Unpacking all that it can carry,

grief finds a destination in my thoughts.

It chooses the spaces where it wants to be.

It’s not being brash, or intentionally unkind.

Memories, the ensemble within,

seek to be worn, over and over.

Buttoned close to me as love perseveres.

Read and leave comments (1)

She was talking about a time

when she had a few too many,

and had no idea where she was.

In a dark alley, exposed and vulnerable.

Her youth speaking, shrugging away the danger

she was in that night, but with the insight of reflection

said, “We all get lost at some point in our lives.

Places where even the wind is afraid to go.”

Read and leave comments (1)

Love might have been there somewhere.

In between your elsewhere days.

But you made me guess

most of the time. I resented you for it.

And I was terrible at both.

Read and leave comments (0)

What would you have done, if when we first met,

I’d said we would someday sleep with 3 small dogs,

as we do now? Would you have said thank you,

nice to meet you, have a nice life and ended our date?

Silly question, I suppose, knowing you now as I do.

I prefer to think you would have more likely said,

Just three? Let’s get a fourth as soon as possible!

“Did your ...

Read and leave comments (0)

The water near the shore is uncommonly still.

Reflecting an uncertain sky like a mirror.

Small clouds stirred by an impatient breeze.

Below, the blazing-white egrets,

set against lesser and envious hues,

eagerly search for their evening meals.

Their spindle-like legs, lifting gracefully

and purposefully, one after another,

working in concert to find what their ...

Read and leave comments (0)

I wish there was a physical place to visit.
A place I know I could always find you
to let you know how we are doing.
And maybe to keep you from being lonely
down there among the departed.

Though in this place I’d be climbing
a precarious cliff, trying to get up and over the top
to the other side of without and disquiet.
Once there, I know you’d ask me to stay.

Read and leave comments (0)

My wife puts on classical music for the dogs
when she leaves, hoping it will help them
forgive her absence while she is away.

Sometimes she doesn’t do this for them;
when they pee in the house, for instance.
Though her anger about this sort of thing is brief.

Let me explain:

When she comes through the door
their tails are always furiously wagging,
the universal sign of canine acquit...

Read and leave comments (0)

Riding our bikes along the levy trail,

the willow tree’s branches

hang low over the path

in the early afternoon haze.

I reach up like a thief

to grab a handful of leaves,

mischievously tossing them up in the air.

As they scatter and float in the wind

behind me, riding through them,

she reaches out to capture a few.

Later, the rescued leaves

are a...

Read and leave comments (0)

I sometimes feel your absence as if it were dust,

easily disturbed by currents of sorrow,

only to settle on the remnants you left behind.

With some effort, I sweep the delicate memories

into a bin that is never full, so you won't worry that I'm okay.

Read and leave comments (1)

The coffee maker is sounding
its’ morning music in late November.
Without mercy, always the hardest
working appliance when we are here.

A grey and overcast sea our frequent companion;
considered through rain-spattered windows
from hit-and-run squalls at first light.

The shorebirds, restless and racing
the foaming surf back and forth.
Familiar friends we will visit soon enough.

The ...

Read and leave comments (0)

You were content knowing someone
would be there with you in the morning.

I found calm in knowing
it would have to end
between misplaced hearts.
Cinders burning without flame.

Read and leave comments (1)

My brother and I captured insects

to watch them squirm on the tin cellar door.

A merciless ordeal in the humid summer heat.

A cruelty of young boys I’m still trying to forgive.

Down in the cellar, were dust-covered shelves

lined with jars of fruits and vegetables of all kinds.

The dark and the dust and the musty smell

fired our imaginations. Instead, we saw shrunken hea...

Read and leave comments (0)

Looking back though, I found comfort

in ephemeral things. Birds flying in formation,

off to southern climes. Wood from a fire,

always destined to be embers.

None of these things lingered

beyond their established purpose,

but they were always predictable,

offering modest shelter

from your meandering heart.

