To lay a hedge, in the traditional way,
a farmer must cut a small tree
almost through at the base
leaving just a bit of living wood and bark,
then bend it over, flat to the ground
to encourage new growth.
A long line of these wounded trees
send up shoots which are then trained
to form a dense thicket of vegetation
to contain livestock.
A defining boundary.
Smaller mammals, birds, and common toads
take advantage, inhabit, and flourish in this bosk.
Julius Caesar was inconvenienced by these types of hedges
as he campaigned across Belgium in the Gallic Wars,
enough so that he complained about them in his writing.… ...continue reading
I.
Time travel to the past
through these still hot ashes
tethered to a place and time
now unrecognizable. The history:
you remembered by you
as shovels sift through.
II.
Under blankets
sweat.
The waking abrupt.
Dried bouquets hung
upside down from a nail
in the attic stairway.
III.
One day there was a disappearance.
Then there was a year.
Then there was a sickness.
Then the heft the cortisol had
packed on dissipated
a slow relief.
IV.
Vu ja de
something familiar happens
but it seems new
V.
Out on the beach the line between
apparent in the slope.
Sand from each length of shore
keeps in glass ornaments.
The plastic ones melted together
redefining geography. Edges slowly
collided. The line between no
longer clear.… ...continue reading
For Charles Simic
The spoon is still on the table,
its small mirror holding the ceiling.
Nothing dramatic happened
just a chair pulled back
and a silence learning a new shape.
You taught us
that history eats quietly,
that angels prefer basements,
that the ordinary object
is already a confession.
Somewhere, a fork listens
to a war it cannot stop.
A shoe waits for its foot
like a thought refusing certainty.
God is not absent,
He is distracted.
You knew how laughter
survives the century,
how terror keeps house
inside the refrigerator,
how a poem can be a joke
told to the dead
that they understand immediately.
Now the world continues
without permission.
A streetlight flickers.
A man misunderstands his life.
The universe shrugs
and means well.… ...continue reading
Come here kitten, help me fix the problems again.
The sorrow and tangible sense of illusive confusion.
Make them go away for a minute.
There it is. The body resonant. An internal salve.
I wrote this poem once already.
The eyes, tinted glass, stain the mind.
Today dark red. Yesterday a more placid indigo.
By slight variations console the day into a rest from fervor.
Forgiving the self for its knotted essence.
The judge sinks into the couch, tired.
The visibly sick deserve forgiveness but those comrades closest merit not.
Collapse it all with a single blow of the hammer, if you will,
though it has weathered worse fury and torment than this mind can muster.
Stain the days as they must be stained.
Unforgiving rain, cleans the cicatrices.… ...continue reading
(I will whisper this so it stays between us)
Your heart has been broken.
It has been shattered for so long
you believe it will never be whole again.
I will take your hand in mine,
your heart in my other
and walk us down to the river
to our hidden grotto of brick and iron.
I will wield your shadows and shatters
turn them into gold lacquer
rebuild what you thought unfixable
until we see the beauty in the imperfections
– Mae Fraser… ...continue reading
The April fires burn into the velvet night.
Flames turn to ash and memories
the last remnants of the dark, dead times.
And so the Festival begins.
Wine is drunk.
Songs are sung.
Love is made.
Boys take girls to the forest and become men.
Girls become women.
And women become mothers.
The Mother of All smiles
from her perch atop the moon.
Like it has for generations
flames turn to ash and memories the dark and dead.
And so the Festival begins.
– Josh Krach
Author’s Note: Spring is my favorite season. This poem is a nod to the first clear, warm evenings when the moon is full, the first flowers are blooming, and all the dead is burned away in the first bonfire of the season.… ...continue reading
“Your difference isn’t a detour. It’s the point.”
Before me came words that showed the way
for everything after me.
I knew exactly what I needed to do.
I’d been rehearsing for weeks.
I tattooed every line of that script
on the tendrils of my being
in case anyone forgot their lines
or became ill or perhaps died.
But I had no understudy
when I fell into an obscure coma.
For several days, I lingered,
the persona illuminated but quiet.
They had to start the show without me,
my twin brother quickly hired
to play my role until I woke up.
When I emerged from my chrysalis,
I realized the words needed to be different,
the detour actually better than the journey.
I shed my wings to walk again instead,
the flying comma becoming a voluble period.… ...continue reading