a plum
and its fruit flies
on Facebook
*
snow patchiness
spring morning
a man sprays hair
*
Brahms wandering
the house looking for
a soft spot
*
housebound by snow
we hear the neighbor widow’s
vacuum sucking
*
the cat wanders
a house looking for
quiet pronunciation
*
watching a river
its icy mind
a sorry lover
*
singles dance–
the astronomy
of repurposed moons
*
that moment
in the city where no one
touches anything
*
poetry
it’s prose
with the silencer on
*
winter melon
death’s all about
the timing
*
winter graveyard–
you reread a book
for its silences
*
summer stars
anything this slow
is hard to follow
*
the house thaws
spring peepers rejoice
over a divorce
*
quiet rain
the window
nurses its drink
*
e.r. waiting room
dirt under my fingernails
someone dancing
*
missing someone
so far down the railroad tracks
they’re heat
*
how to build a nest
first twig
best twig
*
half seen
in the river glimpses
of bedclothes
*
cold morning
fingernail dirt
scraped with a dime
*
midnight
bodies on city streets pulled by
invisible leashes
*
after his divorce
people joke he’s like the man
with the invisible dog
*
MISSING:
INVISIBLE DOG–a xerox
of the stiff leash and harness
*
not long
after being born
footsteps
*
eating an orange
someone has died
into bright flavor
*
you notice too late
your body
is a cave
*
a dog walks a man
without a leash
half in the ocean
*
man walked
on the moon
the long leash
*
over
human silhouettes
a shooting star
*
winter lake
the only sound
magnet fishers
*
your distance
a taste of honey
shooting star
*
seeing
the shooting star
human silhouettes
*
Valentine’s Day
sweeping summer’s flies
off a sill
*
death row inmates
write love letters
to fame zombies
*
spring minnows
drinking my reflection
find it refreshing
*
looking through
my autumn reflection
a crayfish
*
a crayfish
I feel I know
hard to explain
*
looking through
my reflection
spring minnows
*
my honey bear
plastic bottle years later
still sticky
*
summer nearfar
the horizon’s honey
poured over distance
*
catching crayfish
under creek rocks the graveyard
sticks up for itself
*
looking through
my autumn collection
of unnameable colors
*
meet my neighbors
a dead pigeon and a forty
left on the corner
*
roadside bottles
thrown from cars
become little Venuses
*
so-called human!
so-called human!
screams a crow
*
don’t have kids
even your plastic plant
died a horrible death
*
drunk after midnight
he wonders how to shoot
a potato between all its eyes
*
a drunken man
screaming at the river
“I SAW YOU!”
*
flooding river
all the bicycles underwater
pedal like Philip Glass
*
Valentine’s Day
smile of someone
chewing bread without teeth
*
winter blues
my pineal gland plays
its Greatest Hits
*
state cop
writing the full moon
another ticket
*
second date–
seeing his scorpion’s
black light fluorescence
*
first date–
he says he doesn’t want
to smell like his house
*
third date–
while you drive
he looks for Bigfoot
*
fourth date–
zoo argument
about monkeys’ rights
*
late apology–
rain paints
a desert
*
his wrist slips
into the wrong watch
in motel darkness
*
winter office flirts–
tinned sardines
lose their heads
*
prayer candle–
telling the dead
where to go
*
first spring day
a puppy runs through slush
of his birth alley
*
candlelight vigil–
we are one
with the dead
*
mother cat
sees even her stillborns
wriggling in moonlight
*
drawing on the dead
moth’s wing someone says
it’s like a sin
*
all is ocean
dawn’s gold dust motes on air
ebb and flow
*
day after Halloween
a president’s face
in the trash
*
going home
wearing another’s underwear
thank you motel darkness
*
autumn moon
feeling the divorce
she wears red
*
a blind man smiles
at the moon with you
out of courtesy
*
refugees at sea
hold up words
they don’t know
*
January first
burning incense
while the cat’s out
*
something trapped
behind her eyes
an old filmstrip
*
funeral’s end
crows take a few last turns
after the sun
*
watching streets
turn ice growing someone
else’s beard
*
in my palms
my fair share
of moonlight
*
father’s war letters
to a home he only knew
from photographs
*
foggy night
reading mother’s letters
to herself
*
sewing a button
looking at fog
the colors in old letters
*
out walking
