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Limits, Lies, Lives
by
Of course, there’s a soul:
I take a shot of bourbon
as I pour the next—
(June 2, 2026)
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Dust
by
The night is broken in a multitude
of awakenings. The dogs are disturbed
by the full moon’s motion across the sky.
Between their futile barks, I lie awake.
As dawn approaches you pull me closer,
laying your head upon my chest. I sleep,
finally drifting to the edge of dreams
where the world is neither vast nor empty.
Lately I have been thinking about death.Not my own, nor anyone’s I know, but
Death— the absurdly inevitable
avalanche collapsing beneath our feet:
as if I can know more than what I am;
as if I am something other than dust.
(May 31, 2026)
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by
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Haunts
by
This evening the old ghosts have returned.
They inhabit the edges of my vision
whispering their tired secrets to the past.
Like scions of privilege hang in cafes
deconstructing last night’s party gossip,
The ghosts wail their sad regrets-she never said,
nor he listened- Even in death they cling
to their moral shortfalls like life jackets.
If there’s a hell, here is where it festers:the exhumation, through exegesis,
of dead variations left to decay
like tattered banners along the ramparts
pretend the siege was easily broken
and the dull ashen smoke never smoldered.
(May 25, 2026)
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Epoch Encounter
The afternoon sun glares down without ire
as I step out onto the front sidewalk.
A horned lizard eyes me, suspiciously
tilts its head into the still of the day.
Aware without motion, I am no threat
where I am. It’s warm in the sun, why move?
This lumbering slow beast cannot compete.
It knows without knowing; we are killing
ourselves. Small, hot, warm-blooded, bound in fur,
we were no more than rats when its kind loomed
across the humid landscape. Choking on
our own waste, we will perish soon enough.
There’s no hurry. It turns back, looks at me
with disdain, then patiently darts away.
(May 24, 2026)
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fixed
by
1.
i cannot move
too much is broken
2.
demons live in mirrors
and are trying to escape
3.
it’s almost tuesday
yet there are no doors
4.
there is a dream
i cannot see
(May 19, 2026)
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Witching Hour
by
After picking herbs,
She muddles the mint
or basil depending
on what’s to follow.
She bruises the leaves
like an abusive lover
into an intimacy
he can swallow.
After all,
what is allowed
is tolerated—
no matter
the consequence,
of some god’s rage.
-
Trying to Write After Last Evening’s BBQ
by
I could write about the dogs,
their usual sniffs and yips
as they go about their doggy lives,
but they are both curled asleep
on the rugs in the front room;
or I could write about Lisa,
who I have loved and written
about for more than forty years,
but she too is quietly napping
in one of the overstuffed chairs
by the back room’s windows.
Outside, the wind waves slowly
through the sycamore and oaks
like a man treading water off shore.
Earlier a friend sent me an article
showing Americans who say they drank
over the last year has declined
by a third since the 1970’s.
This does not alleviate at all
the grey flannel feeling this hangover
has draped across my melancholy day.
(May 17, 2026)
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Insomnia
It is three forty-seven in the morning;
my eyes are closed, I am still not asleep.
The old whispered violence collects
like spittle along the corners of my lips.
An anger suppressed by custom
and obedience waits with patience,
its old friend, for others to gather
from their day of quite rage.
The night cannot go on unbroken;
the day will surely return to itself.
Yet there is no reason to assume
the moon will fall or the sun will rise.
My eyes are closed, I am still not asleep;
It is three fifty-one in the morning.
(May 14, 2026)
