Category: Poetry

When the gates of pearl closed (behind me) I sighed with relief. And I wondered. I wondered. (I worried) that someone might have heard me. They are perfect. In beauty. In word. In deed. I can find no flaw (though I look). And they look at me as if there were no difference between us. […]

They’re long forgotten, really.They didn’t have their sisters’ press agents.The Greeks, who named the gods like Adam named the animals,Forgot about them. A great injustice.But what do expect from a bunch of men,And Sappho? Their sisters, the famous Muses, the ones with namesWere great teases. Still are.A hint of laughter from across the bay,A flash […]

My friends do not believe in gnomes.I have learned not to discuss the subject;    they long ago gave up listening.But when the times and seasons are rightI go to a cave beneath the hilland squirm through a gnome-sized tunnelto a great gnome-sized hall    where I can almost stand. They throw a great party, the gnomes,with […]

Radiation (as the Curies knew)    runs down by halves.And if, someday,    after a half life or so,    only half of us remains,I (if it is I) will    sleep in half beds,        hold half conversations,            and watch half sunsets. Doug MuderDecember, 1998

As a child I learned to celebrate endings.Years end in birthdays,and school ends in summer or proms or graduation. But careers and friendships and lives endin argument or silence,with spectacular failure or long, slow fading. I wish that I could graduate from life;be valedictorian of my dying class,and see my honors listed in the program. […]

So he was born    sometime, somewhere    the details vary too much for me to sort them out.On the day? Probably not.The birthday belonged to a lot of people    (or gods or whatever they were):    Mithras. Sol Invinctus. Some others.It was a great party, the Saturnalia.And all the old gods were dead anyway,    so why not […]

By all means, find your place of satisfaction.Rest on its summit and enjoy the view.Or walk on its beaches and listen to the waves    that roll timelessly onto its shore.Peace. Contentment. Nirvana.Whatever you call that thing you’re looking for    — find it. It’s out there somewhere. Or else it’s in there somewhere.Close your eyes, if […]

A poem by Doug Muder, 28 December 2004 Back from vacation, batteries spent,only my cards carry charges. Camera, shaver, phone — I barely have sockets for them all. Their tiny lights blink at me, and I watch them.

Or “Mourning Person.” A poem by Doug Muder, 2006. These days I start my mornings in the Past with you.When the grayness before Dawn breaks through my window, when the trumpets of the Morning call me into battle,I resist. Holding my eyes closed tight,I retreat into my old half of the bedAnd slide backwards, month […]