Read and leave comments (0)

If I were a poet and could write in a fine hand
I'd write her a letter only she'd understand.

I'd write it down by the shore
where the water helps articulate so much.

I tell her of my desire to pen something beautiful for her,
but she says I needn't bother to write anything down.
She already knows the words I would place on the paper.

Read and leave comments (0)

I attack the treacherous malady

with a persistent sense of humor. 

A spirit I am bound to by need of faith

in its’ ability to keep the wild-eyed dogs at bay.

It's one of my best defenses. 

One not quantifiable in lab tests.

I use it every day without fail

to seal the darkness at the borderlands of thought,

and laugh at the hapless incongruity of it all.

As far...

Read and leave comments (0)

“Dinner might be awkward
if we don't care for each other.
Maybe coffee would be better for this.”, she said
with tactical honesty over the phone.

“Let's do that.”, I offered.
“I'll suggest dinner afterwards.
If we both agree, it’ll be a good sign
things are going well.”

Over coffee, her eyes seemed to smile.
“You brought me chocolates!
How did you know about my addiction?”

“Somet...

Read and leave comments (1)

War Talk

"I see you on the other side 
of our parents' intolerance and violence.
I think we could be friends somewhere else."

"Can we go there sometime soon?"

"I don't know if it's possible, but I hope so.
I have to go now I hear more rockets coming.
So, I'll see you tomorrow I hope."

"I'd like that very much."

-Image Artist: Banksy

Read and leave comments (0)

I’m worried about the ashes now,

as I try and make my peace

with dispersing what is left behind.

How will I know which ashes

listened to my troubles?

Which were part of her smile?

All I can really be certain of

is love will cast who she was

over the welcoming sea,

along the North Coast, 

where she would want to be.

Read and leave comments (0)

I happen upon the crimson display.
The leaves are in the process
of completing their purpose,
but still giving to those who see them.

I accept their gift without hesitation,
and will welcome back their kindred
come Spring, and all they will offer.

Read and leave comments (1)

It lie there near our planted flowers,

where it passed. Done with all the insect things

a dragonfly must attend to in the brief time it has.

And those wings! Like stained glass panels

still shimmering in the early Fall light!

Our dogs were curious too, but maybe

more interested in the motionless creature’s value

as a snack, or possibly something to play with – ewww!

Read and leave comments (2)

With open displays of love and laughter,
and affection still in the fore,
a family friend admired how it all seemed
and felt so genuine, so at ease after all these years.

“This is how families should be.”, she observed.
But she couldn’t see the crimes and misdemeanors
of the past, and the forgiveness behind them.

Later, we cut the September celebration cake
and shared it with all who w...

Read and leave comments (1)

I remember turtle fishing with my grandfather

when I was a kid. We went around the lake in his boat,

checking the huge and fearsome hooks he used.

He pulled one up with the bait gone, the hook bent almost straight.

Later on, that very hot, Midwest summer day, he couldn’t seem to understand

why my brother and I didn’t want to go swimming there.

I recall thinking it ...

Read and leave comments (2)

Your disheveled hair

before ten in the morning,

while taking our first sips of coffee

on the deck with our dogs nearby.

The fragrance of your neck;

especially when it’s not from a bottle.

Delicate, original, and only yours.

Your sadness for old shoes

left in the weather, forgotten and worn,

while trying them on again to give them hope.

And blaming m...

Read and leave comments (1)

You, the fire, immersed in burning it all

with the heat of a blue-white flame

aimed at my good intentions.

There was no comfort there.

Where love was sought

I found wolves at the door.

Read and leave comments (0)

My heart sometimes lies to me.

It says things it knows I want to hear,

knowing full well I will believe.

The constructions it builds there

tell me love isn’t a burden.

But here I am, fooled once again,

as grief returns to collect its price.

Read and leave comments (1)

Her feelings and attachments
always felt messy.
Wild and uncharted too.

Attending to them was work for us both.
Broken sometimes works out,
but I had to walk away this time.

