My Poems.

These poems are very much written out of a sense of observation. Every work of art is photographic in that it represents a certain moment and thought process. Time moves on but those moments are captured forever. They will constantly be reinterpreted and the artist may evolve to the point of changing the reasoning behind the work but the work, itself, will always be a snapshot of that certain time.

"Regional Photographs" is an ongoing project. This is a small part of it. It is, basically, a series of small portraits of one massive community. Some would read a section and say "California" while another may say "North Carolina" and neither would be right nor wrong. These people can be anywhere but the reader will recognize them in their own way, put them in a city, state, or country the reader understands. They are just pictures found in a box under a bed without names, beginnings, or ends.


“the question of domestication”

this herd of deer is the answer. the flicking ears and slim legs and hair that is the brown of a childhood sandbox. the alfalfa blooms they eat taste like sugar and their long pink tongues nervously touch their black lips as if the sweetness were essential to their existence. the does sniff the wind and watch the hills. the bucks watch the edges where all of the danger of this world hides. the fawns run and jump or sleep in the sun. it is simple.
the letter in the mail today
said she would lose this house.
her son’s bad lungs were acting up.
his cough a rattle in a tiny chest.
she never knew her father.
her son would never know his.
she watched her child sleep fitfully on the old yellow couch
and licked her cracked lips
imagining a gentle life she had once seen.





“regional photographs”

Man, mid-fifties to sixties, straw cowboy hat down low
Over eyes without humor
Staring at hand as if there were answers beneath the skin.
White-tipped mountains beyond flatlands behind him.
Eight-thousand foot peaks far enough away that his hat
Brushes the snow.
Color but looks black and white.

Little girl on rock touches the water with her big toe
Squeals at the cold or just the wet.
Looking up at something unseen in an unclouded sky.
Her yellow t-shirt says “i love louisiana”
In indigo letters.
Small black mutt on her left
looks at her foot
Like it could be a meal.

Three young tan men
The color of fake Indians in old films
With overwhelming sunglasses
Drive a car that is impossibly red
Like a firetruck full of wrecked cardinals
Down a boulevard lined with palms
That match their hair
All spikes and sawed edges.
The middle one lifts the corner of his mouth
And this is all that distinguishes them .
Triplets without the blood relation.

Absolutely tiny boy on stage
Faded rust colored curtain with golden tassels behind.
From a string around his neck
Hangs a sign that reads 47.
Other children sit off to the left
Out of focus
white blocks for chests.
The boy’s eyes are wet and if he blinks
The tears will fall in sheets like a gale
But there is also a sense of control
As if the boy refuses
To let the weather turn.

Two girls sit on a windowsill of an abandoned house
Smoking pilfered cigarettes from one mother or the other
Talking about boys who pay no attention to them.
The boys are actually interested but too shy
To act humanely.
One girl has dyed her hair a beautiful and rich purple
And it is in pigtails
She is wearing a green shirt and yellow pants.
Her blue shoes have pink laces.
The other girl has a mousy brown bob cut
With a nailpolished red barrette that serves no particular purpose.
Her floral dress was bought by her older sister in Copenhagen
Ten years ago.

They whisper and laugh and touch hands
When something becomes too shocking
Or perfectly witty.
They love one another
In a gentle and kind way that allows total honesty.
They are the friends that will wonder about each other
When they are having children
Getting divorced
Watching death and dying themselves
Even though they will not have spoken for decades.
They flick ashes into the overgrown yard below.
They do not like the cigarettes
But it gives them a reason to be here
Near each other.