Snow again. calling for 10"-14" by tomorrow night

 
 
 

'cause I love her

 
 
 

Winter Sunset in New Paltz -or- "The Evening Redness in the West" (with apologies to Cormac)

 
 
 
 

"Prodigal" reading at Shawangunk Review 20th Anniversary

Prodigal

Half a life wrestling with angels

and the smoky devils of misdirection:

The Son stares into his smiling face

at threefivesevennineeleven

doesn’t recognize a thing doesn’t

remember a thing before fifteen.

Muted impression of a boy on a hill,

children playing like ants a lightyear away.

A hell decade and a purgatory-half spent

searching for the ghosts of Laius and Jocasta

in blackened teaspoons and amber nectar

in chemical ecstasies clawing from an abyss of self.

Biting the hand that feeds twice too many times

forces redefinition, reassessment—

Bagels from dumpsters: Manna from Heaven.

Solace: A place out of the rain.

Run and break and burn;

the slow self-immolation accelerates,

flames lick away at the past, the future falls.

February hospital room a

quiet cocoon—

a quickening.

Hushed voices encourage

a lamb to stand, where, caul peeled, staring

wide-eyed at the snow outside, he

receives a new way to see, crystalline.

How many of us are allowed two lives?

He eases through shadows

on unsteady legs, crawling from the ruin,

understanding that the currency of old myth

can be traded for new.

Carrying nothing more than contrition,

something less than hope—

the Son rises and walks through the door

and heads home.