DAH is a Pushcart Prize and Best Of The Net nominee, and the lead editor for the poetry critique group, The Lounge. The author of nine books of poetry, DAH lives in Berkeley, California, and has been teaching yoga to children in public and private schools since 2005. His tenth poetry book, Waking Love With A Kiss, is due for publication in September 2020

Fragmented No. 20

Sometimes to slow down inside memory
/ to skip, like a stone over water / then
to sink, like bones of the dead / or how
the wind against the redwoods confirms
this great forest.
 
If you were an echo with a mantra/ with
a full range of intentions and reasons / if
then we could build a small boat / to sail
against time / to hold it all together for
us, again.
 
There are times when I simply cannot
feel / clutching my umbrella against the
storm / cannot feel your absence nor your
presence, or the now that is happening
despite yesterday.
 
Sometimes the world is an ocean, people are
blunt waves / and I’m sloshing against the
undertow / the riptide that slams me down,
like a message in a bottle / that has no clear
destination.

fragmented no. 18

bizarre foam shapes / absurd
faceless / the loneliness
somewhere 
/ in every horizon
 
rain latches to the sea
without hooks / nor hands  
/ each drop, an eye
with a magnified view
 
and seagulls are paper planes 
impervious and tranquil / like an old
dinghy worn to its grain
/ in hopelessness
 
i knew nothing of your sadness
/ those long scars in your nerves /
your loose body, like an angry toy
tightening around me and
 
i’d crumble like old paper / burning
from seduction / laughter,
for no reason, and your counterfeit love
buying me / again

fragmented no. 25

a morning frozen in b-minor 
long and short streets / a café 
window / mug of coffee / strings 
of steam rising / watching dawn 
 
… breaking through cypress.
 
there’s a time when / seabirds move
at certain hours / above the odor
of low tide / close to shore / before
the sun’s beautiful prowling
 
… the swift snowy plovers.
 
a woman in yellow and brown 
like an autumn leaf / naked and dry
near a small girl, barefoot, shivering
/ sunlight’s weightless beams
 
… a lighthouse extends its eye. 
 
at a gallop / waves drive the surf
kicking mist into the air /pointed rocks
like horns sticking up / an old woman
with her head bent down, motionless
 
… a moment’s freezing wind. 
 
floating pelicans / a ceiling of feathered
grey / tiny shells, like lost finger nails
/ looking at them I see your hands /
as if crawling away
 
… this memory’s failing heart.