There are shades in smokewho gleefully withhold their answers in dry desert washes. They are conjured with dry manzanita and frosty sage, and they will gladly dance with you— for the wind excites their feet. They’ll trip and watch you fall, and laugh through the voices of sparrows. But don’t ask them questions or …
Category Archives: Poems
Incarnation
Incarnation I dance better than I speak. My still lips are more eloquent than my polite conversation. In the dark movie theater our knees touch skin to skin on a summer day. Asleep in fall rain our hands find each other atop the covers. …
Washington Square Park
Washington Square Park Urban dogscan find no dignifiedplace to shit. Urban dogs squat on street cornersand cracked concrete sidewalkstheir owners distractedwatching blanklyplastic bag in handat the far end of the leash. Urban dogs must get alongin the sandy dog runin Washington Square—dobermans and poodles pugsand beagles must play together nicelytheir territorial instinctsrepressed and quivering. Urban …
Tinder
Tinder summer sun pours wetly through the convex lens of my desireaugust heat weighs heavy on my chest and the days are far too longevery golden haired thigh and muscled shoulder gleams moist with need in midday heatbearded and hungry faces meet my eye and linger in the desperate imaginationof tangled limbs and salty tastes and sweat that drips into …
The Living
The Living “The front section is the realm of the dead, symbolized by inert materials – polished black granite and concrete. The back section represents the living.” —Parc de l’espoir – AIDS Memorial ParkVille-Marie, Montreal. I’ve lost those cubes of half remembered dead—not even half I’ve forgotten them completely In favor of the mullet-headed sandal-toed …
Something to Remember You By
Something to Remember You By thank you for the mementothis piece of you formy knick knack shelf your kisses are gone your rough palmover my mouthand the five olive bruiseson my forearm willfade with time so i’m glad you left mesomething i could treasureand that time willnot take away i can look at it until …
Rosemary for Remembrance
Rosemary for Remembrance wild rosemary memories of the gardens of northern californiathe sprig she cut for each of us after the handfastingis on my altar still a decade and a half latershe was roomy and luxuriant and he was mushroom puckheavy earth mother bosom and randy roving panan archetypal pair …
One Inappropriate Analogy Haiku
One Inappropriate Analogy Haiku Life with you is sweeterthan water sports witha diabetic (First published in The Legendary, 2009)
Love Similies
Love Similies I fall for you like Karl Wallenda fell for the circusI fall for you like Fat Man fell for NagasakiI fall for you like DB Cooper My passion burns for you like a helium balloon in a solar flareLike a noonday ant under a bad boy’s magnifying glassLike the Hindenburg burns for the …
Letting Go
Letting God on the train into sunsetmy history is so brittleephemeral and fleeting abandoned power linesstand forgotten marchingforlornly along the tracks old splintered poles tired fromhalf a century have dropped theirwire burdens into the underbrush my eyes don’t focus like they usedto so I lean back like these polestrying to see the details afraid to …