Don’t talk about it

I toil mostly in obscurity. But which writer does not? / Except for those few who are feted, adored, and / lifted so high. Until they pass from favor & are knocked / back to the second-rank, never to return to / the heights from which they sipped / the better champagnes ...

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Categories Photography Poems Poetry

‘A Dream of Perfect Motion’

I've spent years collecting footage of trains rumbling through West Virginia's hills, dales & valleys. I also scribble poems that play on Buddhist allusions. And there's this electronic music maestro I know named Lucas the Flow, who composes ethereal tunes. Mix them together and this is what you get ...

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Categories Art Poems

‘Killer on the Loose’

My beard is trimmed close to the flesh, so the strong coffee barely touches my mustache, leaving a scent of dark chocolate and turned soil. / I have never learned to tell the truth, dressing instead in these words for a passeggiatta in the cool September sun.

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Categories Poems

‘RUN-ON SENTENCE: At 47’

I am 47, the day is Jan. 2, the year is 2005, / my beard is stained white in several places, / my son is 14, my girl 10, my (borrowed neighborhood) / cat is named Mister Puzzlesocks, / my favorite red wine of the moment is / Trinchero Cabernet, my car is a white ’93 …

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Categories Essays Poems

‘Dirt & Bourbon’

My ink-stained hands hear the/ sound of the railroad, another train / passing through my town, here/ at the middle of nowhere &/ everything. I am ready to burst/ open like a cherry tomato/ between your teeth …

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Categories Poems

‘In Need of Saying’

I am on a porch, captain/ of a green ocean. Wasps patrol / the boundary lands. In whispering winds, conversing / in high tulip poplars, I hear / poems from another tongue …

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Categories Essays Poems

‘Unfamous’

I decide to be famous / only to myself. It is / so much easier and my / tender, so lightly bruised / ego now thanks me for this / demilitarized zone …

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Categories Poems Poetry