Selected Works
The themes of my work are as varied as they are universal. I am inspired by nature, by humanity, by the complicated dynamics of our relationships with all living things. Included here is a sampling of some of my poetry. My first book of poetry, Mistaken for Angels is available digitally.
This page will be updated and adapted as I continue writing and find the bravery to share my work, in all of it’s iterations, with the world
The Planet for Perfect People
This is not the planet for perfect people
They dwell elsewhere.
The ones who never err have left this small blue marble.
We who live here are pock-marked
with crooked legs,
Bruised with the realities of failures.
We trip and trip up
With eyes upon us
and when stakes are high.
We fall, fall apart,
look silly, look around
A thousand times or more.
No, this is not the planet for perfect people
They reside elsewhere
Making no mistakes & learning nothing.
for AL
We who live here careen headlong
Into mires of unworthiness
Swimming in sewers of our own construction.
On Earth we regret and still don’t make the turn;
We try our hardest
Yet still don’t understand.
Here we’ve a certain kind of blindness,
we fail to see
We are not the only person marred
Swimming in a sea of perfection.
This is not the planet for perfect people
They fly off elsewhere I suppose.
And yet a yardstick it remains,
with which we beat our souls.
Study in Chemistry & Physics
True lovers claim us, pull us in, their molecules
swimming through ours with such harmony we
are altered. Our chemistries merging; small
swirling scents, yours, mine, then ours.
Ours, a mixture: each of us plus something
slightly electric yet moist, ripe, possibility-full;
a larger, stronger, more fragile us, as some
small part of one remains with the other.
Add attraction, passion, carnal exploration:
Gentle skimming or rough demanding desire,
It’s all a dance of molecules passing through
my hand, your breast, then back into my nestled
arm: quarks and bosons swimming through
the vast and infinitely small spaces of us.
Physics has proven, somehow, that we never
truly touch anything: Nothing touches anything
ever: Only energy fields touch, some
infinitesimal separation always. Even the
collisions of lovers
and planets hover slightly above the surface.
I don’t believe it, even as I know it to be true.
Homage to Spring
Spider webs of crystalized cracks splay across dark soil’s crust; a gentle mist falls for days. Rivulets
form tiny streams gently drilling down, transporting
nature’s blood deep into the slumbering half-frozen
earth. Stronger rains come, softening the surface,
stirring small shoots to waken. Seeds crack, then open,
green tinted white shoots stretch out, small flags of life
unfurling, crawling toward a sun as yet unseen but known.