He doesn’t miss sameness. No, not the sameness. The sameness of lapping the gravel track in ellipses to nowhere for 3,000 days, the same treeless yard, the same bleachers, faceless, the same conversation each day and each week. Not frigid concrete and pseudo brick walls, the cinder block shelves in a make-shift greenhouse. The… Continue reading One Thing He Misses, from Life in a Prison
Category: Uncategorized
Sonnet for the Lost Woods
Who pauses to pay homage to the trees buried in a concrete cemetery— those that were a leafy sanctuary brought--by civilization--to its knees? Where were the mourners, when the forests died— the noble warriors mankind didn’t save? No flags or flowers placed upon their graves, no one recited last rites; no one cried. Departed souls,… Continue reading Sonnet for the Lost Woods
After the Climate Change
A hundred thousand years—what will they find? After lapping hungry at our feet the creeping seas rise, and then retreat. Will humankind be fossil over time? What traces from the life of our tribe-- like ancient middens buried in sandstone with hidden bits of pottery and bone-- what part of modern man survives the tides?… Continue reading After the Climate Change
The Ghost of Cancer Past
There's the smile we recognize-- but as we're greeting him we see exhaustion in his eyes where hope is stretched thin, the transformation to a man who doesn't fill his skin. They're gone, he convinces us— all the stomach tumors. New at believing wellness isn't just a rumor— his eyes beg us, like a child… Continue reading The Ghost of Cancer Past
Love Song
Let us wander through the wood, entwine our hands forever— hearts as weightless as a breeze, a path that wanders endlessly, and gathers us together. Our future broad as sky, and brilliant as a moonlit dream, and time is but the whispered sound of aspen leaves that flutter down, the murmur of a stream. And… Continue reading Love Song
Ode to a Sulfur Butterfly
Of all the hues of summer, I remember you as pale yellow, with little shimmer, your name unpleasant smell. Not legend, like the monarch, or glamorous swallowtail, or self-important admiral; I didn’t see you well … until you left the garden, and only now I tell you, they say you bring good fortune, happiness… Continue reading Ode to a Sulfur Butterfly
A Long Way from Kansas
Somewhere between first grade and old age my youth peeled away like sunburned skin. Hands that used to make forts, and make out, shout at me now for steroid shots. The soundtrack for life isn’t BB-19 on a chrome jukebox in a diner on Tenth. The jukebox came down. And so did my chin.… Continue reading A Long Way from Kansas
A Map to the Soul
My poems are a map to my soul— a twisting road to thoughts undiscovered. With each word I write, each truth uncovered, I stumble a bit closer to the whole. I embark each day, not knowing where— just following the road is all that matters. Sometimes I'm saving elephants, or flowers, or revealing fears I… Continue reading A Map to the Soul
Absence
The air lost weight today just after the saws took down the giant tree. The ample bosom of leaves, the fullness of bird song and gravity of shade are pulp with the grinding. A century of habitat, a poet's gentle bower, fed to the waiting dragon's jaws. Five men and one truck and less than… Continue reading Absence
Feed the Predator, or the Prey?
The hawk drops through air like a stone, dives, clutches, and plucks his prey out of the feeder at break of day, and tows it aloft to his aerie home. The man stoops with stiffened knees for something grey as his thinning hair: a flight of feathers fell from the air, the innocent victim… Continue reading Feed the Predator, or the Prey?