— From Death, Child, & Love: Poems 1980-2000 Last night while trimming our Christmas tree my son pointed out how I’d not written many poems lately to which I replied, “It’s true. But sometimes life is more prose than poetry. Do you understand?” A stupid question considering what he’d justContinue Reading
Privilege of Witness for Monica Thinking about driving following you up lamenting my skin that some queen isn’t going instead of me someone who knows what I can’t whose teeth clinched quiet too as white-armed answers, anemic, flew up when you, your answers perfect. Electric. You wear those goodly words.Continue Reading
Asthma and allergic diseases increased after children moved from free range outdoor activities to sanitized indoor playrooms and virtual playgrounds. According to the “hygiene hypothesis,” early exposure to germs and allergens is required to develop a robust immune system. As a “Mr. Mom” who prefers bike pedaling to pushing aContinue Reading
Henry Everett The old man lived for the sound of a chicken squawking, the sentry’s warning at which he drew back light from a windowless cabin, a portal cut squarely at eye-level in a single oaken door, then stuck the sightless barrel directionlessly out into night that thundered once withContinue Reading
The Appalachian wilds offer outdoor enthusiasts a wide variety of adventures, from leisurely hikes to hair-raising white-water kayaking. When the stakes go up, the costs of making a mistake rise too, as many less skillful partakers know well. I have on multiple outings literally “put some skin into the game.” Continue Reading
I know Daddy knows what he’s doing. Even when he’s quiet he’s thinking. The old man with tobacco sitting in his jaw like a tumor is our enemy. He would keep us from buying the truck we need that slopes on the weedy ridge of this junkyard. Because I amContinue Reading
for Big Benny A monarch’s image flitters across the honored on that glassy, black wall, floating sideways, backward, up, down, caught up in concentric wind loops across names, nearly 60,000 etched. A person with paper scratches a son with lead. She is gray, drained, rock-wrinkled. Old, fixed medals and buttonsContinue Reading
Without a nod you give yourself to us Where hedges grew and trolleys screeched on track and you once played without a trace of fuss the swollen games of children back to back. A hump-backed sidewalk stretches at the seams. Here once James Agee woke from awkward sleep to findContinue Reading
Its own metaphor for ineradicable nuisance, it plays at the mind’s edges, encroaching in the dullest greens, doffing the hat of a rude guest, last to leave the party. In some distant country it could be haiku climbing the walls in search of obscure interpretations, its tendrils reaching for meaningContinue Reading
I am come from earth And return to earth. Blankets of green grasses Dig into this earth. Sighing now, I stroll In hollows of earth, Never seeming to find My spot on this earth. Wandering onward With creatures of earth, I watch the aged and the sick Go back toContinue Reading