Representative Poems

Billiards

The white ball sits atop the green felt

facing the colorful triangle.

Waiting for its cue,

the ball almost vibrates with anticipation.

A sharp crack,

a sudden pain,

the

cue

ball

rolls

at

an

alarming

rate.

The colors

cry out for mercy.

Another moment

and all Hell breaks loose.

Hectic collisions,

suffering screams...

Over and over the colors crash.
One by one they disappear into the darkness.

Shivering with fear, they await their turn to fall,

Newton freezing them in place with the curse of inertia.

As the cue ball chooses its victim,

each color envisions itself

rolling

spinning

bouncing

out of control.
First off the others, then off the walls.

The upside of darkness is that

there is no more pain.

The lone ball sits atop the green felt

and thinks

This is what I live for.

The Long Haul

It's just me and the road.
I'll know where I'm going when I get there.

I'm traveling, tired, with my heavy load.

I feel as though I've been widowed.

I'm alone in the middle of nowhere;

It's just me and the road.

The old map is too yellowed

to read in the interior light's glare.

I'm squinting, tired, with my heavy load.

My exhausted brow becomes furrowed

with my concentrated stare.

It's just me and the road.

The signal changes color, now mellowed.

I stop and gaze at the bulbs in the air.

I'm losing it tired, with my heavy load.

The morning comes, once the rooster's crowed,

the suns first rays begin to flare.

It's just me and the road,

still traveling, tired, with my heavy load.

Like a Lady

Watch the gaunt sing like a lady,

her slim figure haunting like a lady.

I look up the mountain's rocky slope.

It looms fearless above me--daunting, like a lady.

Branches stretch across the cave's entrance

leaving the cliff yawning like a lady.

Robins show their red breasts proudly,

fluffing and flaunting like a lady.

I sit beneath trees, but don't climb. Teasing lower limbs,

I let them remain wanting, like a lady.

A father turns away as he holds his baby girl

in case he begins blushing and fawning like a lady.

What the Cosmos Left

At first, the stars seemed perfectly harmless.

They hung in the sky in the vast darkness

Then, I began to notice them in all my thoughts,

at night in my dreams, or filling up the corners of my eyes

where there should have been ghosts. They appeared under chairs,

bright sparks where one would usually find only dust bunnies,

or suddenly shining in the bedroom underneath my turned down sheets.

Once, I found a star in the laundry, stuck in a pocket

among lint and loose change, and one night, in my mouth,

I tasted something like a warm bite of bread and pulled it out

to watch over me. Soon after that I began

to collect them, filling paintings, old lamps,

every dark corner around. I grew slightly uncomfortable

when company came. What if someone noticed them

when reading a book or straightening pictures? I longed

to set them free, but how could I get rid of something

that felt oddly like purpose? It occurred to me finally

that I was meant to follow them, and I resisted a growing compulsion

to throw them in the air, although, in moments of great distraction,

I though it was the floor they wanted, or the low ceilings

--exhausted in the morning I laid them around my body.

The sun came quite as usual, without any apparent hesitation

or discomfort. That night, as I expected, they were gone.

In their place a faint glow, and the familiar smell of longing.

Sestina for the Birds

I stood, watching the fire

and noticing how quickly the birds

rose from their watery chairs,

the tips of their wings barely brushing

the water's surface. They left only the imprint

of their stout bodies as they performed the fire drill.

It's amazing how well they know the drill.

All their lives they wait for the fire,

and when the flames finally reach high enough to print

their dancing shadows on the birds'

domain, they fly over the brush

and search for a more solid chair.

As the leader of the flock reaches his blush, leafy chair,

the others begin to squawk, and drill

him with question; Will the brush

ever return? Or will the fire

ruin it forever? The crescendo of the birds'

chorus would take ages to scribe and print.

The leader steps forward, creating talon prints

one by one as he leaves his judge's chair.

He moves among his fellow birds,

explaining the point and purpose of the drill

itself, the reason it is necessary to be conscious of the fire.

He caws that in order to live near the brush,

one must be aware of the dangers that surround the brush.

One must know of the strange boot prints

left behind after gunshots. One must know of the fire,

of course, and of the way the watery chairs

seem to rock to and fro with the most conviction just before the drill

begins. And oddly enough, one must be aware of the other birds.

One must know of the tall, featherless, flightless birds.

These, the leader explains, hide in the brush

and wait for us to begin our drill.

Into us they blow the bullet print,

sending us careening before we reach our chairs.

They delight in the dancing of the fire.