Poetry

I ride a horse, black images I ride relentless words, meek bread thorns have embedded in my soul, the sand of mules white birches burn, halls burn fish burn without air, night without a mouth sand burns, footsteps burn in sleep the fresh skin of the world burns, I ride shivering the strength to die, […]

You hastened the green linebefore a lounge of mountain lizards.And like a rollicking beastthe cogwheel worked the worldof the chrysanthemums and the steps.But Earth, subject to the variabledawn of every barrier,was lurching precipitouslyto the side where its axis gave birthlike a one-legged creature. Everything clamored to be reborn in the breath,and You, you were already […]

I am trying to grow a flower garden that will liveup to the one my mother had when I was a girlbut I am negligent. I planted the bulbs too late—they’re bound to rot under the early heatof the quiet southern suburb in which I’ve found myself in the middle of my life and the squirrels are […]

The worst didn’t happen when I was young, even when, at just ten, that first-shed red smear came away on my hand— some mercy contained me, kept pristine my bright acid- wash jeans. The house still full of my brothers. I had to speak that blood into the consciousness of others. My mother sighed. Said, […]

Somewhere between here & there,                          a face peers at you between screeching subway cars. On the advertisement screen         above, sin city glows green & yellow. In an alternate universe, the focal point         is negative, the image actually farther than it seems. Sometimes it feels like you’re         underwater—light bending towards itself, an inverted world looking […]

It’s been a hard week. I go to the yard and sit. Heal faster! I say to the face reflected in my phone. I Google, how much serotonin do you actually get from the sun?  Speak to me only of actualities. Next, I Google: sun wrinkles myth and then do I actually have to wear sunscreen every […]

  I am a good businessman. I line up all my wares and take the teeth out of my smile. For property, I’d bleach! Scream! Fold — like a good little flower. I hold flowers like, Can you believe I killed these myself? The audience laughs! The audience knows I’m in love with myself, because I […]