poem

 The Critic

As the poems got weirder and weirder

Your synopses of them grew simpler

And more concrete. Sometimes your reviews

Read like an algebraic equation:

Let x = the quadratic hypocrisy

Of the hypotensive displacement vector in bay 5.

Let y be the parallel line in a space

Without any other lines.

I certainly appreciate your efforts but

We aren’t going to be able to figure 

This out using graphs and numbers.

Do you see now?

It isn’t what you thought.

Put your protractor away.

You’re not allowed to say it in poems

Except in this one:

Yes, I really do love you

9/21/25

poem

 New Math

Two and two was always four

It still is but not the way 

It used to be.

You’re not allowed to use your fingers

Anymore. The kids are drawing flow

Charts that branch down the length

Of the white paper 

Like a hopscotch grid.

At the bottom is the number 4

Sitting there innocently

Like a baby dragon.  

How did you get here? I ask

Whatever happened to two cats

And two dogs who join together

In a big shared box 

Without the drama or tragedy?

But four is more than that, they say.

It’s a square.  A doorframe.  Legs of a table.  

Time makes it four dimensions.

One and three together is four

Too— you just needed me to get there.

But what I gave to complete your sum

Was all I had and now I’m zero

Which can always be added to four

And added to four

And added to four.

But why bother?

It adds nothing.

I’ve been reduced to a numerical sentence 

That happens to be true.

As long as I’m nothing 

I can give as much as I want.

At some point I expect 

To get a different answer. 

9/21/25

poem

 Gently, Down the Stream

Living the dream, Clark always replies

When I ask how he’s doing 

As we pass in the hall on my way to round 

Life itself is but a dream, I countered today,

For some reason, and then we both

Started singing row row row your boat in opposite directions 

What is the dream? I started wondering

And why is it always phrased ironically

Eyebrows arched like mantises

You know the dream— suburban bliss 

With a lovely wife and enviable kids,

An Audi and secret reasons to go on living 

But the best part of the dream

Is getting to spend 8 hours a day here

With you in this godforsaken place 

We both laugh and ignore 

The lingering sadness of trying to share 

A loneliness that can only be your own 

Yes, life didn’t turn out as expected

Yes, there were detours and coffee shops and setbacks 

The whole experience, on balance, was a little disappointing

But we don’t want to create a scene,

Scare the children, draw the attention of the authorities.

So you wink and pretend this was always the plan.

Life is but a dream, I insisted, silently,

To myself this time, dreams wrapped

Inside dreams swaddled inside others

Like the singularity just before the Big Bang

Had to be situated somewhere, right?

Universes cradled within the infinite tangle of others

Even the rowing is a delusion

The current gets us all there 

Regardless. Steering barely matters 

Living the dream, I say whenever anyone asks,

Shoulders fasciculating after rowing 

Upstream for all these years

Merrily

Merrily

Merrily

9/21/25

poem

The Question

The question is never far.

The problem isn’t proximity 

But how often it visits.

Sometimes weeks go by

Without hearing from it.

Then there are periods

When it overstays its welcome—

Incessantly whispering itself in my ear,

Lingering in the foyer, its Irish goodbyes.

I know it’s never leaving.

Its entourage has already unloaded

The car and brought its things inside. 

At nighttime it sleeps in my bed.

It stays up talking as long as it likes.

In exchange I get to stay alive

 

9/21/25

poem

 Bookmark

Remember the book I gave you?

Read it until you’re lost 

Or it bores you

Or starts to kindle revolutionary thoughts.

Then place it face down on the nightstand

Opened to the page you stopped.

Years will pass. Loss is the bookmark

Showing exactly where you broke off.

The spine will soften as the pages yellow.

It won't ever close again.

When I return I’ll read the rest 

And you can fill me in on everything I’ve missed.

Between us we’ll patch it all together

And pretend I haven’t already

Read it twice, cover to cover.

While you sleep I whisper

Long passages I’ve learned by heart.

But too much time has passed.

I can tell you still don’t like it. 

It truly is, and always will be, just a story

We return to when we can't fall asleep.

In the new story, the one I’m working on, 

We roam the countryside

Brandishing torches and pitchforks, 

Burning all the office parks down

9/17/25

poem

 Most Recent Publication

She stumbles upon his latest in a bookstore,

Quickly sifts through it and thinks to herself—

Wow, you really did it.

You took your pain and transformed it 

Into something beautiful and true.

Meanwhile, thousands of miles away

He puts the finishing touches

On his pièce de résistance—

A long surrealist epic poem

Chronicling the agonies of an otherwise

Undistinguished knight banished 

From the realm for the sin

Of having profaned 

All of its truth and beauty 

By only feeling pain.

And all he feels is pain.

9/15/25

poem

 Oracle

There were pies hanging 

From the apple trees

And cookies swaying 

In the wheatfields.

I'm always seeing things

Two or three steps ahead.

There was a ring on your finger

When you were a little girl.

The first time we made love

Our child was telling us

To please keep it down.

And now I see the face

Of a tired old man

Tiptoeing around the edges

Of a hole in the ground. 

The house has gone silent

With everyone gone.

The boy in the backyard

Is now on his way to the cemetery 

With his pretty young wife and baby son

With flowers to be laid 

At the foot of the stone

Marking the spot

I have always known.

9/14/25

poem

 Inversion Table

I use an inversion table for my back

Even gravity is a therapy  

Like a thermal bath or the alpine air

Of a swiss sanatorium
The difference is the resistance

It takes to maximize its benefits

Which is how I prefer

To receive my natural cures.

When I go out in the sun

I cling to my pale skin

Like a novice to his virginity.

I meditate in the middle of active

Urban construction zones,

Take a couple sips of herbal tea,

Slosh it around, then spit it out.

At the spa it’s no touch massage

And a refusal to sweat in the steam room.

Sometimes I can make a cold plunge boil.

In bed, I listen to binaural beats

And see how long I can stay awake.

I fight everything every step of the way.

It’s resilience I’m after.

If you don’t fight it, you’ll fall.

Even love is a luxury good

That only heals once

It’s been first resisted. 

That’s why I pull away

When you reach for me 

And when I really need you 

I wander for a while 

Looking for you 

In all the places I know

You won't be.

That's how you know my love

Is strong.

9/14/25

poem

 End of Summer

Strange

It’s the last day of August

And unseasonably cool

The sky a soft endless blue,

A pool you could write on,

With clouds like Ice Age continents

Seen from space,

Two planes lacing the open

Seas between them with fading thread.

The light is brassy.

Individual objects seem preternaturally

Distinct like reflections in polished steel. 

You could spend the rest of the day

On one single tree, its greens,

Its thousand hidden shadows,

Each leaf a thin slice of jade

Dancing with one several branches away.

I wish I hadn’t seen it.

It’s too much responsibility

For average men like me.

I’ll fail to depict it

Properly, let alone artfully,

Obscure it under an avalanche of wrong words.

(Even avalanche isn’t quite it)

I see now why some religions

Forbid its believers from saying

The quiet name of God out loud

 

9/14/25