in spring fog
cars rearrange me
*
empty fog streets
traffic lights changing
nothing so much
*
traffic lights change
over empty streets there shouldn’t be
a word for nothing
*
spring fog viewing
there should be
no word for nothing
*
August dawn walk
the river can’t stop
touching my shoes
*
spring grows its hair
rarer and rarer
to hear a phone ring
*
in a condemned house
a broom
beautiful with age
*
Shaker double stairs–
brothers and sisters winding
down the DNA
*
competing at night
with the forest’s
strange secretions
*
winter moon
secretes moonlight
which secretes me
*
watching winter cars
tropical fish
in a store window
*
eyes closed in bed
on the phone with you
shopping together
*
one hospital stay
the peonies live and die
without our help
*
nurse grimaces–
another vegan
in a coma
*
visiting a man
in a vegetative state–
we become radios
*
you argue when I say
the peonies at the edge
are nobody’s
*
morning moon
when time’s up
on a story
*
the widow
carries birdseed out back
to rave reviews
*
highway traffic
the ripples
in my morning
*
snatched weave
burning with moonlight
on an icy street
*
driving past
cemeteries only winking
at the dead
*
all the movies
endings missed
New Year’s Day
*
cinnabar all day
her words
mercury at night
*
everywhere
I’ll never be
the rain
*
asleep in vinyl
under the bed
summer grass
*
barfly likes young men
spring trees
yet to grow bark
*
after his death
finding pot
behind family photos
*
digging dark tunnels
through darker tunnels
think we’re in love
*
shiver of a loon
cry on the lake
minding no store
*
September 11th
a blind man plunges his hand
in thick mud
*
seeds between fathers
colors between mothers
sons between deaths
*
no one
being born today
the foghorn
*
words are atoms
atoms only echoes
echoes are laws
*
late summer–
heard my words circle around
in a canyon
*
spring cemetery
we don’t visit our family
right away
*
mother’s mother’s
old scissors the dreamfare
to another country
*
small earthquake–
people wake to make love
and some babies
*
small earthquake
as we sleep
new countries
*
moon glistens
in the spider’s down
he begs her not to shave
*
he pets her
“like a downy spider”
she loves him more
*
woke for a drink
and saw the weird people
who thrive in moonlight
*
hot July day–
a coroner kneels to remove
gum from a corpse’s mouth
*
sweltering day–
the coroner plucks gum
from a corpse’s mouth
*
Buddha’s birthday–
counselors give gold star stickers
to death row inmates
*
middle of nowhere
halfway home
someone’s laughter
*
DON’T TELL ME
red spray paint on a wall
middle of nowhere
*
not interested
in the parts of science
not about sleep
*
on church pew
on court pew
the same cloud shadow
*
rainy graveyard
forgetting the names
all over again
*
old tombstone
remembering the moss
not the name
*
an orgy–
the only name spoken
God’s
*
deer are moonlight
while we sleep
and are worse things
*
don’t wake him
he’s young the old fart
dog running in his sleep
*
snowstorm
thanking God she makes it home
to the bar
*
dusty 8-track
in the basement–
a brother’s last good year
*
talking years later
about an ex
while cows eat thistles
*
summer divorce–
both their names
thrown like frisbees
*
after your death
dream where new teeth
rise in spring
*
maybe they’re daughters
braiding her white hair
who knows
*
spring day–
some things about to blossom
are fists
*
she finds herself
unable to paint
without the tub’s drip
*
you follow
a red maple leaf
down the creek to you
*
abalone
far from the diver
the sheen
*
December 24th–
the stars cattle in
warm stalls
*
whistling over snow–
he sees his leg trap
holds just a leg
*
out of the metro
Ezra Pound less Ezra Pound
a few seconds
*
weatherman’s arm swoops
before a green screen–
a bee’s wiggle dance
*
deathwatch
tiny white pumpkin
intact at New Year’s
*
icicles dripping–
a blind date
with a new dentist
*
a branch fallen
in the snow
homegrown crucifix
*
seeking anything
to scratch its back
autumn wind
*
at the trail head
cautious deer
in moonlight
*
in moonlight
we are moonlight
strange footprints
*
an entire village
of the dead somewhere
our radiator warmed
*
waking and sleeping
my body in sync
with the radiator’s moods
photos: Pexels
