I wake to walls I did not build,
A space too small, a name too still.
They call me by a voice not mine,
A shape I wear, but never will.

The world beyond hums soft and bright,
A distant place I’ve yet to claim.
I trace its edges in my mind—
A whispered truth without a name.

The mirror shifts, the cracks run deep,
Yet in them, something starts to grow.
Not wings, not fins, but something else—
A self I’ve always seemed to know.

So let the door be rusted shut,
Let silence press against my skin.
I’ll carve a window with my hands—
And let the light come pouring in.

Shimmering light, gleaning
In my eye, million
Shades of green
Among the trees
What is it
That I see?
When I look at you,
Is it a reflection of me?
Or an abstraction of you?
Is it really you,
That I am looking at,
Or am I looking at me,
Through a part of you?

Waves in handmade glass
in old peeling wooden panes —
Ripples on the pond.

Sunbeams through the window are like childhood memories—
Warm, vivid, and simply true.
And they never leave me, even when I’ve forgotten.

Poetry is the window to my soul
The key to my vault
The telescope to my planet

My soul is a brick wall
Heavily fortified
And unbreakable
My mind is a vault
Keeping my thoughts and secrets Locked safely away
My heart is a planet
That can only be seen clearly
Through the right lens

My life is like a challenging riddle
And poetry is the answer to it all

Material lips; sewing on a seamless smile;
A shrouded piece of wool- for one wearing
The jersey of youth, as time slowly pulls at the thread
While I lock away my shadow of the writhing darkness,
Trailing behind me in the day; as I once tried speaking
To my void, but the emptiness obeyed not a single word

A tap tap at my window- the eyes to a soul, painted wholly
In the colours of divorce; as the separation of dreams
From one’s imagination. All, all was so dark; slandered
By such a terrorizing world- until I opened to let him in;
As a child with a curious thought, soon questioning, and
To study- for my lips to utter:

I cannot live out this life,
Without letting You, O Lord in.

the lovely picture window (always the same, always different)

There are painters who must,
having found the place, must,
repaint it, compelled to repeat it,
each a variant, yet always the same,
always different

I awake to a perspective that is wide,
always differentiated from the prior,
always almost similar, but never with
the same exactitude, differing attitude,
same longitude, identical latitude,
always different

horizon distanced, in all ways a view
encompassing, duality near, far distant,
harmoniously, eyes open, magnetized
to wake before 6am by the suns modesty,
first light, first clarity, a curtain risen, yet,
always different

am I so blessed or thus cursed, for the urge
to disclaim and ode, compose and thus self-
decompose, analyze, reflect, slice apart, needing
the comprehensive understanding this me/place
scripts the raw appreciation, daily differentiated
always the same

this peaceful venue seizures, chest calmly
pounding at the insistence it commands,
the price I must pay for the prize to praise,
to sing, weep, reward restful sleep with lyrics
eked out, pouring, unsustainable yet finished,
always different

a single May Iris, returns, born from a torrential,
thunder, lightning, sky mayhem, rises by a sundial
greets midst a planted clump, upright rises, lavender,
in a majestic solitary, absent but a day prior, yet mine eyes
failed to witness its discernible emerging birthing creation,
always different,
always the same

here, I am Iris too, always the same, a day aged,
but the differences minute but stolid actualized,
this overnight sensation, my body’s restoration,
what I visualize, indivisible, now visible, realized,
miracle of continuity, unchanging chained change,
always different ,
always the same

wonder, am I more blessed, or a s~lightly cursed being,
my breath restored, wet eyes full brimming, changed,
revived but always modified, a newer old man, whose
sum total always a different number, but in sequential,
compelled to confess, no understanding of this miracle,
always the same,
always different,
this daily visionary miracle


6:36 AM
Fri May 24
2024

Silver Beach,
Shelter Island