Collections

Writings on the Shithouse Wall
Duology: Good Time Gals Bad Time Boys
Haikus: 366
Everything: Indexed

Haikus From the Coal Region

#1
Dad slugs snowy rocks
Cold anger breaking the ice
“Who wants some ice cream?”

#2
Uncle John is gone
They marched him into the woods
Another secret kept

#3
Still waters run deep
Especially for Timmy
Strip mines need good fences

#4
Ten to life up north
A catered room with a view
Statutory rape

#5
An old mining town
Filled with pin oaks and brown deer
Burning from below

#6
Scores of old nanas
Stuffing cabbage in church halls
Food for the needy

#7
A fun fair with rides
With food, fun and families
That carnie is drunk

#8
Fresh maple syrup
Tapped into old groves of trees
Corn syrup’s cheaper

#9
Pennsylvania
Two cities with hicks between
Still not Ohio

#10
Steam trains to nowhere
Winding through old brick houses
All factories gone

The Mistake of Enlightenment

Siddhartha, my brother of a different mother,
Nirvana’s road is paved with your sole intention.
Your ideas are conceived to strike like lightning,
Flashes of fruition that force isolation.

Siddhartha, you locked me up in a far cloister.
A cell built to foster my love’s abstention.
To teach me detachment through holy internment
You bade me choose love or face annihilation

Siddhartha, what did Janapada do to you?
She was my royal wife and my heart’s true attention
You made me compare her to your hand picked devas.
Who’d make any mortal seem rather simian.

Siddhartha, I was better off as a donkey
Chewing sweet hay rather than enduring transcendence
You brought me salvation through forced isolation
And left me bereft of my souls’ occupation.

Luminescence, Cinnamon, Fire, Juniper, Piano

Find your mountain if you want your tale told.
Climb toward the luminescence past the peak
Then your sunsets will be woven with gold.

Beware the ballads that are bought and sold.
Set fire to pianos whose keys do not speak,
“Find your mountain if you want your tale told.”

Do not tarry in the taverns of old.
Spurn their juniper spirits that leave you weak
then your sunsets will be woven with gold.

Resist cinnamon’s scent for her soft hold
will delay you while your instinct wants to shriek,
“Find your mountain if you want your tale told!”

Steel your mettle with your heart’s own code
by lifting your character beyond critique
then your sunsets will be woven with gold.

The great myths do not belong to the meek
But to heroes who thine own self shall seek.
Find your mountain if you want your tale told
then your sunsets will be woven with gold!

The Perfect Moment

How do you express the perfect moment?
How do you encapsulate the surreal beauty
Of a warm June’s afternoon
With a cerulean sky so big and so clear
your words get lost trying to border the vastness
When the dappled golden rays of everyone’s sun
Filter through the precise leaves of trees
whose names and stories you’ll never know.
What words can possibly describe the feeling of unadulterated, enviable, world-destroying love.
love that is shared on a freshly power-washed deck,
backing a house full of memories -
of chores complete,
of lives commingled
and of secrets shared.

How can express it when you are reeling in awe?
when you are left stupefied, dumb and humbled by the sheer impossibility of that moment.
When you stop to consider how somehow this cold and uncaring universe rolled the dice so precisely in your favor.
When you realize how a single life choice, or random occurrence, or harsh word could have turned this precise moment into so many others.
How do you hold something so fragile and ephemeral in you hands?
How dare you try to limit it with words?

Sanctity of Morning

I ride in the sanctity of the morning,
During the swapping of the savers and the sinners,
Colored by the sun-risen pinks and purples
As this city reloads.

Everything Indexed

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A

A Poem About Beauty
A Song of My Self
A Visit from St. Atticus
A Walk through the Garden
abcs
Abracadabra
Abrasive
America May 2020

B

Baby Boomer
Bad Time Boys
Be My Therapist
Because I Can
Bowflex
Burn it all down

C

Calla
Cats
Coming for Us All
Consent to Let Go
Creator of Worlds

E

Ecuadorian Dream House
Exegesis

F

Fatten the Curve
Forty Two Poems

G

Golden
Good Time Gals

H

Haikus From the Coal Region
Halloweened
Helios and the Local Colours
Her
Hey, fuck up

I

I Am a Bicycle in the Rain
I Break
I Left It All Behind
I Love You, Mom
I Prefer the Sea Days
I Remember Cape Canaveral
I'm Already Packed
I'm out
In the Mountains Oblivion
Island Gaze

L

Lady Libertine
Landmark Erosion
Love Sucks
Lover's Tanka
Lsd in the Afternoon
Luminescence, Cinnamon, Fire, Juniper, Piano

M

Model
Mother Earth
Mother Issues
Mourning
My Ass Is Full of Stars

O

Ode to a Dangling Sword
On Isolation
Orchid

P

Potential
Push and let go

Q

Quarantine Day 39

R

ramble
Rather
Remember

S

Sanctity of Morning
Satre Causes Nausea
Shades
Shelf Full of Dick
Smoke
Staten Island Mating Call
Stop

T

Thank You, Mitch McConnell
The Mistake of Enlightenment
The Northern Lights and a Dead Moose
The NSA took the Imam away
The Perfect Moment
The Philosopher's Stone
This One is for the English Majors
Thoughts on a Fire
Three
Tulla

W

We Fuck Stone
What a glorious day to be alive
When You are Stoned
Whiskey Kiss
Will Song