The water streaming in from a million little holes And swirling around my white and increasingly frail Ankles I look for you To help me bail And I call your name And the water spurts in In otherwise silence To my knobby white knees As I watch it rise And I bail Calling Calling your... Continue Reading →

A positive self-talk mantra asserts that the energy of recognition helps you take a different look at yourself. We often have a lot of self-criticism, which influences our self esteem in a negative way. Fear is often the barrier for doing what we really wish to do. Recognize yourself! Recognize others! Devil inside, are you... Continue Reading →

The glass on my front window is frosted up, so I don’t know if my wife is trying to watch me while I use the shovel to push slush off the front walk. There’s a house sparrow in the branches of one of my bushes, but he’s not watching me either. I think there are... Continue Reading →

If I were the sky, I would wait for you to rise, to feel your soft and tender lips kissing my eyes. I am just the earth, and when you rise, I feel the pain, I turn to dust and cry. If I were a composer, I would write musical notes in a bouquet, and... Continue Reading →

Silence swells the night. I listen for my father’s voice and wait for streetlights to blink on and off, dead bulbs to blaze as I approach. The moon has spoken to me. This autumn—one death, two deaths, three, four. My memory balks, refusing to expose the numbers lining up, the ones I know, the ones... Continue Reading →

Men and women gather again In the midst of their frenzy Incessantly chasing the ghost That once they looked at with envy They wake up intermittently as if in a delirium Running bare like wild horses at dusk A desolate wind blows like a first lust Until they settle at the edge of deliverance Photographs... Continue Reading →

A clattering sound made me twitch back to see it even though I’d been turning away, but it turned out to be the rod clattering slightly in the towel rack, a sound like the clattering of dishes when the children are jumping, which reminded me of the earthquake, a small one, that rattled the china... Continue Reading →

I dreamed my love had found me my children gathered too put down all their weapons eased their hearts cried their fill then they began to play like they did when they were young and when I woke I’d forgotten all my dreaming days were done. I went down to make the coffee sat by... Continue Reading →

I eye the thin stretch of fabric between my legs. I am just eleven years old, but there it is. Silent tears fall. I have used all the rolls of toilet paper But the red doesn’t stop. I hug myself there in the bathroom until Heavy pounding shakes the door. I stand swiftly and pull... Continue Reading →

I listened to your rantings for so long I began to think they were my own, Indistinguishable—the self from the other, So the chase was set, the escape inevitable. To be locked inside a tirade Changes the poles on your compass— Let loose in too many directions is Just as bad as being stuck, immobile,... Continue Reading →