We sit together
at the baby grand.
My mother’s fingers
dance through Autumn Leaves.
I warble lyrics
by Johnny Mercer.
My father looks up
from his paperback.
He lays the book down
on the end table.
He wouldn’t do this
for just anyone.
From my poetry collection
DANCING ON BROKEN GLASS
NightWing Publications
2014
He takes your little box
of pretty-papered sadness
and slits the sticky tape
with a razor’s edge,
careful not to rip or tear
what he can use again.
Edgar Allan Poe Journal 1
2013
Bowie’s Cha Cha Cha Cha Changes
is playing in the background.
I’m with Ben and Annie drinking
gin and tonics on a day so hot
we put ice cubes In our shoes,
so hot we keep drinking –
in my studio apartment with its
8 X 10 window and no air conditioning –
past the point of speech, let alone
conversation. Ben is looking at Annie.
Annie is looking back. Her make-believe
striptease turns real. My mind melts
into three shades of red. Words refuse
to form. I use my fists. I’m on Ben.
He is a large man, but I leave bruises.
He shows me the next day. I try to laugh
it off. Annie is passed out on the floor.
Ben steps over her and out the door.
Everything has cha cha cha changed
for good.
Rust Belt Review Issue #6
Winter 2021
A chess game lies in progress between them.
None of the pieces have been moved for hours.
The men sit perfectly still in their seats.
Pigeons land on their heads from time to time.
A crowd has gathered around the two,
hoping for a sneeze, a cough, a clearing
in the throat – anything to break the spell
of this living breathing still life pose.
The glimmer of a blink cannot be seen.
No finger scratches at a nose or leg.
The only movement is the fanning wind
blowing through their hair, rustling their clothes.
The crowd disperses, bored after a while.
The men rise up in unison as if
a bell has tolled that only they can hear.
Gracefully they bow to one another, and
linking arms, silently, they walk away.
The Long Islander’s Walt’s Corner
July 2019
Temporal lobe trouble
outs the inner limit
of my surprise zone
Interaction is nothing
but moot point
on misplaced key
My finger pushes through
glass peephole
Nobody screams
Guerilla Pamphlets Volume 22
So many possible conclusions.
I put weights inside my shoes
to keep from jumping
to the nearest one.
Rust Belt Review Issue #6
Winter 2021
He’s in a hospital bed.
He pulls wires and tubes
from his ruined arms
at every opportunity.
The nurse tied him
to a chair this morning,
calling him a bad boy.
It’s his last week on earth.
We both know this.
I bring him coffee ice cream
and Salem cigarettes.
He chews the ice cream
like tough steak.
I help him to his feet.
The IV taunts us both.
We walk wordless
to the common area.
I’m wondering if
he’ll pass in his sleep.
He’s wondering why
I’m fumbling
with the matches.
Rust Belt Review
Issue #6
Winter 2021
The lullabies
she throws against
the walls of her
perimeter
land softly as
they fill the space
unsung between
the peel and paint.
Edgar Allan Poet Volume 2
2014
In the middle
of this rough draft
this partial sketch
this dormant dance
to tune unplayed,
we search for words
color through lines
shuffle our feet
to sleepy music
crescendoing.
EAP Journal 2
2014
When we multiply two negatives
a positive results.
So how, when
squaring our mistakes,
could we end up
in this cyclonic
comedy of errors,
spinning counterclockwise
unable to separate
the big hand from the little hand
the hickory from the dock
the mouse from the clock
The Weekenders Magazine
Issue 3
I hear your familiar knock
long short short long
and I know
how it would be
if I removed the chain lock.
You would see me
as you always did.
but I am legerdemain
impervious to your touch
immune to your beguilement
afterimage
in a loved-out house
still standing.
Combustus
2011
Our courage is rising
from underneath pillows
of nightly platitudes
in high definition.
Writhing to free itself
twisting upward and out
making short shrift of fear,
it breaks into being.
Guerilla Pamphlets
Volume 16
My dreams are
filled with holes
and unidentified
flying objects.
My thoughts are
skittish as moths
in a light show,
flirting with graceful
death
by free fall
but with a smidgen
of intent thrown in.
My hopes stagger,
bludgeoned,
by a boisterous fool
in a mirrored room
where blood collects
in prismed corners.
My debts to the living
are nearly paid.
I’m almost up to date
but badly dated.
I live inside my head
in an age before disco
when a hand held out
was for pulling up
not pushing down.
I don’t know how
to navigate
this newest now.
Yet here I am.
I’m hoarding
my last breath –
the only collateral
I can trust.
Fearless # 66
January 2019
Aunt Mary is losing her grip
on the polished clothesline pole
supporting lines of string
where freshly laundered shirts
still flap in the breeze
of her once perfect memory.
Unsettled, she sits at the window
facing the north wall
of the rehabilitation center
she now calls home.
Everything has been sold off --
her handmade furniture
her collection of quilts --
sent by high school students
from her teaching years
have been misplaced.
She can no longer
read them over and over.
She mostly sits and stares
at the unrelenting wall --
perhaps dreaming of her
lost vegetable garden --
as she picks imaginary lint
from her wrinkled housedress.
Wild Goose Poetry Review
2010
Last Issue
Hollow’s echo lives
on this switchback road
far from the one
I traveled young
at the north end
of Laramie mountains.
Wind whips dust
into my mouth.
No caresses here
No Casper promises
of fairytale cabin
hiding ‘round the bend
with cousins laughing
and dogs barking.
No meatloaf sandwiches
With Kool-Aid chasers.
No spidery outhouse
to mock my Sunday best.
The Montucky Review
2012
My face is an almost ran
nearly nominated place
where mouth turns down
and eyes look away
from smallest expectations.
The stars have gone
out of them.
Traveling west through photos
of these last few years
I hardly recognize myself
“Have you been ill?”
my friends inquire.
Concerned faces zoom in close.
I don’t know how to answer them.
Blackening of the heart
is a rough reclusive beast
avoiding interviews and inquiries.
Guerilla Pamphlets
Volume 15
The road stretches farther than my eyes can see
or my mind imagine. Somewhere between where
I stand, catching my breath, and where they tell
me I should be by now is the right place or as
close to a right place as there can ever be for
someone with my tendency to turn away from
those I love as well as strangers. I won’t be
taken out by friendly fire. Let me be undone
by those who never knew me but see me now
loping and looping with wild frenzy to escape.
Let them take pity on me as they would on any
rabid beast, freeing me from further expectations.
Fearless #74
New Years 2021