• Art,  Poems

    ‘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 ...

  • 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.

  • Essays,  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 …

  • 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 …

  • Essays,  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 …

  • Poems,  Poetry

    ‘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 …

  • Poems

    ‘Mission Statement’

    ‘To scratch the page,/ to pick the scab, / to mix and match the phrases, / enter the lab and whip up potions, / address the sky with curses, praises, / annoy the authorities, cause commotions …’

  • Poems,  Poetry

    ‘Earth Mother Lullaby’

    Wrinkle-skinned earth mothers from / another decade, a far more interesting decade they profess, / nest live orchids in tangled-up hair, / black-cotton gloves rising past thin wrists ...