A World of Glee -Published by Blue Crystal Literary Magazine, issue 14; “A World of Glee.” (2025)
A Happy Marriage -Published by Blue Villa Magazine; “A Happy Marriage.” (2025)
Heat -Published by Blue Villa Magazine; “Heat.” (2025)
Armageddon -Published by Blue Villa Magazine; “Armageddon.” (2025)
Serve a Purpose -Published by Paddler Press Magazine; “Serve a Purpose.” (2025)
On Marriage -Published by Paddler Press Magazine; “On Marriage.” (2025)
Go with the Flow -Award winning runner-up of the Young Writer’s Journal weekly prize; “Go with the Flow.” (2025)
Waking Up -Published by Interweaved Magazine; “Waking Up.” (2025)
you turn on the radio -Published by redrosethorns journal; “you turn on the radio.” (2025)
I used to live in a box -Published by Snowflake Magazine; “I Used to Live in a Box.” (2025)
Finding My Voice -Published by Ascendancy Magazine; “Finding My Voice.” (2025)
they’re mine -Published by The Scarlet Heir; “they’re mine.” (2025)
Dogdays -Published by miniMAG Magazine Issue 161; “Dogdays.” (2025)
Thinking with Reason -Published by The Poet Heroic; “Thinking with Reason.” (2025).
you there -Published by Ranger Magazine; “you there,” “don’t keep me in suspense”, and “nipped in the bud.” (2025)
A Little Yellow Jacket -Published by Grand Journal; “A Little Yellow Jacket.” (2025)
White-knuckled fists -Published by ManicWorld Magazine; “White-knuckled fists.” (2025)
A State of Great Anxiety -Published by Pineberry Literary Journal; ”A State of Great Anxiety.” (2025)
Tam Lin -Published by Ocean Stars Review; “Tam Lin.” (2025)
We Shall Remain -Published by Pandemonium Journal; “We Shall Remain.” (2025)
Night-time boxer -Published by Glass Gates Publishing; “Night-time boxer.” (2025)
A World of Glee
Don’t think of what you’ve accrued,
Or something, by many,
Considered lewd.
Turn, instead, to a world of glee,
For we belong, I allow,
To God’s country,
And everything, at some point,
Means something new—
So why disavow
Our wildest dreams
A little doubt, however,
Would make sense,
For life at the speed of light
Mayn’t make a lot of sense—
Rest assured, bright eyes,
For heaven’s intense:
Everybody shall live on
A particular frequency,
And that’s the secrecy
Of recompense.
-Published by Blue Crystal Literary Magazine, issue 14; “A World of Glee.” (2025)
A Happy Marriage
To say that I love you would be uncouth,
But it would be the honest to God truth,
And I know somehow that we would survive—
When our sins, at the end of this, we shrive,
Leaving us to a life of desire;
I don’t know what your life shall require:
We all need purpose, if not vocation.
I’m determined to build a foundation
That will keep us safely squirreled away
If or when the devil we’re forced to pay—
To balance out all the goodness we share,
And the time, in gratitude, we repair.
I guess, however, when things fall apart,
I remain, then, when you give me a start,
There’s no loophole in the marriage we prove:
You are the animus that I behoove.
-Published by Blue Villa Magazine; “A Happy Marriage.” (2025)
Armageddon
I share the mountain,
Though it is a sacred place;
No bombs can reach us.
-Published by Blue Villa Magazine; "Armageddon." (2025)
Serve a Purpose
my body is a function of water and light
light that zips this way and that—
and unites us with those that we admire,
people made lovely by what’s good
and those of us, too, cleansed by fire
one hand washes the other
and, as such, we can build a life together
we work, in tandem, as a brotherhood
you cannot degrade me with your body
it’s only my reaction that makes me happy
ugliness is a function of justice
when we look after ourselves we’re bound to see,
our features, and our bodies, serve a purpose
and everything, including evil
would make sense
if we had no roof over our heads—
You are, however, what you become
that’s the advantage of being a Christian
or even the atheist that would act out
if forced to attend a hateful place—
which, haply, doesn’t change our faith
in the greatness of a beautiful mind
-Published by Paddler Press Magazine; “Serve a Purpose.” (2025)
On Marriage
don’t I find joy in the felicity of others?
that is how my spirit eats and drinks
now that I’m of a certain age—
I don’t find fulfillment throughout my body
my sensations are limited by degrees
and I cannot rely on chasing a high
I’ll follow, in good faith, the limits of my mind
without hating the portion I’ve been given
and stating, simply, that I can’t understand.
