Should Have Read the Sign

The lamp's last breath, a whiff
of kerosene mixed with the smells
of damp leaves, earth and musty canvas.
Breeze rustles across the tent.

A black mask peers from the bushes
and claws scrape the picnic table.
Nuts and raisins in a stack of aluminum trays
with the lid latched down tight—

the midnight robber grabs the stack
of pans and bangs them
on the table. WHANG WHANG!
Sleepers tumble from their bags.

My father throws a shoe at the raccoon
and it scampers off. We resettle.
Dozing in the cozy warmth...
WHANG WHANG!

It wasn't until morning that we realized
the campground was called Raccoon Creek.

--image courtesy of Magpie Tales
Collection available! Knocking from Inside

Crowshed

Days shorten past the fall equinox
with unseasonable warmth and rising mist.
Shed crow feathers blow round city blocks

where wind only mutters and rain talks
about summer's damp parting-kissed
days shortening past fall equinox.

Leaves hang yellow over moss-black rocks
chattering of the gravity they still resist
though shed feathers blow round city blocks.

Season changes in a train of subtle shocks,
humid caresses rather than an icy fist
in these days shortening past equinox.

We note these signs on slow neighborhood walks:
black checkmark at the top of the list,
the shed crow feathers that blow round our blocks.

Falling rain hides roosts of the sable flocks
so we hardly can tell that they still exist
in these days shortening past equinox—
crows whose shed feathers blow round our blocks.

Collection available! Knocking from Inside

Rooms

There are diamonds in the deepest mines
and the dead-stick cereus blooms once in a hundred years.

The night is filled with stars and luminous clouds
and the sea burns with the lives of a million tiny creatures.

There is no room for sorrow
when the sun laughs back at you from every puddle.

Collection available! Knocking from Inside

RWP NaPoWriMo

The RWP NaPoWriMo anthology is now available for viewing and downloading. Happy reading.

Collection available! Knocking from Inside

Hourglass

Glass is made from sand
like flesh from dust. These grains drip through
my waist. Dust slips through your fingers
like wasted opportunities.

Do you see yourself in me?

I was made for clarity
not reflection or introspection. That's
your job, clever monkey. Mine is just to whisper
with the hiss of falling sand
"This too shall pass."

--image courtesy of Magpie Tales
Collection available! Knocking from Inside

Trial with Hyenas

They swarm about the dock,
nipping at the grubby child who clings
to the prisoner's skirt. Among the debris
of the courtroom floor
two of them worry at the backbone
of a half-eaten convict.
The rest chant: "Guilty! Guilty!"

The verdict is a foregone conclusion,
the evidence mere embellishment.
The charges go unanswered temporarily
while the snarls of the jury
drown all speech.

--words courtesy of Big Tent
Collection available! Knocking from Inside

A Drink of the Rock

And if the night is dark it's better still for sleeping
And if the rain comes, it will quench your thirst
And if the rock is split it's still not yours for keeping.

I saw the children underneath the street-lamp creeping
I saw the darkness in the bulbs that burst
But if the night is dark, it's better still for sleeping.

I heard the lost and lonely ghosts that wander weeping
I heard the sound the living call accursed
So loud it split the rock that's still not yours for keeping.

I walked the shore while tides came in and water, deeping
Filled the hollow sands that were there first
And if the night is dark, it's better still for sleeping.

And if the harvest's dry, we know it's time for reaping
The world has turned for better or for worse
And if the rock is split, it's still not yours for keeping.

And if the rock is split, we'll drink the water seeping
cold as death from stony lips that purse
to tell us darker nights are better still for sleeping
and though the rock is split, it's still not ours for keeping.

Collection available! Knocking from Inside

What I Should Have Said

when she said:

"You've touched a real bat?
Ewww.
That's creepy."

was:

"No, no, bats are our friends,
they eat harmful bugs. It's not true
that they carry diseases
or get tangled in your hair. Bat conservation
is a good thing. The Audubon Society
and the Boy Scouts build bat houses. Look,
they're so delicate and soft
and they have cute little faces—"

Instead of what I really said which was:

"Don't worry.
I'll do my best not to get any on you."

--for Big Tent's prompt: what you wish you'd said.
Collection available! Knocking from Inside

Aquill Relle

The second Aquill Relle anthology is up, including "Lorca."

It's also available in print

Collection available! Knocking from Inside

Prayer Against Drought

The arrows of rain are silver-shafted, fletched in grey.
The skyscrapers' steel frames are sketched in grey.

Each thunderhead drifting across the hem of the day
is whipped water vapor, shining white and edged in grey.

Each drop is a silver nail driven into the clay
pinning down the world, intaglio etched in grey.

The fuzzy-gold goslings are ready to make their way
south on powerful pinions newly fledged in grey.

The rainbow was once a promise, or so they say
but God's raindrop kisses are life being pledged in grey.

Collection available! Knocking from Inside

Cutting Off the Branch

i want Truth

Oh no you don't--
that's like cutting off the branch you're sitting on,
stomping on the inside
of the glass bubble we call Reality. It pops
(the bubble of your skull)

and you are immersed in a boundless sea
immaculate depth, without ripples.
The ocean of the formless
beyond the created world.
The sky untracked by human eyes.

You fall like a meteor, a suicide
trailing fragments of your bubble!
You rise like a diver who's lost his belt
with radiance exploding
in every vein of your body!

But all this tumult of images
is just the swirl of plastic flakes inside a glass ball.
You can shake it all you want
but if you want Truth

--smash it.

Collection available! Knocking from Inside

A Bitten Apple

stares like a one-eyed skull.

I was full of life
until you took me from the tree.

Now I am home for worms
and dying seeds.

Give thought to what you eat
for life is death
and death is life.

This is what you must learn
before you leave the Garden:

to eat and know. To eat mindfully.
Forsake the innocence of the predator.

Pray over each bite
crunched from my blushing cheek.


--image courtesy of Magpie Tales
Collection available! Knocking from Inside

Barefoot Muse

The new edition of Barefoot Muse is up. And so is "Up."

Collection available! Knocking from Inside

Hokusai - The Great Wave off Kanagawa

3 Word Wednesday: Break. Negative. Surface.

inside breaking wave
negative surface defined
by Hokusai's brush

Collection available! Knocking from Inside