Poetry

Life at 75 My silver mane shows Natural beauty of age With warts, lines and all My silver mane speaks Of struggle and redemption With passion and faith On departed classmates Gone forever now Memories we celebrate Lives well lived and loved On our humanity Human lives deserve Peace that is socially just Fight for it we...

The Pruning Deadhead the ground where petals lay, not the blossomed branch, rivered & riveted this garden, this square of pear & pine. Unlock the pruning knife, cut the roses back to thorn, back to distel, to angled light. Be frugal, light-handed, bent shrubs are rain-heavy, grit-weary, saddled with the days of May’s cloud weeping. This June cuts back to essential bone, the boughs watered & wounded. Fold your knees before the muted ground, listen to the...

(Or Triste at the Santa Barbara Sea Center) Maybe it was the quiet desperation of the     sea horse, holding on to a spine of sea grass  inside a cobalt blue aquarium that brought it on. Or perhaps the distressed Stingray flicking  a missing tail, as the frantic hands...

Philippines, Proposed Addendum to Definition of noun : a stream that cuts through districts or fields of grass : an enclosure of water (see Badjao or Aquarian) : a subterranean wanting : a recollection of faces : a great and significant number, just below innumerable but above sufficient : parable,...

The neighbors say he suffers from dementia. On the balcony, he stares at the cloudless sky. How he declares the stars have turned into tubers of motley shapes and colors! He asks if he could fish some and trade them for a gantang of rice. Perhaps the copious harvest at...