A poem about the person, the word, and the dream — I am nothing Shadow in light A firefly at twilight I am no one A memory frayed A picture frame cracked tilted to the right. Aluminum foil hope I am the heartbroken Wedding ring in a drawer Paper vowels torn Thrown into an old sad stream A single mallard swims, watching Lamenting Lost in the June afternoon Knowing we’re both Never going to make To the sea. What…

We dance upon the lunar heart and speak the name of eternity — Every photon is a poem. Every pixel, a hope sent to the stars, to the black canvas where song was sculpted from lips, reaches across time to unbutton my shirt. As your succulent hands, like an ocean, dancing splashing against a mossy rock, of numbing mystery and unraveling lighthouse beam chastity, almost burned out…

Ars Poetica on the horror of being a poet — True poetry is a haunting. Deep in a macabre childhood house, Where black mold slithers Like dendrites in a single memory. Nails pounded through thin walls Poking out on the other side Like teeth from a childhood monster. As Trauma clings to shattered windows. My parents lived in this house Long…

A poem about death and loss and the moments of mourning and living. — “I think of death only with tranquility, as an end. I refuse to let death hamper life. Death must enter life only to define it.” ― Jean-Paul Sartre, No Exit It was hard watching you decay, A zero-sum game; a room with no exit, no escape. A keyless realm, unbound by infinite space. You…

A prose poem about being homesick and battling the relentless movement of time. — I hate being so far away from my family. Time slips, runs, and crawls along, even when asleep or lost in ink blots. Every second, my nephews age, becoming men. My grandparents are getting older, almost their time. I can’t help but weep at fallen leaves and moldy sunsets. Funerals…

Decay in the early mourning of life — I wonder what the roses felt when summer dwelt, inside the core of an irate star sizzling upon black asphalt, As the nucleus of every petal fell upon the scorched Remorse of a failed parent. Did the door know it would open to a drunk about to beat his past into the present? Life is shadow without…

A poem about the importance of listening with your whole being — I spent many years learning to listen so I could hear the sorrow of a plant without water the slowly moving bumble bee In the new heat of languid summer. The new normal, we called it — quietly crunching boots upon the throats of crickets as the fire hydrant spewed out the muck of a city’s shame…

A free verse poem about the great riddle of loss & opportunity — Time as a heart mid-flight iridescent butterfly wings, as southern winds carry across abandoned roads where new moments unveil in the meadows of spawning seeds. Never to miss the flower of truth; nor catch the winds of harmony upon its wings. As it calls to you, like a blade of grass upon a…

A sestina about obsession & change — I walk through honeydew sunsets — thoughts refracted in the philosophy of stars, as I bite darkness with morose hope meander into unobserved nothingness, leaving you what’s left of me, ashes of my words, cells of my heart. For what it’s worth, given the remains of an empty heart, I am…