Half Life
The day of your coming
was the day of my undoing.
I date everything now
by a calendar of exclusion.
Grief is on every page
like a blot
made not of ink,
but blood.
Considering our promises,
is there a difference?
What’s left is punctuation
and blank spaces.
Bang
From the smallest beginning
the structure of this universe
grew like a balloon
endlessly filling
with rocks and gases
and explosions and
the silence
that’s permanent.
Then we came
with our questions
and our fear.
Stalker
As if I’m backing
out of Time
I obsessively watch
the shadow follow.
Its darkness is lit
from within like a demon
whose soupy brow
consumes its face
the way night does,
and now
I cannot see
my face.
Bridge
Before you can be home,
you have to travel
far and wide
in dim regions
and wild places on the Earth
and the space between
where horror grows
as a daily occurrence.
No one plans this
though we try
to plan everything.
That’s how smart we’ve become.
The span of time
is your open hand.
Called
When distant trees move,
Sun Tzu says,
the enemy is coming.
When the trees walk toward you
as prophesized by witches,
Macbeth learns what it means.
These are all signs.
Our life is filled with them.
Today the Wine Gods
have called me
for a special mission
that does not need words,
which is lucky
since I used mine.
Stan Sanvel Rubin has published poems in many US journals including Agni, The Georgia Review, and Poetry Northwest as well as in China, Canada, and Ireland. Four full-length collections include There. Here. (Lost Horse Press) and Hidden Sequel (Barrow Street Poetry Book Prize). A retired educator, he has lived on the north Olympic Peninsula of Washington for over twenty years.