It’s a quiet night in. The tenor of fork tines on dishes carries softly. The TV screen glows gray and warm. Two candles on the table remain unlit stewards of conversation; from them we take our cue, sit still and tall, wonder at our placement and our purpose.

I worry about them. I wonder at them. I worry that they will lose their wonder and their joy, the curiosity that seeps through the walls and steeps them in bright lights and big data and big knowledge and oh God, how incomprehensible the mind truly is.

Wheel meets tarmac. I have traveled miles to return here, I have born backache and heartache and my mother tongue hangs heavy, wags slowly, wraps around the names of places and people I called home; a car hugging a mountainside. I have been plucked from the air but my stomach drops, drops, drops - Is... Continue Reading →

Salt burn on lips, twist. Heat runs down fingers and throats. We are wild, screaming.

More of a stanza than an actual poem. At a conference all week, so time is limited and my brain is gone. One learns to be alone On fractured urban streets. Beyond, a steeple with stained glass and a Sacred Heart.

I have learned to be lonely in stone cities with windows but no souls.

Feet tire on pavement. Biting winds rise from the lake, twist around steel beams.

My eardrums burst in the blue-milk ether. Below, pins of light knit the landscape. An orange shower rains fire upon a charcoal painting, rendered in three dimensions. Above, the sky shrouds the city in smog.

Switching from the parentheses to italics. One must give credit where it is due: the phrase "but I was dry and warm" was partially inspired by a verse from Smokeshow's song "Fire". If you want real poetry, stop dicking around on my site and check out their album "Bomb Songs". I was 19 years old... Continue Reading →