Not because I didn't care,
but I just couldn't breathe underneath

the weight of all her damage.

Read and leave comments (0)

In the past, she smiled

because in the moment

it seemed like the right thing to do.

There was a labor to it.

Her new smile is an improvement;

it doesn't have effort behind it.

Maybe I had something to do with this,

but I want to be the reason for it now.

Read and leave comments (0)

An elderly woman I know well,
carries some burdens with contentment;
compassion and empathy, to be more specific.

She tells me she doesn't mind their weight
because they always give back to her,
but in ways that really cannot be held.

Nevertheless, she welcomes their influence.

Her constant companions; she charges no fare
for the comfortable rooms she keeps for them.

Read and leave comments (0)

She always says "I love you Button."

I sometimes say "You’re like the end of a good day."

She often smiles when I say this and asks,

“Which parts though? I like to know,

so I can be sure of what I did right."

And I can't stop telling her about all of them.

Read and leave comments (0)

She had broken pieces when we met.

Some of the shards piercing her still,

revealing a disquiet of scars.

Love, the brigand that put them there.

When I gave her cut flowers

she had no chance of seeing

the field of understanding and tenderness

from which they came.

Read and leave comments (0)

A friend of mine recently broke up

with his girlfriend of many years.

She had a young son when they met.

He had become a loving father to the boy.

But the boy’s mother, as it turned out,

was never really in the relationship

for the long term; other reasons it seemed.

I visit him at his place of work

where people who collect things frequent.

Lately, we haven’t ...

Read and leave comments (1)

After showing me the difference

between being stupid at love

and being stupid in love,

I realized I didn't want anything from you,

just everything with you.

Read and leave comments (1)

I taught you to drive in my five-hundred-dollar car

with power everything from Detroit.

Some of it still worked, if coaxed.

The fucking brakes were so sensitive

I hit my head on the dash

when you pressed the pedal too hard.

The car stopped, but not my memories.

We drove to the beach at night

and launched bottle rockets out into the sea

from the pitted chrome f...

Read and leave comments (0)

I didn't want to be angry.

I didn't want to sort the differences

between the wounds that had been dressed,

and those that were abandoned.

Was it our intention

to give up on the remains?

I'm not sure, but it will always be

how I think of you, and how empty

the second chances left us.

Read and leave comments (1)

The things I kept I put away for a time.

Photographs, and other small items that clung to grief.

I kept them at a distance. A kind of shelter

until time made them possible to face again.

I realized, after the immediacy of pain and loss,

that I wasn’t going to let it be about being empty

or deserted, for which I’ve been grateful,

but that it would be about the love tha...

Read and leave comments (1)

The only way to say goodbye now
is to struggle with the grief as it comes.
It crests and subsides, again and again.

As it is at the shore,
the surf leaves the sand altered
but not washed away.

Read and leave comments (2)

Thinking about you back then,
leaving you always seemed a possibility.
I barely escaped with my ability to care about love.

My comfort being alone frightened you the most.
You couldn’t change the monsters you imagined
lurking behind what I was at peace with.

Staying together was always
what you wanted to talk about.
But at the time, I knew I'd rather drive a truck.

Read and leave comments (1)

You said I love you for the first time
as you stepped from my car;
in a hurry to check us in at the crowded restaurant
while the car and I were headed for the gravel lot.

In that brief moment my hobnailed pause,
unintendedly cruel, must have made you feel
you had betrayed your vulnerable heart.

I considered your courage as you hesitated.
Disarmed by your words, but with clarity in the ...

Read and leave comments (0)

I pulled off the two-lane California Highway.

Searching for my independence at seventeen.

The sign said:

FRUIT CUTTERS WANTED - $1.50 PER CRATE!

The Mexican women were no doubt puzzled

by the presence of someone so young –

and white, if I’m being honest,  

whose blisters and cuts would likely be plentiful

by the end of the warm summer day.

The elderly w...

Read and leave comments (2)

I hear someone say this,

pointing to the random plants

growing free and wild along the trail.

