Thursday, June 25, 2015






Persephone Returns

Junco sirens pierce
thick sodden air.
Tapered shoots spring from damp soil,
forest green and scarlet streaked.
Dewy libation for wandering ants puddles
on blowsy coral blossoms, peony sweet.
Heavy, wet heads bow to the schnauzers
lazily loping along the path.

The flesh of the lonely parsley skeleton,
tucked in its terra cotta coffin,
fills the ebony jade-striped
caterpillars, fat and moist.
Blood red petal and ice orb carpet spreads
underfoot. Jagged limb akimbo, crushed
thatch and lumber below. Demeter’s pleasure,
all told, as fearsome as her grief.

Thursday, May 7, 2015




















Choking on Freedom

I woke to find you bent over my bed.
Snapped shut my eyes and made you disappear.
I’m choking on my freedom like you said.

The sunset dressed the sky in pink and red,
Dissolved to let me feed upon my fear.
I woke to find fresh wounds that gaped and bled

I contemplate the things we left unsaid,
It's hard to be alone with you so near.
I'm choking on the freedom and the dread.

Mistook the path we traveled on and tread
For a journey from which I could never veer,
I woke to watch you climb out of my head.

I walked among the thistle there instead,
Left the path behind because it wasn’t clear.
No choking on the freedom when I led.

You failed to understand just what you had.
My devotion spread thin as a veneer,
I peeled it clean and dropped it as I fled,
Exuberant in freedom now instead.

Wednesday, May 6, 2015























Buckeye

She caresses the shiny brown
harbinger hidden inside
the folds of her carnival dress.
Fingers spinning madly,
laboring to coax
Respectable fortune into her pocket.
She wills it to soak deep
through the gauzy cotton
onto her waiting summer-dark skin.

Wednesday, January 21, 2015

Elegy for Ikarus






























The logs recede into the gleaming coals,
A mound of ash appears before my eyes
As I stare into the dying firelight,
Melancholy memories fade to gray.

It’s here my heart lives, in the blaze of day,
Beating beneath my ribs, soldiering on,
Despite the intense white inferno you
Kindle when you wound the ones I love best.

I step into twilight, feel Boreas
Blow lightly against my sweltering brow,
So sharp and crisp, cool relief, a balm for
The scorching gash beneath my grieving chest.

I waited for him among the chaste trees
Alongside the lush riverbed, silver
And grey with purple blossoms arching wide.
I waited though he never came to me.

Daedalus, borne on wings of your own scheme,
Merely to conceal your labyrinthine heart,
Your hubris obscuring my Ikarus
From me til I watched him plunge to the sea.




* artwork by Frank Frazetta