LITTLE BOXES

This past year I finished a manuscript of poems and paintings called Little Boxes, which I hope will be published in the not-too-distant future.  The manuscript contains what is for me a new form of poetry, a form that I call a "box" poem. It uses 10 syllables per line and each poem is limited to 10 lines. If pushed, I’d probably deny this, but I’ve been working with the idea that “if something can’t be said in 100 syllables, it’s not worth saying.” It’s a bit of a mind game; but closer to the truth, there is something powerful in being succinct.

Writing in this style came about almost by accident. A couple of years ago I wrote a short poem that happened to have about 10 syllables per line and happened to be 10 lines in length.  I liked the effect.  Over the next few days I wrote several more poems in this style, and suddenly I was hooked. Little Boxes naturally contains 100 poems, but it also includes 25 paintings that were completed while I was writing the poems.  For this website, I have included below a few of the paintings with their corresponding poems.

 

A six-year-old at the ocean asked me,

"Why do boats float?"  "What makes the tide go up?"

"I know it's an egret, but what's her name?"

"Is that sea lion a boy or a girl?"

"Do people add sea salt to the ocean?"

I know I answered.  I must have answered.

I mean, I know about tides and the moon

and buoyancy and displacement.  I know

these things, and still there is that six-year-old

part of me that wonders, why do boats float?




At the mouth of the Tennessee Valley

where the Pacific argues with the coast,

a lone raven follows in my footsteps

spouting his philosophy to the wind.

"No other god," he says, "no other god."

Winter storms have rearranged the landscape,

a new spring cuts a scar on the cliff face,

and last summer's rock wall has been buried.

We stop and notice.  Raven folds his wings.

"No other god," he says, "no other god."



 

It’s like the game of Pretend we once played.

We take turns. You get to be the inmate, and

I’ll be the guard. Tomorrow, we’ll switch.

When that happens, you can make up the rules,

but not now. Besides, you know how to play

Jealousy. We’ve been doing this for years,

our personal version of Abu Ghraib,

but without the dogs, chains, and pyramids.

We keep all of that virtual, secret.

We hide all the hard stuff inside our love.