Your laugh could knock civilization out
but you are too modest.
I spent time at the cafeteria alone
at school. Red trays quivered.
On film sets I can’t look up.
How tight is the lighting rig?
When I apply that logic
to our place in the universe–
it’s too cold a stone to live alone.
When your soundwaves reach me,
in my solace, from the moon
or Mars or Mars, Pennsylvania,
I want my life to begin again
and I want you there
the whole time.
(originally published in Ephemeral Elegies, Spring 2023)
lost contact walking
in circles around franklin
village you wanted to be alone
at the festival of rockets
you paid for everything
we met at the coffeepot
concert steamer summers
spent in a young galaxy
where we both loved
desert guitars
the avenue droughts
and cold
basements
(originally published in Rabid Oak, Spring 2022)
In the inner sanctum of throbbing
bodies, I groove hard beyond slow
walk of long-haired superstars,
headlight-eyed, mumbling inside
microphones amplified starward.
Diving deep into this band the
first time– an alien soundscape
of guitar echo and half-familiar
nostalgia for when we could live
forever, tapping wine bottles
with drumsticks to the rhythmic
thrum of how our lives were
going, no interruptions, propellor
hats attached and forever flying,
no batteries included, unnecessary.
(originally published in Roi Faneant, Summer 2022)
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)
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)