These “weeds” have flowers of amber,

crimson and violet. Beauty that has much to express,

but maybe too faintly in a clamorous world.

But this is why we love this path.

All the raiment of flora is exactly this; untended,

free to find its way to where it will be

Read and leave comments (0)

I might have been around ten or eleven years old,

visiting relatives in their Appalachian Mountain home.

We could not wait until the fireflies began

their summer night’s performance, as I recall.

The view from my reflections returns me there.

Our great-aunt picks up a slow-moving, winged beetle

and shows us how to carefully tie a thread to its back leg

and watch it fly in...

Read and leave comments (1)

They've served me well, and comfortably.
These small, everyday biases and prejudices.
Still, I want to find a way to break away from them.
Away from these little sways
before they become immense.

It's not going to be easy.
They always exact a price,
on myself and others.
I hope I haven't waited too long
and that it's not too late.

Read and leave comments (2)

Our weekend on the coast

lies just a few miles ahead.

The cows we pass to our right 

continue chewing their indifference.

She knows it's coming again.

"First bovine sighting: 3:15pm.

Some call them cows.", I say

with all the silliness I can muster. 

My overused quip

still sparks a very slight beam

in her indulgent eyes.

"That look, right there!"...

Read and leave comments (2)

I didn't earn it at first.

Love was like wind.

I could sense it all around her,

but I could not see any use for it. 

Still, with patience, we walked

in tall stands of trees together.

Ones that had been there for so long, 

red-barked and towering with wisdom.

The branches quivered and stirred

as we passed their anchored homes.

Murmurs perhaps, of their disco...

Read and leave comments (2)

Sorting through belongings
a good friend left behind,
I encountered a secret panel
in the back of a dusty book shelf.
Behind it was a collection of anime figurines.

All female, plastic and scantily clad, of course.
While admiring the details
of these strange but beautiful things,
his mother stepped into the room.
I was red-faced, caught in the act!

She simply smiled with a knowing lo...

Read and leave comments (1)

I don't know your names.

I'm horrible at botany,

you flowers and trees

with views of the low hills to the west.

I adorn them with my own monikers

when I walk among them.

I don't mean to offend, and it seems they don't mind.

They are familiar acquaintances,

so I tell myself they are probably happy

to be called something.

Yellow Top Plant,

Crooke...

Read and leave comments (0)

Dipping your toes in the spring,

I held your hand there.

Later, I showed you how to skip a rock across the water.

The joy on your face when you got it just right,

I will never forget.

To our right, a murmur of starlings

blacked out our piece of the sky.

It wasn't theirs to have, nor was it ours.

As the feathered swifts swirled away,

we saw the early ...

Read and leave comments (0)

The scientist, one of a team tending to the Large Collider,
a member of a profession not known for poetry,
takes pages and pages of notes from the latest experiments
studying the accelerated particles of neutrons and protons.
Trying to understand the secrets of the smallest parts
of the natural world, and how they might behave in the air around us.

Within his journal, filled with mathemati...

Read and leave comments (1)

The poetry she was reading
couldn’t have been nearly as beautiful
as the sunlight dancing all around her, as I recall.

Tracing shadows and illuminations across her face.

Freckles of light cast through her hat with a ribbon

peeked through in the most delightful way.

As brief and temporary as this panorama was,

my memory begs to differ with me

every time I visit the canvas...

Read and leave comments (0)

You feel sorry for shooting stars 
because they're so brief.

I say that can't be right.
You're how I feel when I see one.

Read and leave comments (0)

An elderly woman I know 

has read a number of my poems.

She tells me I'm fortunate

to be able find the words

and use them as needed,

putting them down 

in a connected way.

She says, “I’ve been around for eighty years, or so.”,

her modesty still obscuring the specifics.

"I've never been able to find these kinds of words.

I don't know where they would be.

Read and leave comments (1)

The distance on the calendar

tamps down a gentle sadness 

that still resides in my home.

