Verisimilitude
Music like weeping
Speech muttered in sleep
Life like sleeping
Space vast and empty as nothing
Light like ice
Ice like space
Cold like blood used up
Eyes like lamps burned out
Words repeated until they are worn out, frazzled,
frayed, you can see right through them
Affection the chain that binds you
to those you dismay
Dismay like eyes like lamps burned out
Calendar pages like jolly voluntary suicides
Appointment books point you out
as they pass you by
Successful people
who do not understand your problem
Successful people
who understand your problem
Your problem, like an abscess on your face
leprosy only you can see in the mirror
Your problem, facial leprosy only you
cannot see
Ambition like mockery
Mockery like affection
Affection like chains
Future like a hall of mirrors
Past like mockery
Present like the space taken up by hunger
Hunger a spreading void
a spreading void
Villanelle for Nan
As there you stand, my love, as there you shine,
Virtuous whips tear at your tender mind,
As there you stand, my love, as there you shine,
Your courage put you in this bloody place —
There where you stand, my love, there where you shine;
It was your courage earned you this disgrace.
Your honesty confronts you with the fact —
Virtuous whips tear at your tender mind,
And honesty pins you upon the rack.
Your feeling heart details for you your pain,
As there you stand, my love, as there you shine;
Your feeling heart describes it once again
As memory holds you in its fierce grip;
Virtuous whips tear at your tender mind,
And it is memory that wields the whip.
Never did virtues so ill-serve the brave,
As there you stand, my love, as there you shine,
As there your virtues beat you like a slave.
While you must suffer, love, I’m forced to see
Virtuous whips tear at your tender mind,
And how I wish those whips could tear at me.
But pain admits no loving substitute;
As there you stand, my love, as there you shine,
I view your lonely anguish and stand mute,
As whips persist to rip your tender mind;
I pray relief may come with passing time —
And know relief must come, and come to find
You standing there, my love, as there you shine.
Villanelle for our Daughter
This house waits for you, yet is satisfied
That you have never left this house, your home,
And that this house has never left your side.
For you were raised, prepared to rise and roam,
And this house knew that you would not abide,
Yet somehow, never leave this house, your home.
The love learned here, the wisdom true and tried
Deployed where you live, like a sheltering dome,
Show truly, this house never left your side.
Since you have never left this house, your home,
And truly, this house never left your side,
This house waits for you, yet is satisfied.