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Category Archives: Poetry

Don’t Touch the Lava

17 Mar

Tenth graders jump in the halls,
leap
from one sparse gray tile
to the next,
avoiding the vast field of
lava
that has magically appeared
during lunch.
White tiles burn.

I poke one in the back
as I walk by.
He staggers,
lurches forward,
touches lava,
screams and falls,
pretending to burn into nothing but
giggles.
Leapers, one by one,
stagger, fall, burn
as the whole corridor descends into
giggles.

High school.
Tenth grade.
They write code.
Build robots.
Judge science fairs and

they still play fort
I bet. I know
I do.

 
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Posted by on March 17, 2015 in Culture, Education, Poetry

 

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Causeway

19 May

Causeway

(The first part from Middle English cauceweye, either from Latin calx, calcis (“limestone”), or alternatively from Latin calciāre (“to stamp with the heels, tread”), from calx (“heel”). The second corresponds to English way. Causeway:  A raised road upon which to walk, made of stone, over a body of water.)

As we walked the causeway
Over the river,
to the beach,
“Can we stop?
I want to look out over the water,
Listen,
Watch the moon rise above and below.”
Easy.
Of course. I wish everything people asked
Was that easy,
But most of the time what people ask
I just can’t give them.
Make me happy.
Hold me together.
Let me bruise you.
Fix me.
Sustain me.
Survive me.
Make my head stop hurting.

 
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Posted by on May 19, 2014 in Poetry, Uncategorized

 

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The Well

02 Jan

There are still tears
For you, around corners
I have avoided, nested into objects
Unexpected, curled up in words.
They well under memories
Until released, into the open,
Jostled by a stray scent,
Nudged by a colour,
A page of a book,
A wind in leaves.

 
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Posted by on January 2, 2014 in Family, Poetry

 

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Wintering

27 Oct

The sky is cloudless and
when I look up, it reminds me
of you, and when there are clouds
wispy, white, soft, light,
and I look up, it reminds me
of you. And storm clouds too.
Sunrises. Sunsets.

The air is cooling now.
When I met you,
it was crisp, but
the world was warming,
opening wide for the spring sun
and now summer has passed
and some days are winter sets
for plays that pass their time
in the course of that season, but you,
you, I hope,
will see spring with me again,
and again,
will watch with me the world
open to the birth of love
until winter comes to us each
and does not leave.

 
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Posted by on October 27, 2013 in Poetry

 

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Nightshirt

15 Sep
Nightshirt

Originally Published in Elephant Journal.
(For Lee, 9/8/13)

For the first few weeks,
once I would return to the bed,
I’d lie on my side
arm on your pillow
your nightshirt tucked
under my cheek,
One of the few pieces of your clothing
I kept. The body is a just a shell
You said. But your lab coat,
the suit you wore to your graduation,
your nightshirt.

The one you wore to hospice.
The one you were comforted in,
the one, the last one.
Your favorite,
cornflower blue
Bamboo fiber,
soft and light,
unwashed
the scent of you
still smooth upon it,
the smell of your skin-
the gentleness of
the small of your back,
the familiar comfort
between your breasts
where I would rest my cheek,
the collar that still
carried the nape of your neck.
Each breath, a calmative
against the cruelty
Of the sudden solitary sleep,
the life, a brain, that was built around
your existence
suddenly
without.

And, sometimes, I would sleep.
and sometimes not,
but over the days,
the scent diminished,
disappeared,
like your ability to walk,
speak, see, remember,
until little was left and,
fearing its loss,
as I still fear yours,
I put it in a plastic bag,
removed the air, closed it tight,
put it away in the dark.

A perfume, almost gone,
of days past,
that brings a flush or joy,
a smile, a sigh,
that, for fear of being used up,
isn’t used at all.

 
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Posted by on September 15, 2013 in Family, Poetry, psychology, Social

 

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Why I write? In part, for reviews like this one.

11 Jun

It is quite gratifying, as an artist, as a writer, when one finds one’s work has hit the mark, has had an effect, has reached the heart. This review reminds me why I write.

Please read the new review on The Phoenix and the Dragon, on Goodreads, here.

This was absolutely gorgeous.

I really enjoyed reading it, and I have already gone back to read single poems again while waiting for the bus and playing around on my iphone. It was a fabulous find, and I am really lucky to have been able to read it.I have already started another work by the author, and I would definitely recommend this to anyone looking for a good “poem in your pocket” kind of book.

