“And what of tonight, my darling? What do you smell?”

The scent of saturation

As wax seeps into wane

The fragments of dream

As they evaporate

Onto the pillow

(Copyright 2021)

She rings honey around her ears
to attract fragments of dialogue
Peels paper skins off whispers
to suck out sweet ideas
Hides a paring knife beneath her tongue
to slice adjectives from nouns
Rolls the crushed fragrance of sentences
to smoke and inhale the essence

She is a scam word grifter

The hint of her finger’s touch
can lift a poem out of the ether
swindle away its metaphors
into  hidden pockets of her memory

She is a sharp in search of flats

Master of the short con sleight of mind

Put her name first on the signup sheet

Maker her sweat for every word put on paper

 

Copyright 2019

 

He rattles around,

stranger in his own head,

snacking on abandoned ideas,

rolling bad choices

into cheap smokes.

 

He avoids the minefield

of lost relationships

as he can no longer

recall where danger lies hidden.

 

Poking around with a stick

in a musty pile of emotions,

he sees the edge of a poem

he came inside to write.

 

Copyright 2017

 

Late at night,

he retreats to the basement,

empties his pockets

of tiny glass spheres.

 

Upstairs,

his wife and daughter

unravel their dreams,

weave them together,

discarding the disease.

 

He works all night,

stringing globes into balance,

flicking them at random

just to hear the sound.

 

He is creating his wife

a windchime,

forged of their daughter’s laughter

so the night breeze can serenade her

when the dreams start to fade.

 

Copyright 2017

He had always wondered

about Little Red Riding Hood’s mother.

 

What kind of parent dresses a child

in a cloak reminiscent of a matador’s

invitation to danger,

yet alone hands her a picnic basket

stuffed with smells

that will draw every beast in the forest?

 

Little Red is a magnet for tragedy.

 

And what kind of mother

sends a naive child,

who easily confuses a costumed wolf

with her grandmother,

alone into the woods

to walk the gauntlet of death?

 

And the savior woodsman,

who hacks the wolf with his axe?

Does it not seem odd

that he is so close at hand?

 

He turns the page

as his daughter demands another story.

 

This one is Goldilocks.

He will never get to sleep.

 

Copyright 2017

She is the stillness

on the edge of his life,

the moment of madness

before the intake of breath,

the anguish of love

just before its arrival.

 

She nails his feet

to the ground,

weaves him wings

out of whispers,

as if he were Icarus,

forbidden to fly.

 

Copyright 2017

He enters the confessional of her bedroom,

beseeching absolution,

kneels before her in naked supplication,

sin cupped in his hands,

open and raw.

 

He lowers his head at her touch,

penitent before confessor,

cries at her whispers of contrition

as she baptizes him

with her tears.

 

Copyright 2017

He takes great pains

to salvage drops out of

each exquisite moment,

distills the essence of his life

into a signature blend.

 

He tucks it in

a mahogany box

sealed with memories

and hot wax,

to be opened up and savored

when the shout comes

“last call.”

 

Copyright 2017

On the corner of Fort and Ferry,

on a late Tuesday afternoon,

the hydrangea bush near the statue

explodes into bits of poetry.

 

The hydrangea is ancient,

overgrown,

pushed through time

from ornate to eyesore.

 

Neighborhood discussions

favor substitution

of a young pink azalea.

 

So he cuts blossoms

out of blue-velvet paper,

writes metaphors

of beauty and love,

dignifies the neglected hydrangea

with one last moment of life.

 

Copyright 2017

Some are born with it

welded to their souls,

others step into it

like discarded gum.

 

Big luck is the big thing:

casinos,

lotteries,

the stock market

 

Why bother playing

unless the promise

reeks of motherlode?

 

Him?

He protects the habitat

of the elusive minimal luck.

 

Once as common as the cold,

minimal luck suffers

from habitat encroachment,

its survival dependent

on diving into dark corners:

pennies on sidewalks,

deposit cans left in parks,

treasures unearthed on trash days

 

Once he had worshipped the ordinary,

never realizing how soon

it would become rare.

 

Copyright 2017