A Christmas tree without the cheer
of kin close by to hold you near,
is just a mass of dying spruce
that lost its life in winter’s noose.
Category Archives: poetry
Return to Sender
In a tan station wagon, cruising up Fifteenth Street,
we were mere seedlings, aching to shoot up from our
earthen pots.
Bare bones in the breeze, floating on the back of a
Victory-8, murmur of deprivation from the
shadows of their lives.
Meet me by the streetlight next to the mailbox that is
no longer there (you know the one); I shall wrap you in
the balmy blankets of 1996.
December Cinquain
Jack Frost
jostles my jowls
in a wild woodland glossed
with glass, as a whining wind prowls
and howls.
arc of the day
The arc of the day
slips beyond your eyes,
tapping you on the back
before you can see it.
You sense it just as its
rays meet your retinas.
Its startling grasp shines
softly off your school shoes,
working its way into your
pocket, knocking you to your
knees…head hanging low.
Cards From Yourself
Invisible letters,
which never blessed
your hands, were
drafted on the night
when you first wept.
Her words were branded
upon you cheek
during the penultimate
painful yet powerful push.
Listen to your heartbeat;
its pulse is her precept,
offered up to you.
24 Toes (a cinquain)
pale pearls,
like muted moons,
beam beneath coffee curls,
as a mellifluous voice croons
old tunes
Through A Mi’s Eyes
hiding under tables,
behind windows on beds,
face to the floor
because there is nothing above you,
hands together,
staring at dirt
The Evening Post
Letter in your little lair, come caress my
fingers. Whisper your words, soaked in
oceans wider than my wounds.
Swans on sorry silver, flap off into this night
of Nyx. Seek out the hungry thumbs that
gave you flight and love them once again.
Brain Swimming
Snow falls slowly like
driblets of white molasses,
buying depleted time as
they drift down to
impenetrable ground.
Snow white pillows,
two for the taking,
bear contrasting forms,
come to their graves
at separate strokes.
Hair, black as chimney
gut, cover frozen feet,
now, forever untethered
from ballroom floors,
glittering under diamond eyes.
Hair, blue as heaven’s
head, knows not bold breeze
or branch’s balance, wings
unmoving–heart unfeeling,
all in one morning blink.
Unlikely companions in
false memory’s kettle, fade
into recesses of fable and fancy,
perceiving nothing save what I
have imagined.
silent war
bold buttermilk socks
torment me with every bend;
distant hearts duel
sundry folly 