poem

 The Insomniac

I wrote a poem

After midnight 

In the pitch darkness

But in the glow of dawn

I couldn’t see what it said 

I’d have to wait for sundown

In the meantime, what to do?

Hours and and hours left 

Of unrelenting light

Go to school. Learn a trade

Work a job for 55 years

Occupy your mind

Read the classics

Curse god

Seek out others

Get entangled

I got so busy

It makes you so tired

Now I sleep through the night

8/23/26

poem

 Meet Cute

What are you, some sort of literary type? She’s looking at my black T shirt emblazoned in white on the front with: Unreliable Narrator. I don't know about that, I said. I just like weird T-shirts that only a few people might get. And then what, she asked. What’s after that? So you’re a little honey pot for some sentient hag who has a Lolita fetish. Then what? Not Lolita, I said. Nabokov. I don’t even like him, you see? I want to fall in love with someone whose favorite authors are all mysteries to me. What are you, some kind of desperate writer or something? she asked.  Yes, I said. I’m desperate as fuck. It’s been buried so long. It burbles up unpredictably like, oh I don’t know, like molten iron. What do you write? Well, I’m sort of a poetry guy. You mean you’re a poet? Poetry guy. Just a guy hovering on the perimeter of the big poetry party, talking to no one. Ah, she said. One of those. The guy who spikes the punch. Pulls the fire alarm. Flips on the light switch when everyone else is making out. Then tells everyone on Monday how much fun he had at the grand poetry party. Oh, you weren’t there? I don’t think that characterization’s quite fair, I said. But she kept shaking her head. I know guys like you, she said. Fun at first but it always fizzles out. They think they have to create something new every single time. It ruins it. You can't believe anything they say. Which is something I wish I had said, first. Then she gave me her number and told me to forget it. When I called, no one answered. Which was a shame because I had finally decided to tell someone the truth.

8/22/26

poem

The Catcher in the Rye

I’m in a group of people
Milling around in the middle
Of a field of rye.

Behind us is an open pit

With fresh dirt piled at its sides 

There're rumors of a mass execution

Planned for later 

That’s when we notice 

All the barbed wire 

Crowning our surrounding fence

Sentries in towers train

Blinding white lights 

Down on our little stage

None of us knows why

We’re here. Whispers of past

Convictions filter through the crowd

Like airborne viruses.

Someone begins to cough

We break into cliques.

Over there are the hard men

With special bones 

But undeveloped livers.

They take their shirts off

And begin to chant 

Sequences of monastic slogans. 

A small group near the edge

Of the grave is tightly huddled

Around a small child.

They take turns telling

Her stories to kill the time

Closest to the guns is a column

Of folks who think they know

Their executioners by name

As if that will change anything.

I’m in a similar predicament

As a couple other people here,

Stragglers who’ve staked out a little parcel

Of hard-earned ground 

Where we’ve decided

To make our final stand.

It never really made sense

As a life strategy

At least until now

When things don't exactly 

Clarify, but somehow seem

Slightly less difficult to understand.

Stupid humans, we think every flash

Of light in the middle of the pitch black 

Means another chance 

To get things right.

So we rush to the front of the line
And try to catch every bullet we can

8/22/26

poem

 Likeness II

But I just can’t get used to him

The way he looks at me with 

Pity in his eyes 

Like I'm a mess 

But I’m not embarrassed.

Sometimes when I’m out

In the world I’ll catch

A glimpse of him

In a dark window 

Or a looking glass

Above the tavern sink 

And pretend I don’t see him

Even though our eyes

Have clearly met.

8/22/26

poem

 An Old Notebook

I found an old notebook

Long abandoned

Filled with scribblings 

Suggesting nascency tinged

With a hint of sinister profligacy.

Reading it is like following

A trail of breadcrumbs 

Meandering through dark woods.

Sometimes it leads back home

But there’s no one there

Anymore. Sometimes it ends

At an old witch’s cabin

In a pine clearing.

It’s still made of candy

With a peanut brittle roof

Shining in the moonlight

But I lost my sweet tooth

Before the rest of them 

Ever had a chance to grow in.

It now seems improbable

Those crumb trails were ever real

Abandoned to the ravenous

Wilderness for so long

So now my pockets

Are always filled with stones.

8/22/26

poem

Primogeniture

My dad was never around 

So my son has to see me

Every single day

My dad was indifferent 

To my success or failure

So long as he was the hero 

Of however the story turned out.

I just want to be my son’s

Powerless wizard warning

Him to pay attention 

To all the hidden trapdoors 

I’d once fallen through.

Formerly a self-proclaimed white knight

My dad is now like any other castled king

Alone on his throne, back to the wall

Anxiously waiting for the coup

He keeps seeing in dreams 

Play out in his Great Hall. 

I’ve never been interested in kingdoms—

I only want my boy

To be better than me

He’s mad right now, though

Says he likes the feeling of falling

But I reach to catch him anyway.

My only spell is an overcompensation 

That takes years to slough

From the next generation.

8/16/26

poem

 Likeness

He used to be used to me 

But every time I see him

Now the look on his face

Betrays a cryptic reckoning.

