Poetry
Poems
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Just after the last shadows fell, before the fireflies,
A light flared in the upper branches, a stillness settled below,
And I felt the weight of our lives quietly coming to rest.
The Hyacinth Review, June 14, 2024.
The late-October wind carries a
cedary scent of woodsmoke tonight.
I pause to breathe it in.
The Hyacinth Review, June 24, 2024.
When I was a boy, my father took us to see the Senators play in twi-night double-headers at D.C. Stadium.
Pulsebeat Poetry Journal, September 2023.
What happened to all those wishes
we sent into the skies of childhood?
The Hooghly Review, April 2024.
What happened to all those wishes
we sent into the skies of childhood?
The Hooghly Review, April 2024.
My father’s eyes were a strange blend of blue—
pale, cool, gently unflinching.
The blue of probability. His field.
Salvation South, June 2024.
Is it important for you to know that your creator was a predator?
Do you care that he was armed with a venomous proboscis
that paralyzed his prey before he ate them?
Nine Muses Review, June 2024.
The problem with the past
is that it wants to seduce us,
twist, deceive, reduce us,
make us think we’ve outgrown it
as we’re quietly arranging
the next tryst – care to hit a few?
Rough Diamond Hope Anthology, Summer 2024.
The last time I had you inside me
was ten years ago today,
when I decided to resist the next day’s
calling – as familiar by then
as drain-water flushing through wall-pipes,
whisking away all doubt and resolve.
Roi Faineant Press, August 2024.
Here again, that strange time of day
when certain shadows of the past
meet less-than-certain shadows
of the future, unwitting partners
sparring dimly by interior light.
Roi Faineant Press, August 2024.
There will be warnings, we were told,
and there were.
Mobius, May 2024.
The silence asks,
What are you doing with yourself?
What is it that you really want?
Anti-Heroin Chic, April 2023.
Toss a cliché at God and call it prayer.
Or find a way to listen,
and learn a separate prayer.
Anti-Heroin Chic, April 2023.
What people see at first
is not the person
who lives inside.
Anti-Heroin Chic, April 2023.
Her eyes stay with the crushed rabbit
in the road longer than I like,
as if she’s never seen a dead anything before.
And then it occurs to me: maybe she hasn’t.
Ghudsavar, December 2023.
At dusk, the daylight
slips into something
more comfortable.
The gravestones
grow wild in these
feral fields,
warm with winter sun.
Today they watch
a procession of cars,
headlights lit
defiantly
against
the day.
Cross & Crow Keys, December 2023.
Who was Wordsworth, really?
And what are words really worth?
Or letters, for that matter?
Hand Picked Poetry, Fall 2023.
Then came the cheapening,
when even the air and the oceans
seemed to lose value.
Ephemeras Literary Magazine, January 28, 2024.
The smudges on the glass
resemble storm clouds
this morning.
Sometimes, you are the wind
from an unknown world.
The Winged Moon Ancient Issue, June 2024.
Spring depends on the song the thrush sings
after gliding to his branch
in the blue hour,
just before the sun.
Intangible Magazine, June 2023.
From a metal measuring cup, you
sprinkled seeds on every second paving stone
Crab Apple Literary, Spring 2024.
I feel nostalgic already
for yesterday, having sandwiches
Third Wednesday Magazine, Winter 2024.
The Gun won
the American Revolution
(a flintlock musket then)
and gave us freedom.
Be kind
(to those who appreciate kindness).
Fevers of the Mind Poetry Showcase, June 6, 2023.
I felt the fall of a fast-fading day,
Worried I’d wake in a familiar way:
Alone in my bed, unable to see
All the things that by day mattered to me.
Grand Little Things, June 2024.
There is a kind of weather that finds
the weakness in things.
Tangled Locks Journal, February 2024.
Not yet woman, not yet man,
Ablaze with summer's fire.
The wild blooms were wilder then.
CandleLit Magazine, Issue 3, October 2023.
Zhagaram Literary Magazine, Winter 2023.
During the storm,
you lost the shape of what you were,
forced to bend and bow, this way and that,
in winds as harsh and unforgiving
as human rage.
Door is A Jar, Winter 2023.
It might’ve been the hottest day of summer, maybe the hottest there ever was.
Door is A Jar, Winter 2023.
It might’ve been the hottest day
of summer, maybe the hottest
there ever was. A day when
the hornets and wasps
hid in shadows, fat and fuzzy,
sucking nectar into their crops.
And the Earth itself seemed
to crave something unattainable.