The poet does a wonderful job of showing rather than telling (telling is bad for novelists, but wrecks poets).
His clear intelligence shines through as he weaves a narrative with a minimal amount of words – what is gained and what is lost and what is being felt and thought are always at the forefront of the pieces, but rarely need to be “spelled out”. The illustrations and quotations that marked the shifts in content/theme/category really helped to give the reader a sense of the journey that the work represented.

It’s difficult, without just copying my favorite lines, to tell people what specifically I liked. I can say that the poetry resonated – I didn’t like all of the poems deeply, some of them really “spoke” to me. And that’s the beauty of poetry. You might like different aspects. But regardless, there is something to like. A subjective universal (yes I know that’s a contradiction) awaits you. Read it.

Thank you so much “Making Connections” and Adam Byrn Tritt for providing me with a copy.

Alyssia

 
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Posted by on June 11, 2013 in Books, Poetry, Writing

 

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My fourth book is out and you must buy it. Songs from the Well: A Memoir of Love and Grief

16 Apr

An author must practice promotion. And be utterly shameless about it. In this case, it is easy.

Songs from the Well: A Memoir of Love and Grief.   Out in time for Lee, my wife’s (I cannot use the word “late”) birthday.

From Amazon: Songs from the Well is a memoir, selected from the author’s writings and told in essays and poetry, of the author’s life with his wife, Lee, through her diagnosis with brain cancer and death five months later, to the aftermath of dealing with his grief and facing a life without her.

100% the profits go to the local charity, Cancer Care Center of Brevard Foundation. They do not do research or anything alike that and have no administrative costs. All the money goes to pay for things those in treatment and their families can’t afford due to their treatment. Like water bills. Gas to get to appointments.Rent.Like that.Please please help us raise fund and help those who have gone through this process, but think they are alone.  So buy the book and share this link.

Or just scan the QR below with your phone and it will go right to the correct page.

We can celebrate her birthday with her by reading her stories. By celebrating her. And helping those who helped her when she needed it the most. And, frankly, if you don’t want to read it, buy it anyway. It is $4.95.

It is an ebook. It can be read on a Kindle, or on an iPhone or Android phone with a free Kindle app or on any PC with the free Kindle program or on Amazon with their CloudReader. If it goes well, we’ll do a paperback edition as well, but, for now, ebook was the way to go to raise the funds.

Don’t want to read it? Fine. it is $4.95. Download it into nothing. let is spend it electrons into the free air. But buy it. The idea is to raise money for the Foundation in Lee’s name. And as much as we can by her birthday, 4/22.

And we got it out in time for her birthday. I want to see how much we can raise for them and how far we can get this.

Please buy one, share this, send it out, whatever we can do to help refill their coffers and remember her birthday.

Thanks.

Scan the QR to buy the book! 100% of the profits go to charity.

Scan the QR to buy the book! 100% of the profits go to charity.

 
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Posted by on April 16, 2013 in Books, Family, philosophy, Poetry, Suicide, Writing

 

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Kiss me, I’m a poet!

14 Apr
Celebrate National Poetry Month

Celebrate National Poetry Month

 
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Posted by on April 14, 2013 in Books, philosophy, Poetry

 

If I Could Show You Your Heart

02 Mar

If I could show you
Your own heart
You would fall
In love with you.

You would see what I see:
The Universe flaming into being
And newborn light
Leaping from star to star.

You would see
The birth of suns
Comets spinning into space
And planets coming to life,
Life upon life.

You would see
Celestial bodies in love
Drowning in each other
And their children
Populating the skies.

If I could show you
Your own heart
You could see mine
Deep inside, smiling.

 
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Posted by on March 2, 2013 in Poetry

 

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When I held You

22 Feb

The moment I held you,
nested with your body,
wed thigh to thigh,
belly to back,
breath to your neck.
The moment I held you
The sigh, the sleep
my hand rising and falling
with each of your breaths,
you, my inspiration.
The moment I held you
when your body let go,
when your soul, let loose,
held to mine, soul to soul,
and I could no longer tell
whose soul belonged to who.
The moment I held you
when the distance disappeared,
when separation ceased,
when all became you and me
became we and naught else existed
but us and still you are all with which
I am filled.

 
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Posted by on February 22, 2013 in philosophy, Poetry, Uncategorized

 

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