Author: William Cowan

  • Words Are Mere Shadows of Thought

    Sensing purpose, you propose: Totality always overflows the edges. The storm reaches farther than thought Possible, lapping the inscrutable. Casting off with no directions Courts sensuality is irrefutable. Other than that Hold the thought up to the light Breath the description, Hear the events, sing their song With all your might.

  • Roba of the Changes

    There coughs the stars The fading stories quench Polished wisdom never hence, Filing down clipped rows. Grasp the bracketing particles Rasping night air with a stare. Row out to daunting crags where A fallen rock is participle To all sown seeds that flare On windy paths now silent. Vestiges reform our efforts curved Out the…

  • Corporate Speak

    We have packaged all the deals, though they are combustible, into a great bundle that congeals for your dining and dancing pleasure. Please accept a token gratuity before we eat your lunch. We surge, we merge, and urge you to remain silent and uninterested in our gradual debasement of all you hold dear. Is that…

  • Picnic Clatter

    The distances have composed a message that will continue to become clearer as it rolls toward you, some days silently, all oil and promise and at other times the scraping is overwhelming. Otherwise it blinks like decaying neon on a roadside bar & grille. Once Ruscha-like it dared resistance. Hey, doc have the wheels come…

  • Massive Attack Mode

    are you ready to catch incoming or are you laid back strumming as the scene slides by trip hopping while you’re busy mopping your unused brow pick the one that holds you up take her hand sup from that cup that we all could share if we owned more than just a tare the true…

  • Reverse Catenary

    To catapult is improvisational. Landing will surprise. The rise, the ride is it. To fame or market’s bottom. Who is there For your arrival? Will You be gladden by their waiting? Or Removed from all Caring in a flash. I’m watching those Fly overhead without A seeming care. Two Minds are observable: Those with their…

  • Two Poems for Clark Coolidge

    Driving Out Somewhere To come out of the haze that hung on the street was a deep breath released. Turning catches corners lifting angle glance windy sparse grit clutters angular walks. Tied to bullet response held back along drives away along avenues dimly lit hushed fever gulf. Roped-off personal folly comes as the mind in…

  • Tonus

    Tossed pejoratives have narrowed the field. Out back The grass grows while stasis and beautiful sunsets go hand And heart. From the north the glove is removed. Satellite pictures gloss the subject. A vast patina Has descended. “And, am I glad to see you.” Others find the fog and traffic a distillation connected To the…

  • For You To Live With

    Torn about and washed by turbine heaven, We are flipped snaps, Vignettes someone watches. Newspapers whip about our ankles, Trying to tear us. Consonants claw us; vowels violate us. The late hour cloud our response, blue to black. Just this once let’s not talk. And, May sparkling stars embrace us with tender years. These predictable…

  • The Paraclete and the Dove

    Ashes to ever. I stain the sheets with you. Almond eyes that you bring to the shadows lighten our efforts. We join, taxing the reserve that luxuriates our limbs. Afterwords the dryness is gone. The rumpled mess created is pillaged time well spent. The air singes my brow and wisps at the papers discarded on…