I sometimes feel it as dust,

easily disturbed by currents of sorrow,

only to settle on the remnants you left behind.

With some effort,

I sweep delicate memories of you

into a bin that is never full,

so you won't worry that I'm okay.

Read and leave comments (1)

I know her paper heart
and all that is written there
Her quill never keeps secrets

Read and leave comments (0)

Reclining in a very comfortable chair

in the medical center,

trying to avoid drifting delusions.

Because the IV in my

arm is making me high.

While the sensation isn't all bad,

the needle still seems angry and red

Prompting visions of being

anywhere else but here,

so no one else can see

my involuntary, and thin,

drug induced smile.

Read and leave comments (0)

She stands in the doorway

twisting, turning, and stretching,

intent on informing me of her decisions.

A velvety-smooth approach

I’ve delighted in many times.

“I think I’m going to have a second cup of coffee,

and stay in my pajamas a while longer.

I hope you’re okay with this?”

“I think you would be foolish not to,” I say.

“The best thing about knowing you’ll ...

Read and leave comments (1)

I don’t know if she understands
the music she makes for me like I do.
Even though I can feel it plainly
simply when she breathes.

I listen to it over and over.
A melody so beautiful
it makes me feel sorry
for the shortcomings
of the best blueberry pie.

Read and leave comments (0)

When the grief comes back
I cannot just ignore it,
like I do with some things.
All I can do is try to stay out of its way.

I think of it as a train,
with brakes that don't care
if they stop the loaded cars
full of our dreams and the essence of you
we shared under the same stars.

The captive tracks
were laid out by you long ago,
a virtuoso of some note,
along the path of who you wer...

Read and leave comments (1)

I did as well as I could.

Most of the time

I felt I might have done better.

But this well-known feeling,

my constant companion,

has always kept me

on the welcoming edge

of trying to grow

in an inward way.

Maybe with more practice I'll get there.

The journey, as they say,

is the important part.

So, like many I call family,

I'll continue to...

Read and leave comments (0)

I don't know any angels.

Not like the ones in the Bible.

But I have met some who must be.

They have helped me walk through underlying worlds

of pain and decay just under the surface

of all the beauty I see in another sunrise.

And to appreciate the wonder I've felt

being next to those that have no wings or halos

or other decorations to show me.

I don't e...

Read and leave comments (1)

I sit in a very comfortable chair.

Tubes in my arm administering meds

with unpronounceable names.

A large and inviting window to my right

welcomes the sunlight,

letting the day enter without resistance.

Suddenly, a small bird strikes the window outside

startling me out of my cloak of anxiety!

I have no way to see

if it survived the collision,

conne...

Read and leave comments (1)

As the rain fell around her,

she wanted to feel the downpour on her face.

To feel anything other than the rage

of the wild world all about her

would be a welcome change.

Grateful, she tossed the umbrella aside

and let the deluge speak to her

as she hoped it would.

Read and leave comments (1)

Some of the women drove me crazy.

And some I was crazy about

while I was holding on to things

that were really never mine.

And every time I let go of the gifts

they had brought with them

I found myself able to grow a little

as my heart, after it could see again,

was grateful for the journey.

Read and leave comments (0)

The weatherman tells us yet again,
about a stubborn high-pressure ridge
keeping the reluctant showers away.

She always worries about the rain.
Will it be too cold to stand in?
And, of course, will it ever come again?

She wonders aloud to me,
with apprehensive humor,
“Why can’t we find a way
to move the pressure ridge
out into space so the rain can be free
to do as it should?”

Her...

Read and leave comments (0)

Can you dance Mr. Bear?
Yes, when I find some honey in a tree,
or wherever I discover it

My button eyes
and felt covered nose
are more keen
than they may seem.

Is it sweet like me,
this honey, Mr. Bear?
Yes, and I would always share it with you.
I really don't mind.

Read and leave comments (0)

Assembled over the years,
I was pieced together by many things.
Among them, wounds that pierced me
without blood, but disfigured me for a time.

