The memoir, the story of your life, is an object of questionable value. You hold it in your hands, shake, listen: what’s inside? Is there a lock? Does it open? What’s it for? You could take it to someone who… Read More ›
Poetry
21 Dezember (Song for Solstice)
21 Dezember 17, Donnerstag “For the shortest day” Some days fall through the cracks — most days aren’t worth saving, but it’s OK there isn’t much room.
Photo taken of Brendan Behan painting, Dublin pub
The cold, hard rain: the wind, the leafless trees, the puddles turned to pools, the sound of it beating off the gutter: the muted green and brown, the tail lights, stop lights, Christmas lights the only light that keeps us… Read More ›
The jagged blades the thin white veil
In the gray light of morning the thin grass blades turned brown beneath the snow, the barn in the back, the sound of the heat through the vents, the coffeemaker, the keys clicking like teeth when I type: here, they all… Read More ›
Song for mid-autumn morning
In the morning just past 6, though it might as well be the middle of the night. Headlights cut the dark, but it always grows back. The fog gives an illusion of light through the ambiguity it stirs, makes snow… Read More ›
Broken clouds (in the face of mirrors)
The sky returned what we saw in it but like a mirror, it lied: It lied on your wedding day when you thought it brightened just for you: It lied when you carried your cat to the vet’s office to… Read More ›
October’s solemn smile
Thank god for the gold-red leaves for without them, I think there’d be no color. Old relatives like dead leaves fall off shriveled-brown-unnoticed and swept to the side, the cold takes them, a different kind of harvest. In the morning… Read More ›
The last of the 8 o’clock sunsets
The clouds are dragon tongues, painted Nordic boats and they blow me back to Scotland, to the fall, to shrill winds and leafless trees, to the comfort of wool and soup, smoked fish, and sleep. Now the shrubs are shriveled,… Read More ›
Portrait of a spider trapped in my sink
I’m not afraid of you spider though you are ugly, you look different than me I know the care you take to build your webs with the lace from your body you lay traps to feed yourself (as a writer,… Read More ›
Poem for the first sunny day in Seattle
How the underside of the crow’s wings glowed when it was dusk and the light dropped so slow from the sky a two-hour cue and the spaces between the leaves went from peach to pink, and all about, a tapestry… Read More ›
Bill Pearse 