I've been feeling a little remiss that I haven't posted lately but the truth is I haven't been writing at all. If anyone has any ideas for prodding myself to do so, please share them. In return, here's something that may interest some of you.

how about a quick comparison?

The opposite of thunder

Trees are struck dumb by the light;
houses shine out their equal astonishment.
Covering the east
like a black cloth backdrop,
the clouds make this light
impossible, transfixing,
transfixed.
Shadows line up along the fence awaiting strange commands.

Evenings like this, it is hard to remember anything voiced.
Our voices are not part of us, and if we tried to speak we would say everything at once.

i found this scrap from a few years ago and wondered if it is a poem. thoughts?

The opposite of thunder

The trees were struck dumb by the light,
and the houses shone back equal astonishment,
with the clouds covering the east like a black cloth
backdrop, making this light impossible, transfixing,
transfixed. The shadows line up along the fence
awaiting strange commands.

Evenings like this, it is hard to remember anything
voiced. Our voices are not part of us, and if we tried
to speak we would say everything at once.

The world from inside

Anya, if your theory about a poem being a blessing is true, I would like to bless you.

And the boy with cordoroys on the Brooklyn-bound A train running local for the C,

a trip that takes so long (mom, we’ve been on this train for hours, right?) he leans

against the man next to him with the earphones to escape his sister’s oompa joompa;

then snaps shoulders forward with his own. Oompa joompa! (guys, lets try to be calm.)

Fur hoods on fidgety brother and sister (but mom!) (but what?) (nothing. But mom?)

Such a multitude of stops, a wealth of worlds beyond this car, and each,

the older sister tells her brother, is a place, like Queens.

"The oral storyteller not only takes dvantage of our tendency to share feelings socially by doing the voices and facial expressions of characters, but also tacitly trains young children and members of the wider social group to recognize and give priority to culturally valued emotional states. This education does not create our feelings, but renders emotional states legible through their labels and activates our expectations about what emotions mean. Narratives in prose and film infamously manipulate our feelings and call upon our built-in capacity to feel with others."
-Suzanne Keen, Narrative Empathy

What's so beautiful about the cold? [title pending]

We knew the rain would come,
and made provisions for this grey—
the bright curtains hanging there,
slouching proof of our optimism.
Rows of glass are clouded in droplets,
we made plans, we must ration our joy.

I walked a long time in the stiff cold with the steel
sleeping monster inside me. There are many things
in the streets now, signs of watery disintegration,
dogshit perhaps, the man who pisses when I go out for bread,
the banners announcing the deportation of immigrants.
We can’t help but feel homeless.

We live at the top of a series of hills,
up always up the narrow lanes.
Arriving home to the highest point in the city,
we pass the hedges where people are sleeping,
shrouded in thin tents and night frost.

These evenings of moon-solace have stretched out
so that I’ve learned it’s good to take time
to savor something sharp; some pickled mango,
a bite of a lemon. Too bad those winter berries
are always poisonous, we so often desire the red in them.