I am sorry to announce, 

but my long awaited

HS2 poem 

has been branded

‘unachievable’,

and is at risk

of not coming out.

Successive

brutish reviews 

say it won't deliver

soon, and

a poetic replan

should cut the

quatrains to haikus.

My sonnets

run obsolete,

villanelles

don’t complete,

and the limerick (below)

is the only...

Read and leave comments (5)

***

Two vacant park benches
under an old gray pine
are slate and damp
with dingy mold,
moss & pine needles
coat cracked seats
& tables crisscrossed
by mucus slug-trails–
        
A gray squirrel grips a stray
acorn between razor teeth
to sit and nibble under chilly
ashen bowers; this somber
winter day of the newborn
year. We sat there.

Read and leave comments (1)

do you remember
those nights
we placed hooks in our eyes?

waiting in our sleep
to catch the darting lies
that swam inside our heads

do you remember
those nights?

we should have walked
the chrome stacked streets
that rolled like silver eels

where stub ends sailed on tarry keels
in that vanishing space between
the night clubs gaudy hush
and necessities capi...

Read and leave comments (2)