POETRY

“Poetry is language at its most distilled and most powerful.”
—Rita Dove
woman at bar
After She Told Me You Pushed Her Down the Stairs

Empty vessels
make the most sound, I think,
as you rip the fairy lights off the handrail.

heavy rain
The Plot

Long after midnight, we’re talking about our first time

Finding My Fix

I slumped in front of a massive desk, a passive patient corroded with failure and dread.

melting ice cap
blue is the color of surrender

you know that
baby swallows make silver ripples
in wild rivers to court reeds?

Drowning in sky

I have observed, the theorist
I am

I Garden at the Edge of Autumn

There is so little left of the tomato plants.

There is an alternative universe

Ghosts for hire, whispers in her mouth,
cysts to feel, the symmetry of a gift.

Lavandula

Listen to me: I know
the winter gloom in
mid-summer…

Tea

my father holds
his favorite drink

The Man

the man is stayed bent over the canvas
of my sofa. the man is me the man is him
self and I bring down the whip…

Despairathon

You’ve spent a lifetime training
for this.

close up of sun
Mercury in Retrograde

You said it was okay to blame
what goes wrong on the planet

Back Suplex

Gravel-scatted hell &
we were blessed to be able
to hold on for even a heartbeat

Aging Punks

Every so often, they add a tattoo
in honor of some long-forgotten love.

Pit Stop in Kansas

we drove on through
the blue seal of morning as the turbines
turned and winked out their hearts

Soft Porn and Cuban Pine

It recommended
soft porn, as gentle prodding and petting parent
to parent might calm and soothe the kid.

Clotheslines

Ma wrings
a wet world
of colors

On the Night Row-Houses Across the Street Catch Fire

You let the yellow glow
from eye sockets. The building up the street
is burning faster and faster.

You can’t make them love you, no matter how artfully you betray yourself

Try not to see your own predicament in every fucking thing.

Welcome To The House of Static

here is the sky in stop motion, flickering,
a still shot in monochrome