Tag Archives: love

Recording of “Ode to Bacon”

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Ode to Bacon

How you lend
yourself
to others,

enhancing even
the sweetest fig
in your embrace
over coals,

or consider
your rendered
self, how it

deepens flavor
with piggish
essence, coating

or absorbed,
blended or
sopped. O belly
of delight, o wonder
of tongues,

how could I not
love you
and your infinite
charms, even

when you resist
my efforts and
shoot sizzling bits

of yourself
onto my naked
hands? I pay

this toll
gladly,
today and

next year
and all those
days to follow,

till the last piece
is swallowed
and our sun
goes dark.

Hyperbole
becomes you,
smoked beauty,
salted love,

and I shall never
put you down
or leave you
behind

on a plate
to be discarded
or forgotten,

unloved.

“Ode to Bacon” first appeared here in July 2017, thanks to T.S. Wright’s challenge.

Poem Up at Panoply

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My poem “A Further Response from the Hornet’s Nest,” which somehow won first prize in Panoply’s first-ever contest, has been published in Issue 11 along with poems by such luminaries as Stephanie L. Harper, Kelli Allen, and AM Roselli. I’m thrilled to have a poem in this issue!

Countdown, #5: Every Drop

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My last five posts of 2018 are reruns of five of the most viewed posts on this site during the year.

 

Every Drop

Your light singes my roots
even deep underground, where
worms revel in your joy

and all the days’ secrets line up
awaiting their turn to kneel and
unwrap their daily truths in the
comfort of the chambered soil.

If I were a seed, I would wait
for your touch before sprouting,
and only then would I surge

to the surface, swallowing
your gift. Greedy but grateful,
I’d open, drink every drop.

 

Hey, Looks Like I’ve Won a Poetry Contest

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My poem “A Further Response from the Hornet’s Nest” was awarded first place in Panoply’s inaugural poetry contest. I’m still stunned from the news. Many thanks to editors  Ryn Holmes, Jeff Santosuosso and Andrea Walker for this honor!

Magic (with recording)

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tophat

Magic 

You give me nothing to hold, and for this
are blessed. Devotion

is a mirror and breath, one
solid and illusory, the other
needed yet expelled, taken, dispersed.
Which begs another question
not relying on tricks.

“Who traces names on the sheets?” you ask.

I roll up my sleeves and say “Words
conceal what the glass cannot.”

Source becomes deed, becomes habit.
In your hand a stone, a dove, the unbroken ring.

* * *

“Magic” is included in my chapbook, From Every Moment a Second, and was first published in Taos Journal of International Poetry and Art.

Poem Up at The Lake

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My poem “My Mother’s Ghost Sits Next to Me at the Hotel Bar” has been published in December’s issue of The Lake. Thank you, John Murphy, for taking this poem!

The Larger Geometry: poems for peace

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The Larger Geometry: poems for peace, is now available at Amazon. This anthology of poems that “uplift, encourage and inspire,” features poets from five countries and three continents. Published by the interfaith peaceCENTER of San Antonio, Texas, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization. All proceeds from the sale of this anthology go to benefit the peaceCENTER.

I’m pleased to have had a small role in selecting the poems.

Contributing poets include Lynne Burnett, Charlotte Hamrick, Daryl Muranaka, Stephanie L. Harper, Sudhanshu Chopra, Texas Poet Laureate Carol Coffee Reposa, Michael Vecchio, Rebecca Raphael and others. Oh, yes, a few of my poems appear here, too.

Poem on WordPress Discover

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In this article, Krista Stevens, a curator of the Discover site on WordPress, has selected my poem “Wind” as one of her five favorite posts of the year. Quite the honor! Thank you, Krista! She has selected quite a range of writing. Please read her other picks.

Two Poems Up at Red River Review

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I somehow missed that my poems “Earth Keeps Spinning” and “Awaiting Thunder, He Dreams” were published by Red River Review in August 2018. Thank you, Michelle Hartman, for taking these.

Sunday, June

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Sunday, June

Trying to give, I fail too often.
But this day we prepare for you
food that your beloved often cooked,
made with the ingredients of 19,000
nights and promises of more to come.
These potatoes. That beef, the fruit.
Simple, and yet so difficult to reproduce.
Even the recipe is incomplete. “Some
mayonnaise,” it says, then “mustard,”
but not whether dry or prepared, and
the amount is unclear. Yet the results
transport you to stronger days, to
the clear-eyed self and limitless
possibilities, meals on the table
at five o’clock, the satisfaction of work
well done, knowing that you have soared
above your father’s imprecations
but never beyond love’s touch, her
sleepy murmurs, morning coffee,
burnished histories and late cigarettes,
the tulips on the soil you’ll soon share.

“Sunday, June” first appeared in the print journal Nourish in March 2018.