Poems
Strike Out
Strike Out The man in the pale brown linen suit struts across the room. He scratches his head and lights a Marlboro cigarette.It is so warm he removes his jacket.He is surrounded by maps and charts and lines and screens. His job is statistical analysis, and he has an...
It was six am
It was six am Two men in dirty overalls were digging a hole. They air was cold. One man smoked a cigarette; the other sipped coffee from a paper cup. The men dug. They stopped and peered into the hole. They stopped and dug again. It was Sunday. Children ran around the...
You must walk
You must walk even when you step over severed heads and hands. Don’t be an idiot throw out the orange pills weep for the dead. Look at the Real Estate section of the papers at homes worth millions of dollars and the six caret diamond rings look at the high rise...
Lesbos, Greece
The boats are coming over the rim of the world and they just keep coming hour after hour until I stop counting. The horizon is rimmed with boats & rafts bobbing up and down waiting to drift in. Men paddle with oars and boards and hands. Women clutch babies in...
Jeopardy
In JEOPARDY Toni Ortner explores grief and loss, and the path to acceptance, “It’s riotous enough to love. / Be my sweet morning dove. / Let go of the black cloth of mourning. / I will weave you a nest of sweet grass and sun.” “In the midst of this litany of grief”...
January 19, 1993 — Four Part Poem
I. Montauk, Long Island, Atlantic Terrace Motel a shadow passed over in the morning mist the angels the divas the spirits the sacred. Snug in our bed a bottle of gin and Blake on the nightstand we recited Walt Whitman browning our bodies to perfection on the empty...
