Tag Archives: dusk

Poem to be read in the middle of the night (iv) / Skyline at dusk

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Poem to be read in the middle of the night (iv) / Skyline at dusk

I lean my head back against the transparent beach.
Starlings pull up the garland of the sky and hang it on trees.

Miniature lake, street puddle spilling sky on a tire.
Because they leap, like that boy I was

we make a leap of faith and the stars stand still–
just the illusion of motion on motion

And the moon, black like a lost penny, shining
only on the edge, has been laughed at enough

to appear a smile. The starlings sharpen
their beaks against the wheel of the hour.

Dusk and Beyond

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Dusk and Beyond

 

The dusk sky is a gameboard of bats,
everyone’s lost apologies for what

They knew they did wrong but could not find
The words to admit. Homeless things.

The poet’s night shift has me emotional–
The moon’s pendulum scythe swings

Below the tree line and I wake up astonished
To be alive. The poem holds a word

To my throat and the word is your missing
touch. In the world are some animals whose feet

Never touch the ground. Birds who only
Land on the uncertainty of open water.

Just as in you there are poems
that may never land on the tree of language

But whose wingbeats keep you awake,
Whose migration over open space

Turns everyone’s heads though they hear
Only your voice on a quiet morning.

Driving Through A Small Town Full of Churches on a Friday Around Dusk

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Driving Through A Small Town Full of Churches on a Friday Around Dusk

 

The buildings vibrate like an old color
postcard whose message has faded

time lifting the letters off the back
one dark bit after the other

which now gather wordless on the horizon
rising without a message to take back

the sky which for a moment shows red
through the church steeples with no bells

Driving Down the Mountain After Dusk

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Driving Down the Mountain After Dusk

 

Dusk is finally gone but it has left a mark on the dark green slopes
like pencil has been rubbed over everything

You know there are trees there pines and oaks maples others
but now all you can verify is that it’s a hill with the disposition

of trees or a tendency towards treeness but it’s too dark
to prove the trees are there and we’re moving too fast

following a line we can’t see the end of but which we know
ends before daylight