purgatory is
in an outdated strip mall –
I take a number
Haiku: Dragonfly
a dragonfly hunts
among reeds at river’s edge –
a flitting sapphire
Haiku: Thermodynamics
a cup of coffee
steaming mindlessly away
entropy net gain
More Free Verse
A Procrastinator’s Epiphany
The whiskey is mellow,
and the hammock sways
almost imperceptibly
as a Southerly breeze delivers
me into an oblivious sleep.
I wake to the screams
of a million Mayflies
in their death throes, and
the wind is out of the
Northeast now, siphoning
the heat from my bones.
A red Sun has scribbled
its mad manifesto
across the ugly world
in serpentine shadows:
I will hold you in orbit, and
you will mark the revolutions.
Squander these days, or don’t –
I will not remember your name.
Infinities will be devoured
by greater infinities. Immortality
is an abomination – the gift is
this moment, right now. *
* First appeared in Scarlet Leaf Review, October, 2017.
Free Verse
Op-eds and Obituaries
He chased an apparition
around The Circus Maximus
of his mind. It was a shapeshifter,
a lost love, a Rolls-Royce,
it was whatever he believed
happiness might have been
at the moment.
around The Circus Maximus
of his mind. It was a shapeshifter,
a lost love, a Rolls-Royce,
it was whatever he believed
happiness might have been
at the moment.
He chased it for decades,
for a lifetime, for all he was worth,
until he finally ran it down
and tackled the damned thing.
It turned out to be nothing more
than a threadbare flannel shirt
and faded blue jeans stuffed
with yellowed newspaper,
all op-eds and obituaries.
“Well, I don’t think that’s fair at all,” he said,
and then he died. *
*This poem first appeared in Scarlet Leaf Review, October 2017.
Haiku: Wolves
I was on a fishing trip in Alaska the first time I ever heard wolves howl. All day long I had been on the lookout for bears. I was with two guys who were born and raised in Alaska, and they had a lot of advice for me.
“Don’t want to have a bear sneak up on you, and you sure as hell don’t want to sneak up on a bear. You gotta make noise so the bear knows where you’re at. And if you see one, don’t run from it because that will trigger its predatory chase instinct.”
Of course, I forgot all about the bears when the wolves started howling late that night. It’s an eerie sound – it stirs some primordial memory in you that you didn’t even know you had.
“Better throw a couple logs on the fire,” one of the guys said.
“Wolves won’t get too close to a fire,” the other guy told me. “Not usually.”
Here’s a haiku I wrote commemorating the experience. Enjoy.
stoke the dying coals
flames jump up and dance like sprites
holding wolves at bay
Haiku: On the Mountain
above the tree line
nightfall is a crashing wave
I pray for morning
