Ink Tea Stone Leaf

This July, I’m going to write a short poem (or a long one, who knows?) every day. I’ll post them once a week until the month is over. That pretty much explains it, I think.

July 18th, 2026

Living by the image—

everywhere I turn I've tucked reminders
of whatever I wanted to remember,
pictures and paragraphs—

on the walls in the middle of the night.

July 19th, 2026

Once I read, I think,
that all the roads in some foreign land
or another snake between the hills
and arch in gentle curves
to keep the drivers awake, maybe—
we ought to pay
to pave something similar
before I fall asleep.

July 20th, 2026

I was dating a delicate lass
whom I longed to deflower on the grass,
but to argue her love
she replied with a shove
and a powerful pain in my ass.

July 21st, 2026

You knew the song before you heard
the sound of her guitar,
the melody was marble, quarried
in days primordial
and shaped with holy spirit's hands,
the living work of breath
was liberated from the stone
to dance in light and air.

July 22nd, 2026

The eternal cannonade returns, salutes
the earth in passing, sails the deep night.

July 23rd, 2026

The forest dreams in architecture—
crimson boughs aspire to span
the nave's magnificent bright autumns,
marshalling our mother's light.

July 24th, 2026

A colony of artists teems
with works in every medium,
alive and static, wet and dry—
bohemian sophisticates
are mingling in the common places,
sleeping two or three a bed,
constructing castles out of clouds
to barricade against the storms
of commonplace bourgeoiserie.