It stares back at me 

In shocked horror

As if I were some rough beast

Emerging from the glassy pond

I try to hold his gaze

Hoping he will see me 

As I’ve always been 

And slowly start to soften 

Back into the over-confident boy 

Who thought he saw a man

8/16/26

poem

 Hydrangea

After the summer rain 

The world softens

To a gauzy pink cotton 

Of groggy saturation.

Water drips from eaves

Metronomically preserving 

An illusion of duration 

While time enjoys

Its brief leave of absence.

A lone bat flutters away

Like an epileptic X 

Against the pastel sky

In strange repeatable patterns. 

I had only meant 

To take out the trash.

No one prepared me for this. 

A leaf of the white hydrangea

Collapses under the weight 

Of its aliquot of summer precipitation

And then springs back up.

8/16/26

poem

 Endless Song

This is my favorite song

Once it found the right rhythm

It seemed it would never end 

Odd melodies looping 

Unceasingly without sounding stale 

No matter how many times I hear them

Your bare shoulders are piano sonatas

Outside under sturgeon summer moons

Your laughter’s a bridge to drastic themes

I’d otherwise never bother to see 

While your eyes are shiny blue bars

Tapped at the small end of the xylophone

Our song must also be sung

So we keep coming up

With unexpected new lyrics.

We take turns.

Every day together

Is the gamete of another 

Verse that fits the prosody.

We sing them in any order

And in between it’s always fun

To belt out the old chorus

We know by heart, the one 

We first fell in love to.

That’s the one I’ll be humming

Softly in your ear

Toward the end of the night

When we’re the last ones left

And the lights come on 

And the band goes home

Softly in your ear

Last remnants of a music

We'll no longer be able to dance to.

8/16/26

poem

 Helium's Comet

1

The day you turned two you let go

Of your giant helium birthday balloon

Just because you liked 

To watch it dart and flutter.

But it had a mind of its own,

Flittering just beyond your grasp

And then up, slaloming gnarled 

Limbs of the old oak tree

At the house where you first lived,

Then breaking free into the deep blue

And higher and higher

As if scampering home 

To live amongst wispy white clouds.

You stretched your little fingers

As high as you could 

And you cried and cried 

And all I could do

Was crouch to hold you 

And whisper of the wispy clouds 

As we watched it vanish 

In the haze of vastness

That dissolves even the stars

2

15 years flashes by like Tucson lightning 

Briefly fracturing the hooded 

Monsoon-season evening sky.

Something changes when it happens

That no one has ever defined

And all that’s left is the faint whiff

Of ozone burning

And the rapidly fading residue

Of all the intricate patterns

We’ve forever left behind 

3

I’m in clinic again, an old patient

I haven’t seen in years

Regaling me with tales 

Of counterfeit coupons and broken faucets

When I suddenly see it drifting by in the window

Over the old woman’s shoulder—

A golden #2 balloon!

Similar to the one we lost so long ago

When you were my baby girl

And I was a lot less gray.

All I wanted to do was call you,

To tell you I saw it, so many years

Since we had both stopped looking.

There it was, appearing like a comet

Making its incalculable cosmic rounds,

Still, after all this time 

Just beyond my reach 

4

Well, that’s the way it goes, honey.

I’m afraid we’ll never catch it.

Some things you only get to hold once

And then they're gone. 

Maybe not now, but someday

When thunder clears its throat from distance  

You’ll search the skies

And see it for yourself

8/16/26

poem

 Recurring Nightmare

Some people have recurring nightmares 

Where they can’t stop falling

Others are haunted by dreams 

Of spiders or swarms of bee stings.

Mine is me crawling on all fours

Deep into a cave cut into the side

Of a craggy old mountain.

There is a steady downward slant

And the passage gets narrower and narrower. 

I’m wearing a lighted helmet that shows me

Exactly where I’m going but I keep going

Anyway. The walls are a spiral stairway

Zeroing in on one-dimensionality

While the ceiling and floor slowly succumb

To a long denied mutual physical attraction.

It gets harder and harder to move.

I can't turn around.

It ends with a sharp decline 

I slide down until I’m caught

In the cold embrace of stone

Carved to accept every angle 

And curve of my now trapped body.

In the dream I’m smiling, lips flush

Against their perfectly arched space.  

It’s only during waking life,

Seeing how happy I seemed,

That it starts to feel so terrifying.

7/31/26

poem

 Gossip

1.

When it’s all over

It’s either a total silence

That swallows time 

Or you hear muffled voices 

On the other side 

Of a closed door

And no matter how hard

You press your ear

Against the cold steel

You can’t make out a word.

2.

Hell is knowing

They’re probably 

Talking about you

3.

Heaven is understanding

Language is a wave

Washing over edges

Of massive continents 

Of silent meaning.

Eventually there’s nothing left

But a gray wet sand 

Extending sideways in both directions

As far the universe is long. 

4.

To the left are footprints

Emerging from the sea.

To the right is nothing

But smooth sand

Patiently waiting

To be disturbed.

7/31/26