Category Archives: poetry

Another Lamb In Need Of Slaughtering

I imagine you walking along the edge of the shadows, using “Q-tips” to remove the skeleton-layered truths about your ears, sticking a finger down your throat to expel your blame-filled stomach, even warming yourself up with your own tears because you’ve tired of fire. I imagine you then closing your eyes so that you lose your shadow, wishing for your horns, your barbed tongue, your hooves to ripen and decay. Perhaps you pluck out your eyes when they don’t. Perhaps you’ll sew up your mouth and penis just so you can refrain from making fog. You’ll even burn your hands to ash. But you’ll still hear of your elephant-like touch, of your snaky tongue banging eardrums, of the imprint left behind by your fingerless fingerprints. And your eyes will sweat enough to remake the Flood. And then your knees might kiss the ground and you might pray to the prayer-answerer to be the next lamb slaughtered.

(This piece was published by The Bookends Review here. Send your work there if you’re interested in publishing.)

Birthdays

The challenge is not to blow out the fire. The fire should only shiver, shiver as if in need of the flames of another fire. And the candles should never weep. They should have wounds but never scars. And before you gather your storm, words must wake, happiness must season voices, a group of lungs melting into a chorus of one. The wish needn’t be wrapped in wrapping paper either. No, the wish should undress itself until its clothed only in the flickering light. And as the darkness falls gray should rise, fumes fragranced by the scent of your younger selves. See, the challenge is not to blow out the fire; it is to convert that fire into smoke.

(This piece was published by The Bookends Review here. Send your work there if you’re interested in publishing.)

The Lenient Lockdown

For 14 days
Maybe more
They urge us inside
The market shelves empty
The roads and sidewalks too
Nothing should remain open
But what is essential to use

Some say an end is coming
To what we know and knew
And there is an ongoing promise
That the next measures will be
Excessively harsh and severe
If this doesn’t work like it should

So I walk to work
Not knowing …

 

Book Cover: Romance Novel

bookcover copy

This is a cover to a romance novel that I’ve been working on for a few years now. Hopefully I’ll get it all completed one day soon and into the hands of readers. I often post poetry on this blog but I also write fiction novels. What other projects are you working on poets? Feel free to leave any links below.

Wasting Time (If You Ever Come Back): A Dystopian Love Poem

After Robert Hayden

Unable to sleep, or pray, I stand
By the window looking out
Stars excommunicated, the sky, faithless, black
Children in torn pants and shirts devouring
Air for oxygen, for food, and
A woman suckles a pup at her breast
Her newborn clawing at naked feet

Unable to pray, or pretend, I wish
That change comes with blinks
But, I am, I am a prisoner of logic
And reality is the way I left it
So I set the table, like you, for three
In case another joins me from the street
I won’t eat, though, I won’t eat
Until you come back