Poetry
336 works
DADDY ISSUES
Destined child, her future’s bright as the golden walls of Olympus
That is before being born a daughter of a man whose dad mistaken love for violence
The father’s missteps was her grandfather’s wretched care
Discourse On Love
“...It is, for when the spontaneity
has been removed by either man or woman,
the other shall receive this sudden backstep
The Times Are (after Sylvia)
floss for missing teeth.
Poison on the nipples.
A letter in a shed on fire.
Jocks, Freaks, and Nerds (The Ford, Massachusetts, 1970s)
The jocks played
high school helmet-ball.
They dubbed the others
The World is So Small
I can smell a child’s fear
several continents away.
It is burnt toast bird guano chocolate chip cookies.
Instructions for Teaching Rain to Read Radiology Films
No one remembers who noticed first:
the rain pausing above hospitals,
waiting.
The Cartographer of Vanishing Organs
The anatomy atlas was never wrong.
It was only early.
Each night, after the hospital emptied
Arrangements
You bravos had better be ready to fight.—Warren Zevon, My Ride’s Here
I’m thinking bagpipes. No, not bagpipes.Too much hassle and too damn much money.Save that for something that…
They know my favorites.And if they beat me out the door, a playlist.Mostly Tom Waits. The…
AGAINST ERASURE
Louie gunned down in his shop,
Boris struck and flung to asphalt by the drunk driver,
and now,
Erleichda
Reality is merely an illusion, albeit a very persistent one.
—Albert Einstein
It’s time, child, to talk about the feathers —
Per Stirpes
I stand as one, but I come with ten thousand.
~Maya Angelou
And now comes you, child,
A Language Searching for a Home
My mother tongue, my birth language,
is far from dead, yet everyone
reassures me it’s dying.