I don’t depart, love, from nature—
I keep it with me all the time
we serve a greater continuum
one that includes the greater whole
having every libido to resist
means, for many, that you marry
you exhaust, then, all your hatred
by creating through an act of love
-Published by Paddler Press Magazine; “On Marriage.” (2025)
Go with the Flow
trying to dig my way out of this ditch
thinking primarily of your midriff
and all the ways we advertise our bodies
until getting high means getting low
the price to be paid at your window
looking in like a peeping tom
ready to get plastered
and go with the flow
but you don’t love what you cannot see
I’m too chicken to tell you how I feel
and, besides, I might let it slip
every memory is routine
afraid, I guess, that I’ll end up like you
hair that covers your ears
reading a book instead of checking in
trying to determine the television
whether or not I’m a robot
trying, in vain, to hack into your account
I’ll wash with tomatoes to cure the skunk
don’t ask what I might’ve thought
or what I was doing as I lit up
chasing off the other half of my life
a life that, apparently, I couldn’t accept
which I’m sure was a downer to another
You can’t go on—I know how it feels
but your body, at least, could be of use
-Award winning runner-up of the Young Writer’s Journal weekly prize; “Go with the Flow.” (2025)
Waking Up
you die a little death each time you make love;
you get cocky, sometimes, and don’t give a hoot,
and that, too, leads to procreation
you emerge like periodical cicadas
leaving, for us, their molten shells
we feed on tree roots for seventeen years
then we emerge—and save the date,
for a wedding, too, is a milepost
but how, I ask, do cicadas tell time?
they must, I infer, react to a magnetic field
but what, I must ask, influences that?
apparently, however, they’ve a molecular clock
but I’d want to know how that works, too.
I determine that nobody really knows—
there is no conspiracy to keep this from me
we don’t like it when we can’t answer,
so we don’t talk about things like that;
I joined the throng when I grew up,
and resisted the metaphysical chat.
now, as a man of a certain age,
I rely, mostly, on my experience
but I keep, in secret, to my books
and I’ve driven my darkness hence.
a little faith replaces those that are dying
and celibacy can amplify this—
so be pleased, my love, and give us a kiss.
-Published by Interweaved Magazine; “Waking Up.” (2025)
you turn on the radio
you turn on the radio
hoping, i gather, to make me angry,
everybody knows how i feel
about rock and roll—it just makes
you want to drink and smoke
what, once drunk, would you do?
i think you’d end the night
in my arms—not long
after you let yourself out
and you let me in
i know you’ll be something else
in the morning;
the light of day doesn’t match
the idea you have of yourself,
a master of words,
falling out of the closet
so as to better save yourself
from the onset of your disease
a schism, i suppose, between
the love that you need
and the auxiliary desire
that you would appease
I used to live in a box
I used to live in a box
with diagonals coming out
at the corners, making
an extra cube out of itself
i lived in a tesseract,
privy to the secrets of aliens,
tossing and turning,
giving in to sausage and cheese,
or chocolate chips,
or taking a break over a cup
of decaffeinated,
as i pulled myself together
back, then, to my prison
doing time in my room,
waiting for clarity
that never comes—
not without a hot bath
taking two baths a day once
didn’t have the same effect,
owed myself the morning
Finding My Voice
the first time I raced a girl, my muscles
opposed me (I have the slow twitch kind)
and she beat me by a mile;
It’s no consolation, either, if you cannot
run a mile—I quit the world of sports,
and turned to love after a while.
I turned, also, to the sauce—
stories about my ancestors
made me want to be like them,
when I first learned, however,
that they were ruthless rakes to boot,
I felt that I’d been had—evil,
I know, had taken root.
there are two kinds of people in this world:
the doers and the storytellers,
and, should you ask, I’d save my skin,
and observe the state you found me in,
drunk and mocking my closest friends.