Scars and abrasions remain,
from loss and from love.
If I’m fortunate though,
another compress will be within reach,
ready to be applied, when needed,
by my experienced hands.

Read and leave comments (0)

Cold, I pull my coat to me,
near the place where we started

A shelter for my thoughts

I pass almost daily

Your cure for a hardness of the heart,

still the compass of my affection,

became lyrics I couldn’t improve upon
 

Read and leave comments (0)

She says, “I love you Button.”
I say, “You’re like the end of a good day.”

She smiles playfully when I say this
and asks, “The agreeable parts,
or something else?”
“No silly, the good things.”, I reply

“It’s your heartbreak for the dog
that appeared to be a stray,
and the relief you felt
when the owner finally came along
that makes it that way.”

Read and leave comments (1)

We suddenly notice our dog, Tuffy,

missing from his favorite spot on the sofa

as we get up to investigate

There he sits, silently and patiently,

by our back door, expectantly

waiting for us to finally notice

he needs to go out

Perhaps he wonders why

it’s taken us so long

to receive his urgent thoughts

beamed to us from canine frequencies

Our other do...

Read and leave comments (1)

Sitting on the couch with her feet in their usual spot on my lap

“Are those a pair of my new socks I just bought”

“Fool, I swiped these from you before the pandemic!”

And they look wonderful on her

Read and leave comments (0)

During the absent days,

although you were near

but at the same time

in some other place,

love may have been there

but I had to guess

most of the time,

and I was terrible at it

Read and leave comments (1)

After my mother died
but before her things
were scattered about,

did some of these belongings

stop whispering what they were saying

about her?

Or did they continue to speak

of a light summer breeze off the coast,
sunlight shining just so

through a dusty shop window,

beckoning her?

Read and leave comments (3)

Walking in our front door,

A multi-colored package in my hand

promising something has arrived for someone

“Is that a present for me?”, her playful query

“No, it’s just my meds from the good doctor.”

“Still seems like a gift for me.”, her reply

Read and leave comments (0)

Turning on the shower this morning,

bleary-eyed and sleepy still, I spied

a charmingly awkward Daddy Long Legs

Whenever I encounter them

it seems as if they’re quarreling

with their circumstances,

trying to get where they want to be

with their uncertain, stop-and-start gait

This one, now wrestling with hazards

I had just carelessly introduced,

near the f...

Read and leave comments (0)

She never says the words “I'm sorry” 

But she reveals their substance

when she takes my open hand

in her way, saying all that is needed

Read and leave comments (0)

The tree is probably much older

than the neighborhood around it

A sage of the community

from all it has witnessed

It began life long before property lines,

homes and city codes were in place

Modern contrivances unheeded

by the tall and dignified resident

But what strikes me as well

is the fence, shared by both homes,

and the boards that were specially fitted

Read and leave comments (2)

All I could feel

were the calls

of the worrying crows

Midnight-black, as they are,

picking over the remains

of your absence

And in this way

I miss you,

waiting for time to

chase them away

Read and leave comments (0)

My high school friend,
the only one I’m still in touch with,
has been drifting from town to town
in country with very few people,
but overfilled with stark beauty

He’s been doing this for many years
in his shelter with wheels
He was just outside of Belle Fourche,
or maybe it was Medicine Bow,
when I last heard from him

I’ve never asked him
what he could possibly be looking for
out ...

Read and leave comments (1)

At the annual run in The City,

tortillas were pelting everyone, an eccentric tradition

Your Batgirl costume was unexpected

At the end of the course

bands were setting up on stage

With so many people around us,

our disguises were elsewhere

by then, no longer needed

Read and leave comments (0)

In our front room with world raging just outside,

the string is wrapped just so

With a flick of my wrist the spinning top

races to the end of its tether

Spinning there, waiting for a command

– Walk the Dog, Rock the Baby,

maybe Around the World - look out furniture!

Years of casual practice work to master

my limited repertoire with the rapidly turning top

Its ...

Read and leave comments (0)