blue wheat
meat on the heart
he told me
gaze the world
to understand
heaven
the angels
scream under
trees
their glossy aura
spines
(originally published in Ink Sac, Winter 2021)
Short
Self-Concert
The guitar hides from the sun– a shadow
of someone familiar singing. To bare my snake
skin wrapped around this temporary home.
Green of smile. Holes of jeans. Sweat
of beetles. Let me keep a tambourine
nearby. I want to make sound in the spotlight.
(originally published in Academy of the Heart and Mind, Fall 2020)
Travels
Tell me your wildest
vacation fantasy. There,
we will visit our home.
I dream of caves–
stalagmite fingerprints.
The drop, the black bat,
meat. There,
we’ll forget light
and its animal skin.
(originally published in eGoPHobia, Fall 2019)
Still Quarantined
Head is hard wood, paint and brush
stroke, linens in the lighthouse, light
without threat of darkness or vice versa,
a grayscale version of a tremolo, where
everything acrylic includes your apathy.
Painting nothing / city / boat I raise
my hands in the air to weather the storm.
(originally published in Dreich Magazine, Summer 2021)
Descendant of the Big Bang
Self-absorption has turned me
into a selfish alien. On Earth,
we live in isolation
waiting for the cosmic dawn
to return in a brilliant explosion
that would rock this rock like
a great song
performing on its uppermost
stage, all of my being
expanding like a flower
until the whole universe
opens wide
like a Great Eyeball.
Our role will be to find
inexpressible
connection– a ring
of stars passing rings
of fire, each a small
cluster of blue petals.
(originally published in The Subnivean, Winter 2021)
Writer
The Devastation Is
I am
& nothing
about
the murk
of love
extracted
from
my worst
(originally published in Terror House Magazine, Summer 2019)
Same as It Ever Was
I am reliving and reliving the remote
control buttons then buttons
in your bed, golden room of silk
and how many times did we drink
like that? Dropping beer after beer
at Zeno’s then groaning summer sleep
right after. What were we dreaming
about? The cat was snoring and
what an endless loop! Blinking
awake and wanting to crush
night back with aluminum eyelids
(originally published in The Drunken Llama, Summer 2021)
Spirit (Green Autumn)
What I was telling Kurt
was the danger
nostalgia
of loneliness
too close to the wound
a candle drips
old-timey tunes
still fresh
like traveling
through the pinhole
of a new vortex
I say I am alive
and someone new
knows there is
disagreement
in the leaves
how this fall
they are not
changing
only pulling
by the shoulders
saying you
will come
along
whether
you want to
or not
(originally published in Pretty Cool Poetry Thing, 2019)
Text to Myself
I am enough to fail you, too. Thanks.
Thanks again. What you’re advertising is
you’re not going anywhere. A pebble in a
puddle. A train softly humming in the past.
The cat scratches at a door you never open.
(originally published in The Heartland Review, Fall 2019)