the muffled songs
made me wonder
who played violin
on the other side
who cradled the bowstring
whose long haunting moans
whispered my name
in its dried throat
beyond the wooden wall
who itself whispered
its own ghosts
its dead fingerprints
are clamoring
to live again
(originally published in The Bond Street Review, Summer 2017)
I argue with the music in my car again
those rock’n’roll pots and pans clanging
in the soup kitchen of my imagination
the Steel Reserve of my rumba rumblin’
stomach unfilled from Maruchan ramen
really I’m running from anything but home:
in the apartment of my car the desert’s
a sandstorm of faulty A/C and mountains
obscuring the view of my future and
there’s nowhere else to go but here
(originally published in Outcast Poetry, Spring 2017)
You always have to run.
Short North to downtown,
city to city, Indiana
to Tennessee–
one shoe on gravel,
the other careening
through time and space
into a green
where you are unknown
and your running shoes are empty
at our red swing’s feet.
I know you never run to leave,
driving your horizon eyes
miles to sun– and you, after its setting,
glide beside each highway’s unlit rivers
on the bridge of the median, drunk
from driving so long under moon,
far from where our empty bottles
collect in a skyward infinity,
a mountain of clinking memories–
a marathon, a gap traversed quickly.
(originally published in VerseWrights)
the couch a forlorn slinky
stagnant. f-stop set to zero. focus:
predestined flickering lights
where dreams meet swan
matches and peel, lit & untethered
jaunty flows
the air beneath
the vacant couch
warrior of staleness & mildew
ambassador to dust-covered curtains–
shards of dreams
in beams of sun
stream into the room; at least
what is breathed, what can be seen
through blinds in deep sleep–
(originally published in VerseWrights)
in the vacant living room
our packed boxes never touched,
black mold assumes the ceiling fan.
it awakens every morning
wanting to spin,
to slice into the air
with its fine blades
a surgery of breathing
and the chest waits
for your steady palm
to resuscitate
those numb nights,
when our billowed heat
cooled our voluminous bits
(originally published in Scarlet Leaf Review)