Poems

Linda, a beauty, entered through my eyes. Tom, a baritone, through my ears. Martina wafted in on Channel #5. Laverne snuck through in red velvet cake and coffee. Harold hurt me and entered through the wound. Who knew there were so many gates, so few sentinels....

We meet up in your edge high home, you at ease, me an alien in this treeless zone. You are a sinister countenance on the trail; menacing spiked horns, species appropriate beard - goatee, hair-coat granite gray. Beneath towers of stone, you trot surefooted, not tempted...

My father stepped out of yesterday. He pointed away. "Tomorrow," he said, "you will be closer                                       to me."

One cannot live in this world without wounds. There is no other world.  The church bell breaks open the graves of silence. Those aroused begin to murmur what they know. A siren screams through a neighborhood of dreams. A startled bird, a stiff-haired yowling cat, a...

Who is responsible for the major crimes of the 20th century, the triggermen, or the one who paid the triggermen to pull the triggers? Unnamed sources have pointed fingers at God. Forensic accountants are looking into God’s cash flow. Investigators are...

The opposite of silence is not sound, it is noise, the incessant  jingle jangle chatter clatter mutter clutter we use to chase fear  back to the border. Silence is the sound NOTHING makes,  gathering all reverberations  into  a stillness  that lets, permits  allows...

A river of light flows through this Tuscan valley, light viscous as the River Arno, thick enough to be seen and felt, like fine sand blowing against skin, thick enough to sit on the tongue and be tasted, light that pours through the ears as music, light that strikes...

Things! Things! How I love them, how I adore the specificity of things, their fragile absolute edges, their color which can turn in a moment. The cruel missionaries from heaven teach us a hatred for things, how shallow things are, and fleeting, like the billion year...

Originally I didn't, but because of daily papers, the 24/7 news cycle, and knowing myself over years, now I do. Because the serpent’s claim entices. Because there is nothing new under the sun. Because I am not inventive. Because time is trouble. Because everything...