He wouldn’t have stolen cigarillos when he was 16.He wouldn’t have posed on Instagram with his hands held like that.He won’t jog in the nice neighborhoodor be in the stairwell when the power’s outor knock on doors after a car accident.He’ll give them his ID even if in front of his own home.He won’t get... Continue Reading →
I’ve been down a roadwith wheat stacked on both sides,so I thank God for the scattered hillsand the small town wedged between them.Not that I don’t appreciate the country’sflat and endless bread-basket,but a slow rise does my concentration a favor,and civilization grants my wish.I can sit up at a diner counterand order a stacked BLT,as... Continue Reading →
"The man in the next bed died last night,"are the first words out of Ted’s mouth."And the guy in the next room early this morning."To Ted, it's more like a funeral home than a hospitalexcept, in this ward, the undertakers get the corpses prematurely.He has no doubt that he'll be nextdespite the medical staff’s comforting... Continue Reading →
argent agents of the night, spidershave no need for stargazing;I wonder still if they scrutinizethose shrouded skiesand fantasize—capture comets, never fliesdo those eight eyesconstellateto visualizeArachne’s shapeperfectly traced?I wonder if they recognize—or if they’d rather taste Read More in Poetry
At a late early hourI fizzled out of sheets;covers seemed drapedover a body lazily as if to say,“He may or may not rise again”To the carpet, to the floorto the drooping brass handle on the doorI turned the knob with a firm gripand heard a noise like this:saxophone scream and squealshredding like claws of steelor... Continue Reading →
O haven’t we been something,we Gracies and Joans, Williesand Bobs baring our hearts,entreating all to feel, imagine—our youths crossing the stage,steps by hope kindled, voicesringing, the blush of our lipsunveiling passions within us.Supple, rebellious years—O Otis, O Nina,O Janis, Jimi, and Kurt,didn’t we take our shot at life,love hard, make a difference.Weren’t we always where... Continue Reading →
Like a surgeon wielding a scalpel,she excised potato eyes like tumors,snaked long peels from the mealy flesh—her eyes scarcely glancing at her hands.Potatoes proved her passport to community.She grew and sold them to the grocers,provided them cheesy or dumplingedfor all the functions her church ladies catered,and hosted for holidays family and friends.She spoke as she... Continue Reading →
To see these multitudinous children of the sunfrolicking upon my shaggy yard, their yellow-plumed heads lifting, bobbing, surely summoningthe scurry of nectar-craving bees,brings welcome cheer as they broadcastwholesome news of warmth, soil and water—countering the crusty worries everlooming at day’s gray horizons.Undaunted by the haughty tulips and iris,boldly they lay their seasonal claim,scoffing at arbitrary... Continue Reading →
O haven’t we been something,we Gracies and Joans, Williesand Bobs baring our hearts,entreating all to feel, imagine—our youths crossing the stage,steps by hope kindled, voicesringing, the blush of our lipsunveiling passions within us.Supple, rebellious years—O Otis, O Nina,O Janis, Jimi, and Kurt,didn’t we take our shot at life,love hard, make a difference.Weren’t we always where... Continue Reading →
For one full week, the sun was dead, unloosening the gray,wild clouds that swamped each paddy bed— the plowman’s great dismay.The regal night sky, once agleam, was purloined of its stars.Each lane became a water stream. Dinghies replaced the cars.Mazdoors, waist-hidden, waded to their distant factory sites.The Tongas (since they... Continue Reading →
