poem

 Patient List

I make a new list every morning

It tells me where my patients are

I check the films and labs

And then go see them, one by one,

Starting on the top floor

And working my way down.

Then I make a list in my head

Of everything they all need.

There’s a list for the sickest patients

And another for those

Who seem to be getting better.

I’m in the room of the one 

Whose status is yet to be determined.

There is also a list only I can see.

Every time I check it

Another name is missing.

10/19/25

poem

 Translation

As we begin to connect 

Your words become more and more direct

While mine bend toward the abstract.

We don’t know what the other is saying

But somehow it works. 

We only know we are happier

Together.

Two languages in one

Conversation puts a premium,

Of course, on proper translation.

Not every word, alas, has a direct equivalent

Leave it to me 

To see that blue

Is only a melancholic black

While you’re the one tasked 

With teaching me how 

To wrap my lips around a word

I’ll never learn to say 

But should.

Call it repressed memory

Buried under a backfill of facts

A feeling that used to be automatic

Just say it, she says

By the end of the night

We’re rolling on the floor

Speaking in tongues

Ecstatic

10/19/25

poem

 Slack

He gave his mother 

Generous coils of slack

Recalling her torrents 

Of wild banshee screaming 

About things neither he

Nor his sisters could control

Imagine how loud it must

Have been inside her head 

That some had to escape

Just to have itself heard 

Small isolated joys 

Are never enough to infect

The ones you love

Only anger gets released

Like pus under pressure

Beneath the skin

For everything else

His immune system 

Was unusually strong

Isolating and then attacking

Any good feeling

Before it had a chance

To build up 

And come out all wrong

10/19/25

poem

 Insofar

We only exist insofar as we 

Are observed

The idea of the hermit is to put

This hypothesis to the test

Every day, he wakes and finds himself

Still there. Even though hasn’t seen a soul

In years. But at the end of all his

Meditations, his prayers, and holy fasting,

He remains. Hungry and sad and wondering. 

It’s a glitch in the experiment,

A confounding factor that can’t be

Entirely eliminated. 

Even invisibility engenders a certain feeling 

The way solitude bleeds into loneliness.

The problem requires a distraction, usually 

In the form of another person. 

It’s your only hope.

Yes, if you pick the wrong person

It’s worse than being stranded 

On the moon

But don't let that stop you.

Doesn’t even have to be the right person

Whatever that may mean.

We’re talking mere seconds

Here, a flash of recognition,

A shared belly laugh.

Do that a few times per day or week

Or whatever you need

And you start to forget 

What it was like before

We were two. 

To be alone and self-forgetting 

Is an existential impossibility

Only God can pull off.

The narcissist fears his own

Annihilation so much he can't 

Take his eyes off himself.

When he tires he gathers

Everyone around and forces

Them to watch until he wakes up.

The nihilist positions himself between 

Two facing mirrors.

He stands in the middle 

And watches himself get smaller

And smaller until the last 

Of the light

10/19/25

poem

 The Back Story

There’s a new back story

Check it out!

The winter snow now

Comes from the moon

Shedding slivers of itself

Cold enough to last 

The long fluttery trip down.

Rain is more or less a function of the sun

It just means something is melting 

Way up there.

This is the new back story

The back story is nostalgia for loneliness 

And heartache and a pot of chicken

Noodle soup simmering on the back stove. 

The back story is always whispering 

In your ear just loud enough for no one

Else to hear. 

It’s full of confusing anecdotes

And false memories your father 

Is now convinced actually happened. 

The new back story isn’t written

Down or play acted or ad libbed

You just say your lines

And get off the stage as fast as you can.

The new back story is a scare 

Story we tell the little kids 

Anytime they get out of line.

It’s rich in detail but devoid

Of any context. Someday this 

Poem will be part of it  

Too. 

The new back story eats lima beans

For supper and then spits them out

Unchewed into a napkin

So mom will think he cleaned his plate.

This is the new back story

The back story is the subject

Of an 8th grader’s science experiment

The null hypothesis denies

Any responsibility for the way

We are now. The alternative 

Hypothesis asserts that we 

Have always been nothing

But back story

10/19/25

poem

 Dawn vs Dusk

The morning broke as rind

Of melon against the darkness

To the east, a warm ambered halo

Around the sainted head 

Of the monkish earth

As usual, the change was gradual

As if the light, refusing to sleep,

Had spent the hooded hours 

Quietly pleading its case,

Promising night it could

Always come back later.

At dusk it’s different.

Through the trees to the west glows 

A faint greenish bluish corona,

Clinical and antiseptic,

Sterilizing some barber’s comb,

The kind of unnatural light

Halogenating science labs

After hours 

Garish illuminations of

Petri dishes, beakers, test tubes 

Or neatly labeled specimens

Tacked to a corkboard

Little pins impaled on

Gizzard

Cloaca

Three chambered heart

A light demanding everyone’s attention

To something you’d rather not know.

Just be dark, I think

And then it is 

10/19/25

poem

 The Pendleton's

The neighbors have replaced their lawn

Again. We assume they’re bored. 

That old grass was just fine. Now it’s

Some real high-end, bad-ass, weed-resistant variant—

The good stuff. It’s a different color than mine.

Our property line looks like a wild Swiss meadow

Juxtaposed against the 18th fairway of Pebble Beach.

Weird couple. The wife came over one day crying

Because she watched a feral cat maul and eat 

A bird, live, in her backyard. How cool, I said,

Which only made her sob harder. They once tried

To train a dog to be an emotional support animal

But it didn’t make the cut. It scared all the demented

Nursing home souls and reminded all the patients

On the cancer ward of an angel of death.

The husband hasn’t worked

A single day since we moved in. For which I begrudge him.

His father apparently was a local steel magnate

And this, the second son, sold his share as soon as the old man died. 

His main job now is HOA President. And waxing his fleet 

Of corvettes.  And let me tell you, he’s quite 

The stickler when it comes to the yearly

Fee collection. I usually pay by June, after

A deluge of friendly and then not so

Friendly reminder texts. We don’t know what 

The money is used for. No end of summer block party,

No Sunday potlucks.

Next year he gets audited. 

We burn down his bed of saffron crocuses.

This time I’m going way beyond rampant dandelions

This year it’s crab grasses and other invasive species

Imported from Dust Bowl operatives in Oklahoma,

Metastatic leaves manspreading into the edges

Of his yard. Why are you being such an ass?

Just follow the rules. Spray some chemicals

On your grass like a good neighbor. This is me

When I want to be like everyone else.

This is me telling him his lawn 

Looks nice

10/19/25