Poems

Space

A grapefruit-sized meteorite
crashed through the ceiling of a bedroom
in a New Jersey home, and people are barely
talking about the circumstances of the intrusion.

Maybe there are too … Read more

Explosion

How to describe history’s grotesque
face, still half-hidden under a mask
of deceit. In some countries, hide
and seek is not a game.
In some homes, the bodies curled inside … Read more

Empty Folders

No prior Prez has smuggled docs,
concealed in boxes among his junk,
containing so much secret stuff,
and now they’re seized, he’s in a funk.

He claims the docs belong … Read more

The Crowning

The afternoon moves at the stop-start-stop
again pace of the mail van
with its messages from long-lost friends
and freshly minted bills to answer
by the next hundred-degree day
which, … Read more

Don’t Take my World

Today I walked familiar streets,
stood where avenues cross,
where people meet.
I smiled at a lady with a toddler in hand,
bought a pretzel at the corner stand,
saw … Read more

A Week of Shootings

The black kid who rang the wrong doorbell
expecting his siblings is recovering at home.

The white teenage cheerleaders fled
after one climbed in a mistaken car.
One was treated … Read more

On Lies Many Shapes

My 4th-grade math teacher would categorize lies by shape and weight. Headaches on test days were triangles (angles acute and obtuse). Bruised knees and hallway trips were trapezoids (competing sides, … Read more

R. U. D.

Thirty-three engines rumbling
thrust building, years of
research and development
on the line, wild hopes of
Martian settlement, eternal
fame and glory, first steps
taken on an amazing path.
Starship … Read more

Careless Consequences

The seas are alive,
Swimming with life.
Dolphins leaping with grace and precision.
A seahorse clinging to the neon green seaweed,
Manta rays roaming freely and undeterred.
Great whales breaching … Read more

Drought-Break

For months, nothing but rain in California.
Rain in California, as unexpected
as a savant’s first symphony, as kindness
from a forgotten foe.
The oaks lean in, slump tons
of … Read more

Collapse

Image by Lena Petrovic

Hercules is nervous. He dreams big,
but saves very little.
He is religious, believes in hard work.

In his money temple, marble crumbled,
clients overdosed on … Read more

Topical

what can we do with shooting
procrastinate the delivery
not think about the source
deliver unto being
just Easter and the Passover
un being

recently a friend of mine had … Read more