My poem, “Ghazal of the Birds,” is live at Third Wednesday. Many thanks to editor David Jibson and the Third Wednesday team for taking this ghazal.
Poem Up at Third Wednesday
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Tag Archives: communication
Poem Up at Wildness
My poem, “A Lot of Nothings,” is live at wildness. Many thanks to editor Michelle Tudor for supporting my work over the years.
Poems Up at Wildness
My poems “Not Language but the Possibility” and “Reduced to Translation” are live at Wildness. Many thanks to editor Michelle Tudor for taking these two poems.
Poem Up at The Headlight Review
My poem “Self-Portrait as Shakuhachi” is live at The Headlight Review. I am grateful to the editors for taking this piece.
Poem Up at Heduan Review
My poem “Letter to Wright from Between Gusts” is live at Heduan Review. I am grateful to editor-in-chief Anya Motwani for taking this piece, which was originally published in The Lake.
Poems Up at Within and Without Magazine
A handful of my poems have been published since January, andI’ve been remiss and have not kept up with my end of the bargain. I hope to make up for this, at least in part, by providing links to these publications.
My poems “When Madeline Said No” and “Poetry in the Dark” are live at Within and Without Magazine. I am grateful to editors Gracie DeSantis and Heather Curran for taking these poems, and to poets Lynne Burnett and Ken Gierke for providing the titles during a mini-fundraiser for Brick Street Poetry a couple of years ago.
Poem Up at Verse Daily
My poem “Memorial Day” is live at Verse Daily.. I am grateful to editor J.P. Dancing Bear for publishing this piece, which appears in my latest chapbook, Buddha’s Not Talking, available from Slipstream Press. Signed copies are also available via Loud Bug Books.
This is quite the honor for me. I never dared dream about having a poem on Verse Daily, as such things don’t happen to random old guys off the street. Until they do!
This Turning
This Turning
what one says
depends not on
words the wind
begins it does
not end but
lends itself to
an end this
turning may be
an answer the
sound of intent
so concealed a
word displayed is
only a word
not an end
nor the beginning
Another oldie from the eighties. It seems that even my poetry was thinner then.
Poem Up at Third Wednesday
My poem “We Do What We Must” is live at Third Wednesday. I am grateful to editor David Jibson for taking this piece, and to Plain Jane for providing the title in last fall’s mini-fundraiser for Brick Street Poetry.
Self-Portrait with Shadow
Self-Portrait with Shadow
Sometimes light reveals our thoughts.
Separate and unequal, we blend.
The predominant sibilant in English,
its pronunciation varies.
Sciaphobia is the fear of shadows. Last
winter the wellhead froze and we
chain-sawed our way to warmth,
synchronized in the fading light.
And which decides the other’s fate?
In the flame I detect new life, a hissing
in the cast iron box. Though ranked only 8th
in frequency of use, more words in English
begin with S, leaving additional questions.
Is hiss the opposite of shh?
The umbra is the darkest part
of the shadow, where light is completely
blocked. Not the serpent, but the bow
and a misperception. Shadows grow
in proportion to the distance
between the object blocking the light
and the projection surface. Resembling
infinity, yet missing the link. Two facets
of one darkness. A faint suggestion. Amphiscians
cast shadows in two directions. Or not at all.
This appeared on the blog in April 2015, and another version appeared in Otoliths in fall of 2013, but it appears that I’m not quite done with it. I’d been exploring our alphabet, tracing letters’ origins from hieroglyphs to present form, and attempting to merge some of those findings with disparate details. One of these days I’ll get back to it…
A Q&A and more successful examples of what I was trying to achieve can be found at Prime Number Magazine:
O at the Edges 