February 24, 2024

Flood the Zone (Again)

Heavy trails mixed with trials

Simple shapes like spheres and cones

One reign follows another

The thing about a metronome

Comfort food, arithmetic, working the stops

The weather is up and down

These signs mean something to somebody somewhere

January 28, 2024

Carrion Bird

On on on on

On off on on

The swelling a sign

The signal a progress

Off on on on

Far from home again with the precipitation

Buying being bringing among

The filling and then the filing then the forever

Off off off off

You’re on and then you’re going

Suddenly follows perception

This container again

This gravity

And finally this willingness


January 22, 2024

The Fingers Move in the Light

What you hide, I now know

Fall forward, again, and mark your consequences

The light flashing in the corner of your vision

The long dark road, the shifting borders

Field after field after field and once more with the lights

This is the sunrise that will become a memory

This is dew on the exposed skin of your forearms, inside your elbow

You know the smell and you know what it’s like for the possible to be sitting right in front of you in a smart get up

What will tomorrow taste like after all the stitches

January 11, 2024

Books Are Dangerous (Sonnets Are Dangerous)

AI is dangerous
The Internet is dangerous
Isolation is dangerous
Dynamite is dangerous

Bears are dangerous
Kitchens are dangerous
Mobs are dangerous
Stairs are dangerous

Tylenol is dangerous 
Ungrounded outlets are dangerous
Driving is dangerous
Ideas are dangerous

The sky is dangerous
The sky is dangerous

December 19, 2023

The Many Decline

On deck or overboard it gets dark early this time of year

Develop, develop, develop, develop

The wasteful won’t inherit jack in this gothic romance

And a silhouette and a promontory and weather.

Retire to the fire and think about a better future

Like train travel and a green economy

We can share.

December 12, 2023

Forever-ever

Like so many things before me, take this bread, December 12th

Forgetting today, forging next generation alloys, and nothing ever done but with allies 

Like various symmetries or a wheel spinning or all the piece lining up on the metaphorical board

Like cake, like cookies, like the last days of your last years

Two houses jammed together to make a bigger house

As porch is to galley is to deck is to roof deck

So back is to back is to back is to back

Like a truck or a train, but so very far in the future

But I’ve gotta say, I know your friends. I’ve met your friends. I’m cool with your friends.

I still have so many pets and so many snacks and a roof over my head.

I don’t know where we’re taking this thing we call life.

Let’s keep breathing though, and let’s keep our eyes to the sky.

In Baltimore there’s a radio picking up a faint signal

Signaling which why is gonna matter most this year.

December 11, 2023

Just Keep On Digging

December 6, 2023

It Comes Before the Question

Is there really a finest goldsmith in any age?

We find ourselves smack in the middle of the Season of the Word of the Year and so many of its brethren,

And while we’re ok on split wood for a while, there’s not enough to last the Winter.

Tomorrow I’ll be back to work.

Meanwhile you’re focused on stretches and taking care of things.

You’re love of architecture is infectious,

And you have so many things to share.

These are the last moments we’ll spend together and we both know it.

Once upon a time all gulfs were uncrossable.

Nobody had a taste for looking back and the plants just kept on growing.

Someone invented the word ford and someone else made great boats and some other someone still was good at bridges.

This is the time that just keeps going.

When I hold up my hand, how many fingers do you see?

Write it down and remember me.


December 3, 2023

Oh What (Interrupted Sonnet)

Early December in the midst of borrowed conventions

Some would say focus, others would motion to an equidistance 

Forget everything you

November 27, 2023

Don’t Go

Peel it away
I mean the sounds in the night

Prancing need not be ladylike
Heavy fanning and cold days coming

This is what I remember
Racing across a casino floor with every care in every world

You count what you’ll count and I’ll stand by
This whistle, that siren, that four on that floor


Where’ve you gone? Where’re you now?
How will we get our mouth around it? When will we put all the good back in?

This is about dirt and dust
This is about trajectories and everything after
This is a myth and this is the telling of a myth

When becoming is done, this is what we are


November 20, 2023

Potatoes Are Back

It’s a simple spell were you never second in line,

And so much of wrestling is retraining your reflexes.

Habit is to habitat as Barbara is to barbiturates?

That ain’t right.

How’s’about forgetful Sundays and sunbeams shuttled with care?

Fending off fright with complicated confection?

Drumming up support for collective action to counter a century of bad ideas?

Better us than them, as we shuffle into the shadows.

But that which was and will be will be that and that and that again.

But the sky is above you and beside you and below you because the world is round and we’ve known that a long time.

But we’re all tied up with exceptions upon exceptions.

But most tables and chairs, but fingers, but the seasons, but surely more.

There were so many and we make it fewer so you can deal with it.

Will there be ease? Will there be whipping?

November 15, 2023

All the Threes

Sometimes, sometimes.

I’m still not processing the still loss.

The breakdown of things broken down,

Forgetfulness in the face of horrible times,

Leave behind, leave behind, leave behind.

There’s the one that won’t go on.

There’s the interruption of what we should’ve done.

There’s hindsight owning your ass.

We spot it up again and again.

Sometimes it’s a drain and other times there’s a garbage disposal.

Here’s what you were aiming for, only flayed, thank you very much.

Drift is real.

A hole in the ground is real.

What I mean to say, is I miss you.