Rick Barot Poems

And what part of his reflection will tell me who I am,
that I am standing a little away, wanting in on his story?
...

I want from love only the beginning.
Not this hillside above the twilight-awakening
city, where you are more absent
...

It turns out there's a difference between a detail
and an image. If the dandelion on the sidewalk is
mere detail, the dandelion inked on a friend's bicep
is an image because it moves when her body does,
...

The boulder that is bigger than a house,
perched on the edge of another boulder, painted gold
and prayed to by monks in saffron robes.
...

I think about the mornings it saved me
to look at the hearts penknifed on the windows
of the bus, or at the initials scratched
...

Bridges and streets. The neon like candy.
Brake lights blooming in rain. Rain.
Concrete. Long live the concrete of cities.
...

to burn at least one thing they once owned: she tears
the page from his book and sets light to whatever
she said to him there, words to smoke, paper
...

Light glossing on the breakers, then disappearing.
You say it is mortal that way: silver, then gone.
On the phone, it becomes the distance I listen for,
the waves talking just behind you. Here, it is quietly
...

When any word is called for, say that I am of.
When the tornado forms, that is the ruinous
kiss. When the bamboo-green field sways,
...

A story gets told, begins to hold fast,
and like rain brings back a thing more
...