Poetry

  • Last Straw

    IHaveNoTimeFor BanterSirIAmAn AncientMariner MyShipWentDown ICausedItsLoss TheyTiedMeToAn AlbatrossItIsA BigPelagicBird QuiteWholesome IfAdministered InternallyLike ChickenSoupNot TopicallyLikeA StupidPoultice

  • Ice Fishing

    Today my father crouches above the ice on Black Hill Lake and the bass, spinning in slivers of winter sunlight, swim to the surface with the aura of dreams, in their speckled eyes the slow, ominous stare of memory. Next to the crosshatched hole in the ice, the bucket fills with fish, the water turns…

  • The Scout

    Penn Valley Park, Kansas City, 1936 In bronze you sit, safe now from the obsessions of decline, your pony beneath you, your hand held to your head, you gaze exhausted at the city that has risen against the plain, as if this earth, in unfaithful partnership, had pulled a pistol. After decades of that quick…

  • Two SLABS (Standard-Length-and-Breadth-Sonnets)

    LAST STRAW IHaveNoTimeFor BanterSirIAmAn AncientMariner MyShipWentDown ICausedItsLoss TheyTiedMeToAn AlbatrossItIsA BigPelagicBird QuiteWholesome IfAdministered InternallyLike ChickenSoupNot TopicallyLikeA StupidPoultice UP TO HERE WITH THE PIED PIPERS OF GOTHAM IDontLikeMimeI DontLikeSleaze IDontLikeSteel BandSymphonies Psalterypawing SlobsLikeThese Discountenance Philanthropies NorAmIAvidToBe EyeballedOddly ByAnIdleRibald OboistWhoFlaps APiebaldMotley WhilstHeTweets

  • Traces

    Sometimes I have delusions of total recall, tyrannical, crazy. Crazy is what I thought years ago, “You're crazy!” when I built a home over my father's bulldozed house. Nothing's ever lost to me, certainly not the arsonned pieces of that place that erupt like clocks in the rockiness of my yard. Yesterday, yellowed linoleum bloomed…

  • The Owl

    The owl called to me from the dark. “Where is my pocketbook?” it quavered. The night before, it played its flute and Sang, “I cannot find my glasses anywhere” With tremolo enough to split a rock. A chuckle at the end of every cry Suggested humor in all this. I had some trouble seeing any,…

  • Bodies We Will Never Know

    White cottonwood tufts fill the air like moths; we rub our eyes in the filmy atmosphere thick with white dreams, while down the road at the Sagebrush Inn, a Seeing Eye dog sleeps beneath the piano where his mistress practices Linda Ronstadt's greatest hits. Afternoon. The room is empty except for the bartender swatting at…