Dwain's Published Poetry

Dwain has collected a few of his poems into a chapbook, "Under the Only Moon."

The First Edition is sold out. An expanded Second Addition is available. If you would like to order one or more copies, click the button at right.

Here is a sampling from the chapbook:

What the Eye Knows

The eye knows its business
Knows the cold disconsolate rains
Of April, can acknowledge
Their onset in a flicker at the heart.

While my marvelously self-righting butt
And the oft-acclaimed brain
Sink back toward the bottom
Of some vertigo
As I whirl my car around the exit ramp of I-590,
My eye has scanned the treetops
Spinning against my course,
And picked out a lump
Just off the apex of one,
Something that doesn't belong
And does,

Seen the slight gold
Of its breast, its large utterly alive stillness,
And instantly whispered, my eye to me,
Its surpassing dignity.

The Woman in the Green Cap

The woman in the green cap sits in a Beirut hospital,
Her brother with her, holding her as they cry
For their mother and the rest of their family.
They are alone in the photograph on The Times front page,
Empty chairs in rows around them.

The woman in the green cap barely sits,
Her posture contorted.
Who knows what has happened beneath her green patient's cap
Amid the bloodied hair, and who knows what the rocket did
To her tear-soaked body beneath her green gown.

The woman in the green cap this morning, perhaps,
Bought food at a neighborhood green-grocer,
Picking among the dates, finding yogurt, spinach, onions, bread
To make dinner.

The woman in the green cap, carrying the groceries,
May have walked a road home
That no longer exists.

The woman in the green cap feeds us all now with her agony,
Flowing out of the photograph across The New York Times,
Flowing onto my writing desk, onto this page, flowing up into me,
Nourishing something I seldom touch.

The woman in the green cap
May someday remove the green cap.
She may, in some other house, beside some other road,
Wash her hair of all the dark crimson and bathe,
And once again refreshed, feed someone, her brother maybe, herself,
Or you, or me
With honey flooded over oranges, with baklava and dates,
Her agony having rinsed away everything.

A Small House

A small house makes a magic home,
Being, as it must, larger on the inside
Than out. Yet for all its wonders,
Its limitations impose,
Or suggest, necessities, disciplines.

Similarly, those inhabiting a small house
Must be larger inside than out,
Ready for connections with all who are there
Without the least suggestion of cobwebs
Or bad electricity or sour plumbing.

Householding can be peculiar.
There may be no place
For closeting, for instance, or for make-up,
Glue, hammer,
The odd imflammable.

Belongings should be as sparse, of course,
As harsh words. Orotund expressions or feelings
May find little projection
In a small house,
Or may rattle it apart if persistent.

Living in a small house is a gift to be glimpsed,
Perhaps turned like a jewel from time to time but never stared at.
To census-takers wanting the exact number of occupants,
Reply there is no such figure.
Never, never measure the foundations.

Dwain Wilder

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