Nature’s Nature
Mar/Apr 2021
The Sketchbook
Let’s begin with these scales Of gold light riding a script of leaves & ferns twisting along The antique boulevard as it Swings suddenly to pass below The old palazzi […]
Poetry
Nov/Dec 2020
Mz Rox Steady
At the club Saint Charles nobody could call her anything except the stage name she’d coined For herself after seven shots of Chris Blackwell’s killer rum — Mz Rox Steady & […]
Poetry
Nov/Dec 2020
These Days
. . . I had not forgotten them — Jackson Browne I think tonight I should write to you again about the lives we left behind along Old streets we’d thought […]
Poetry
Jan/Feb 2017
In Bangkok
My son wrote to me from Bangkok saying that when he’d arrived to have his ink done by The legendary tattoo guru Jimmy Wong it wasn’t the sounds of a city & […]
Poetry
Winter 2012
In the Mojave
for Thom Gunn Then one of the bikers Went at the other―a quick Steel flash & a breathless Grunt made it clear He'd taken the brunt Of the blade in […]
Poetry
Winter 2012
The Girl Who Lived in the Rain
The girl who lived in the rain Came down from her cabin Up on the mountain at that Y Where the two creeks joined & flowed into the valley Alongside […]
Poetry
Winter 2012
Late Oracle Sonnet
1) Up late last night up late now this morning 2) The new clover whitening the hillside 3) The glass empty on the zinc counter 4) Also the white thimble […]
Poetry
Fall 2009
The Swan
Nakedness only is never marriage, just as the pilgrim looks beyond all fictive weavings of our oracles. In my notebook, I keep my list of questions ready for the stranger […]
Poetry
Fall 2009
The Aurora Called Destiny
Selene was hearing voices again. It had become something she was apt to do now & then; she heard the voices, but she could not recall the names. . . […]
Poetry
Fall 2009
The Aurora of the Midnight Ink
Will you really walk from one edge of the city to the other dressed only in illusion & shame? How can I urge you to turn back? Selene, when we […]
Poetry
Spring 1999
Accomplishment
Touch me here just below The nipple where I cannot see Use the mirror of your lips Touch me here where the faintest skin awakens As you lift those leaves […]
Poetry
Spring 1999
Portrait
There is in his daughter’s gaze A solemnity so elegant It must seem to some The very definition of love Though her profile guards Any true window to emotion Any […]
Poetry
Spring 1999
The Bowl
The world as a goldfish bowl remains The lesson we must learn unerringly He said before we understand the ways The lens of searing unrelenting Regard will be held up […]
Poetry
Spring 1999
What He Said
My friend said to me The one thing I’d never do Is to sleep with another man’s Wife no actually he didn’t say “Another man’s” he said instead “A friend’s” […]
Poetry
Spring 1999
Adam
It’s ridiculous to confess Such a superficial thing Yet it’s true I was first stunned By the extraordinary whiteness Of her skin a chalked mannequin so Pale & translucent her […]
Kenyon Review Classics
Summer/ Autumn 1997
The Last Troubadour
KENYON REVIEW CLASSIC: W. S. Merwin Commentary It would be hard to name an American poet whose early poetry—in the light of his or her later accomplishment—has been so […]