It’s a long way down—

We start
on 5th Avenue:
all/that/claustrophobic/glitz.

You want a pair of $200 kicks—
so hey, okay kid
we get ‘em.
You carry that box the rest of the way.

We walk to […]

ALMOST
A Steinway. A red silk dress.
The audience still, anticipating the first note
of Schubert’s B-Flat Sonata.
Anthony Tommasini ten rows back
will write
the most sensitive Schubert ever
in t […]

 
Leitmotif

You would think that as an artist,
I would not struggle to describe
the leitmotif of my paintings,        yet
I find myself searching
for identifiable techniques,
common hue or echo […]

Learning the Names of Flowers

Each day, when my wife reaches inside
the mailbox,
her eyes catch on the bright morning
glories, whose vines have twirled up the post
with glad faces. Somehow they know, […]

Measurement is ubiquitous in human endeavor throughout time and across cultures, and one could argue throughout the totality of existence. Anything cyclical contains a measurement for sure: orbits of […]

On highway 10 – high risk – no space to fall
cars come so close at high speeds,
their wind moves us in the wrong direction.
On interstate 10’s entrance ramp, there’s
8 inches of clearance between the wal […]

I am like that now, a green stem that will
bend, not stay ground. Push my head into
the down, blind me dirtily, put a heel on
the back, rub the reject in, confound the chances,
step on, dance the […]

I bought black flowers today.
Black Satin petunias.
And they really are black.
Like the shadows of petunias.
My wife says I bought them
because I’m in love with death.
I say I bought them b […]

Photo by Patrick Tomasso on Unsplash

Many readers may feel that the disrupting Covid-19 pandemic has changed poetry and more broadly the arts, forever. This may be true as many activities are now on-line and […]

The Day His Dad Died
                     for PK

The phone rings and the news
swells and pitches like a sleeper
tossing on his thin mattress
of goodbyes. Your father
lay down, jabbed his pale finger
in […]

Duck prints score the pond,
the one out my window,
the one where an egret
roosts come spring,
the one where a blue heron
fishes in summer,
the one where nuthatches
sip drips on the […]

First Sonogram
Seen from your upper
window, down the block
at some remove,
an Edward Hopper black and white
and grainy through the screen,
a street lamp’s cone
shines down. There,
you notice a f […]

There is a perfection
to the mockingbird’s song
dropped from a black wire,
to the white slashes
of his spread tail feathers
against this deep, clean blue.
The choral repertoire
of his hopes is […]

Revolution
He watches the tail lights of her car
disappear down the rutted driveway,
throws a hammer after her
yells don’t come back

He turns towards his trailer
weeds pushing through the metal s […]

During the months of our restricted movements, my wife and I have continued our nearly daily walking. Although we had developed the habit pre-Covid for the health of our bodies and minds, the pandemic has […]

Alone, timeworn—but still
standing, even if its paint-scuffed radiators
give no heat and its window frames
leak and its doors don’t
shut tight, everything foundering
since its elder kee […]

“I was most grievously undone
when I lost my footing on the shelf
and swan dived to the floor
splayed and back broken”,
says the complete works of Shakespeare
who now leans against the cash reg […]

Building rituals out of nothingness,
I’m sitting on a park bench, reading
Wallace Stevens on a sunny day
when the flashing shadow of a crow
darkens my library book.
Perfect, I think.
Where are the t […]

Christmas Eve Parable
Phoebe, my five-year-old granddaughter adores the tiny
wax Jesus who lies in the cradle of the creche that came
down to us from now dead great grandparents. Wise men,
Mary and Joseph, two […]

CHOPIN’S HEART
A brief apocalypse has taken possession of my person.
The streets are full of melancholy.

Yesterday I fell asleep on the bus.
The sound of someone crying woke me.

Was it the woman slumped i […]