Poetry

Great wings spread Feathering west winds, While grey clouds loom Beyond all horizons. These are dark days Yet still, you fly Battling the elements While the rest of us Just watch.

There is a time when the sound of wet tires on Harris Street Comes as a surprise. Gravity has worked its irresistible craft On the water cycle, Leaving carbuncles dangling from the tips of the potted spruce. It goes on, And green returns to the carpet. It goes on, and chimney smoke begins to fight […]

I awake, brew and pour coffee. Corn bread is baking; a tequila sunrise calls. Good music; words for a poem dance in my head. Plans with good friends, dinner, a movie. A warm home while others do without. Yesterday there was ice on the ground. A man in rags, babbling to himself walked past my […]

Broken is the black body Broken its name Broken its fine bones, its dark flesh Broken the soul into which we peer (blood pooling, unmoving over whom some badged bully looms) Broken the spirit incarcerated emasculated forgotten Broken the family without this ______: (blank) ever absent: Broken the neighborhood, the barred and shattered windows the […]

We walk together Along the Lost Coast One eye on Towering waves Whisked ashore Beneath dark clouds Finally dousing our Endless Fire Season On Christmas Day. Avoiding quicksand We squeeze between Ancient Redwood siding Holding what is left of An abandoned Dairy barn Littered with work tidings Scattered aimlessly Waiting to float Far away …

We were rich as sin Shakespearean fools So we bought ourselves An enchanted prairie >Lie in that prairie Just in the center of that prairie (Where bottle gentian Throws a punch like a priest) It will tell you The exact truth The chickens believe They have found the home of the Common ancestor In vain […]

gray on gray in morning white on green at noon glowing coral in the gloaming gone by night   so many egrets in the pasture now as winter nears feeding together still slow steps sudden spear staving hunger indifferent in their scattered flock swallowing frogs and gophers or picking maggots from the dung   looking […]

An ancient redwood barn</p> Leans in all directions</p> As we begin to talk</p> Of the inexplicable:</p> Where we are,</p> How we got here,</p> When these geese</p> Found their way,</p> Why this trail is</p> So easy to follow?</p> Cattails explode in laughter,</p> As we finish, where we started…</p>

(For Suzanne) I drove by your home today Your flag out front appeared amiss “Erika, the Red” still in the driveway Was the flag a sign of some distress? Perhaps for the country you swore to defend In 2016 the returns came in You spoke with pride as a veteran Celebrations aside, the world turned […]

For Rick Park, in memoriam: a vilanelle The Earth looks on with burning eyes As into chaos, death and dark Her children break from Paradise While hungry planes transect the skies Her heedless children speed and park The Earth looks on with burning eyes As prophets mew their futile cries In empty theatres, spurned and […]

They’re not from this place The Eucalyptus trees spearing the sky Their naked trunks below near gleaming in the morning sun Massive branches and leaves darkly silhouetted against backlit morning fog The trees reach wide and tall near the bay It’s a negative tide and little wriggles of water sparkle in the sun The water […]