me:this small, unstable proofthat beauty can liveinside collapse.