• MEMORY OF THE VINE

    The conversation flows freely, piles up on the table, amid dishes from a meal now fully consumed, as the last of the wine reluctantly cedes its grip on the bottle and settles into the glasses. In Abruzzi, the vintner imagined this, staring at the grapes pulled lovingly from the now ancient vines. As night draws…


  • SUSIE

    What do you say on the loss of a child? We sat in the lounge drinking a vile potion from a hollowed pineapple giggling insanely for no reason. We wandered the tunnels faces painted, clowns in bedlam. We lay together on a mattress on the floor and listened to Aqualung my arms around you both,…


  • EROTHANATOS Vol. 3, No. 3

    Just yesterday Erothanatos (from India) released its issue number 3 of volume 3, a collection of poets from several countries.  I was honored to have seven poems appear in this issue and you can find them here: https://www.erothanatos.com/v3i3n10 But if you don’t have the time, one of the included poems was: In a Prior Life…


  • ON THE BORDER

    It always seems odd how the dual veils that separate day from night, wakefulness from sleep, seem impenetrable in the moment. Yet they both fade, now pellucid, permeable with the simple passage of time. Now dreams are a reality, such as that purports to be, and the worlds intermix, one ceding it to the other,…


  • AS IT SHOULD BE

    Day gives way to night. Life gives way to death. Truth gives way to truth and falsity to falsity. Nothing moves, nothing cedes, all is constant. This is enso, one stroke, complete and incomplete and this is mu. You may enter freely, but will never leave, and once captured you have never been here and…


  • ADIEU, SOL

    The sun is preparing still another departure. He moves with a ponderousness that you wouldn’t expect of him, he who should be all passion consuming the sky, painting clouds. We expect his return by morning, he has never yet disappointed but Luna, lingering at the horizon, a diva making her slow entry, shines fully as…


  • HAIKU TWO TANKA

    A clouded night sky hide and seek moon chases squirrels      Rain holds back      In deep laughter Wind whispers trees sigh in response Morning awakens A heron poses standing on a single leg We watch jealously


  • WINDSOR EVENING

    I sit in the window staring out over the rain slicked streets to the passing of the occasional car and the three men who glance furtively at the door of the “Adult Entertainment” club. The old oak floors are scarred by too many heels. The railing along the window is bolted into the floor, suspending…


  • CRYPTIC (an acrostic)

    God, it was a long night, unending needs unsated, brought to the edge man is a cruel beast, half master as pleading supplicant, half slave much the child, begging, wanting as if food or thought would give man humanity, elevated above needs, existing outside, independent a God, ruler of illusion and fantasy. First Appeared in…


  • SENTINEL

    The streetlight is a nocturnal Sentinel staring down. In some cities in other parts of this it could tell of the cries of drunks stumbling from closing bars, ambulances flashing in its cast shadows. On the street with sleeping homes it tells only of the snow that cradles its base.