Forty ounces of beer, for that,
sure made the people laugh—
they were happy that I was acting out
they knew, all along, that I was disturbed
the men, now, that I am meant to be
do not resemble this reality;
I’m as clean as a whistle—the greatest
storyteller that, as a poet, I can see
they’re mine
a flurry of images would pass me by
and I’d catalogue them as I went,
with a spoonful of antihistamine
to separate day and night
if, that is, my true love was spent,
and I had nothing, because of that,
to hide. i like being free
you don’t find people off-putting
you can speak without thinking
you can’t ruin anything
and you seem to be on your side,
but my true love still exists
For our sake, then, i don’t imbibe
I may sound, now and then, on point
but that would be me that i deride,
turn inside out to analyze,
becoming the downtime,
blaming it on those closest to me—
seeking distance, I suppose,
to speak freely,
but, if I did that, there would
be nothing to say,
and so here we are,
my true love and I are one and the same,
and, because of that,
I alter my profession,
speaking less about what I despise,
and more about
the feelings I have, inside—
which are no great testament
to anything, but they’re mine
Dogdays
no elephant is too interesting—
this one, a male, would crowd any room,
and, as such, we lead him out by his tail
we’re all thankful for the orange
on a bluebird’s breast,
reminding us of nature’s grace
i have no icon to deface,
no effigy that I’ve carefully built
just to burn—i went down that road,
inspired by Michelangelo,
who didn’t want people to know
how hard he had to work—
now we go on our merry way,
like a photon that goes exactly where
it wants, and we, the people,
are deposed. Pulling on your
nightgown, thinking, of course,
that, as my wife, you’d better
put out—that’s the problem for
everybody; we have to agree
equally charged. A mouse scurries past—
there’s no way for me to catch him
so i try to accept him,
I have no plans to buy a mouse trap
it’s Easter, now, the new year passed,
I was totally egging the wrong people on
i knew they’d suffer to see their state,
an atemporal position called retirement,
when you have to live with yourself,
and bad choices litter the canvas
these are the dogdays of summer,
let the minstrel sleep,
maybe he’s depressed by the company
he keeps—or, perhaps, he doesn’t want
to go through with it,
make up for the stars—
let us, then, absorb the sweat
that would make us look bad
when we’re on the air,
delegating to the various weathermen
who’s in jeopardy, and what needs to go
where, they take me as seriously
as I take them—we’re going nowhere,
i’m lost in the hem,
stitched up like a jogger denied
their two hour buzz that leaves them
to themselves, much like retirement
so we go to sleep—start over fresh,
and then our lives, our jobs, our friends
make sense: we strive to be better,
out of the road, doing for others
Thinking with Reason
what can i write that you’d want to hear?
you’re not, as I imagined,
a killer bee—serving your sentence
when a threat is near.
you’re not a kangaroo, jumping a bit
from here to there,
carrying a child in your pouch.
You’re unlike any creature I can
think of—my thoughts roam
over a celebratory coffee
i determine you’re nothing but yourself:
no matter how many faces are born,
no one shall ever be the same
there’s no need for a parallel universe,
i’m code, i think, for something else—
that which can never be repeated
or start from the beginning of time
I won’t expound upon nature,
but I assure you, the love is there.
Nothing motivates me like creating,
and thinking, with reason, that you care
you there
You there, at the barbed wire;
i think you’re a fraud,
and I hate you for it,
what are you doing there?
do You want to come in?
I’m peeling potato skins,
wishy washy after the gym
the Gym? what gym?
My office is my home—
time spent elsewhere makes me
sad—I miss out on too much
there’s always this possibility
that somewhere deep inside
i’ll be propelled into the future
and i’ll meet my antagonist
this death defying old man
back from Vietnam—
if anybody, at this point,
remembers it
don’t know why he’s my antagonist
just because he is, I guess;
he has no appointment to keep,
just the way he likes
don’t keep me in suspense
don’t keep me in suspense
i’m going to walk away from this,
and, when I do, I’ll be as glad
as the enemy—shot between the eyes
but wait? that can’t be right!
I don’t condone violence
no matter what—go to an adult,
if you’re bullied,
and, if that doesn’t help,
take as much of it as you can
then an adult, like me, will intervene;
we’ll do something with their bonds
and their self-esteem,
so that they’ll back off,
and take one for the team.
