My early poems aspired to Keats and Blake;
were about magic, dreams, and heartbreak.
Most rhymed, were trite, and told more than showed;
rolled off the tongue, no taste of the acid down below.
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A Heat Dome Scorches the Heart
July 3, 2021
I want to smash a violin on the tree
it was made from. To soak up the blood
of martyrs with my eyes, die a glorious
death and live on, weeping, sweating
blood. It’s 118 in Siberia.
On days such as this you’ll find me reaching
into every nook and cranny, tidying up as though
I had it in me to put things where they belong.
Watching My Son Play in the Mud
May 31, 2021
Whatever the purpose of childhood beyond learning
to read and count, to say please and thank you,
it is this: to persist in playing long after Dada says
it’s time to go home, until, cold, wet, and hungry…
Earth Day 2021: A Love Poem
April 25, 2021
Every poem is a love poem, even one about plastic rain.
Why else bother to save anything—rainforests, whales…
Warmer Days
April 11, 2021
The winter was mild by New England standards.
We stayed indoors, set the thermostat to 70, and
when the energy bill arrived—late, because, lest we
one day forget this epoch, the mail, like so much else
about our lives, was being sabotaged…
On Reading That Free Will May Be an Illusion
April 6, 2021
I breathe in the air that happens to make it through my screen
door and imagine what the particles contain—mist from Katmandu,
Dead Sea salt, dust of meteors, ground-up dinosaur teeth…
Renewal: A Haiku
March 28, 2021
hail flattens the grass
not all bruises blister blood
each blade asks why me
The End of Time: A Sonnet
March 22, 2021
I’ve come to master just one magic trick— not conjuring rabbits, not sleight of hand— but to make time disappear, to stop its tick and gab, at least a moment. Yet I stand alone, on stage, unsure of when it […]
Reading Poems Written Half a Lifetime Ago
February 28, 2021
Mom has been cleaning the house I grew up in;
she’s mailed me a stack of old poems I wrote
by hand, back when I wrote by hand and carried pen and
paper at all times—just in case. The poems are no good…