Of course, if they’re in earnest,
i want to help—
but that might mean
stepping down from their pedestal,
and thinking like a team
nipped in the bud
we’ll nip this in the bud
i’m talking about brotherly love,
though i’ve never been clued in,
or, if I were, i was offended;
who am I? what have I done?
i’m glad the archangel
has ascended, for
i’m stuck on the pot,
and I won’t open the door
i’ll stay here
as light as a feather,
weighing grandma’s intentions
shoveling coal—
or maybe i’ll tie a string around
my toothache, and slam
the old rickety door
A Little Yellow Jacket
A little yellow jacket walks in various
directions leading to sunlight
on the inside of my window screen;
The creature is lost, possibly
panicking—having some sense,
I think, that it’s trapped inside.
That’s how, love, it was for me
when I waited, by myself,
for the future to be revealed.
Don’t know what, exactly, I hoped for:
I figured, then, that you smoke
in heaven, without repercussion,
and you drink, too, without repercussion:
there’s no sarcastic monologue, now—
something that we don’t want to hear,
and it’s just me, there,
sitting, quietly, waiting
for a love that waits for me
White-knuckled fists
it doesn’t seem to matter to you
or me, just what exactly
you’re doing here,
accompanied by your niece
i pick up, don’t i, on the life
that the little one infuses
into our home,
we’re playing hop-scotch,
turning over a garden gnome,
and pumping white-knuckled fists
glorious, now, to be at one
with a universe of humanity
and, for us,
an extra-dimensional
family, ringing the door bell
determined to protect
what, now young,
will join us soon enough
A State of Great Anxiety
making my place, without you,
a land of discord hate;
when the worst that can happen,
happens, maybe it’s not so bad,
it’s like you knew it all along,
you just didn’t want to see it,
like earthworms wriggling
around after a rain,
and pushing me, if not you, to a state
of great anxiety,
wondering, of course, if we’d ever
meet again—i deserve, dear,
to be punished,
for I left many things neglected
spiraling onto some corrected spot
adjusted, not intended for us twain
Tam Lin
i was captured, once, by the queen of fairies
and she wanted me to be her slave;
i was terribly thirsty, so, when she offered,
I had a cup of ginger ale.
the queen of fairies meant nothing to me,
though, for a time, i gazed upon
a gentle face—a delicate face that did not go
with her angel, the sinister one,
back stage, running the show.
i realized, after my ginger ale,
that I’d broken an important rule—
you can get trapped, like a particle,
within certain boundaries,
and, sometimes, you must stay for a while.
I don’t know exactly why that is,
or how i could forget something that important
i knew, then, that she’d put me under a spell,
and i wondered how long, in the real world,
it had been. I might’ve felt sorry for myself,
and, I’ll admit, i might’ve died,
but that was better than the queen’s pride,
and I refused to be her slave.
one of the queen’s courtesans,
a beautiful woman, also with an ethereal face
(as if she were the queen’s better half)
promised to hold me until all my demons
passed, and, when she did,
we’d return, together, to my heartfelt land.
I don’t know know how she did it;
I morphed into bad angels and all kinds
of things—but my love held on,
and as the dead—for they must’ve been dead,
passed through my body,
I tried to give thanks for a woman
that looked as airy as a fairy—
she also had a fortunate soul,
one that would protect us from
fairy charms, and, when we wanted,
we indulged ourselves
We Shall Remain
i don’t know you, friend
can we be friends?
are we alone, now,
after all this time,
and permitted, morally,
to love each other?
i don’t know what happened
to us; i kept your voice
safe with me, in my head,
projecting your voice,
instead of mine,
when reading a book.
it’s difficult to do that
for long—i do it with
fits and starts,
as i try to address you,
and the idea of your love
where are you, then?
this is spooky action
at a distance
when they go low
we go high,
if you’re spin up,
then i’m spin down,
but, in this dimension,
only one of us remains
Night-time boxer
Don’t hide from me, please
dare to be you, instead
i went looking, and my love grew
i can feel your presence,
you’re drawn to empty space
sucking in the night air,
it’s cool, and it hits the spot
will you be my love, then
with some unexplainable grip,
pouring out your emotions,
wearing them on your sleeve?
i’d like to believe that
this night will end,
and we’ll be back together again,
but night follows night
and day follows day
when you can’t understand
what is happening
like ground teeth, or a feathered
display—leading me to believe
that, when I sleep,
i may need a mouthpiece,
like a boxer making
ready for revolution
a chance to let it all hang out
and be discovered, by you,
in a determined state