Featured Poems Archive

when you peel a ripe banana
how sometimes

the skin leaves
long, thin pulpy threads

stuck on the sweet fruit?
i hate those fucking stringy things.

Right now I have this on:



So many good lyrics, like:

Sometimes you feel like you've lived too long
days drip slowly on the page
you catch yourself
pacing the cage

It is not too early for this day
to be a closet full of moths,

not too soon for these hours
to require days of rebuilding.

Last evening's storm
purged the summer air,

and the sun is barging in
like some cosmic liberator

bent on defeating the darkness
inside this little room;

but it cannot defeat
the darkness in me.

Hope is a frightened child
cowering in a corner -

I cannot coax it back
with baubles or sunlight,

so I set up the props
and whisper to myself,

where there are shadows
there must also be light.

A GOOD SMOKE

I lit her up

and smoked nude
except for my sunglasses
and Phillies cap

I didn't think
about a thing

I just inhaled and exhaled

and I felt like part
of the earth again

like a tobaccco leaf
jiggling in the wind

Jan came into the room, sat down in the rusted
lawn chair, opened a bottle of cola and pushed her
feet up onto the table. It was the kitchen
table, and the living room
table, and the television
table.

Jan and Harry had, in short, just one other
piece of furniture:
the mattress.

“Shit,” Jan said, taking a gulp
of coke.

“What's wrong, Jan,” Harry said—
“just the usual?”

“Uh uh,” she said. “This time it's worse.
This time I've had it, and I may never go back.”

“Jan,” Harry said, “some day we're both going to die,
and if we die the usual way, like everybody else, we'll
most likely be apart when it happens, maybe one of us
at work while the other one kicks off. Anyway, we haven't
worked it out the usual way so far; why shouldn't we die
together? What I'm saying is, quit the damn job; let's starve
together or take enough drugs together so that we both
kick off.”

“I don't know if I want to kick off, though,” Jan said.
“Why can't you get a job for awhile and let me stay home...

direct sunlight
coming in the window

& shining on
the computer screen

while you are writing
a poem is a message

from the muse?
me neither.

Warren pulled his damaged Buick into the garage, noticing only one headlight reflecting on the back wall. He immediately closed the roll up door, then peeked frantically through its small window.

He wondered if there were any witnesses, and if the boy on the bike survived.

Three leaves on the big tree
have turned red
whispering to the green ones
it’s not worth waiting

SHITTY POEMS IN HELL

I have now started
and deleted 4 poems

what happens
to something
after it’s been deleted?

I don’t know

deleting them to oblivion
isn’t cruel enough

I hope I deleted those poems
all the way to hell

then if they come back
with
all their demons
they will finally be interesting

forget that

those poems put me in a bad mood

I wanna watch them burn
at the bottom of the seas of hell

squirming
and begging for life

which I will never give them

mourning doves made
their nest above the porch again
stout-hearted they are
with their discreet
grey and heather feathers
eggs ready to hatch in summer heat

don’t touch it
I say to you, hesitating
not knowing if you already did
I’m leaving it this time
you say
a world is saved

the needle between
tracks anticipates the edge
of a better song

The Second of July

I have reached the peak
that came quietly
like this half overcast sky
ending in a pastel sunset
pierced by lingering gulls
where margins have been breached
and suddenly the lack of rain
begins to take everything it once owned
with an orange vista
that is a long downslide to autumn

Everybody's getting cats and dogs

they talk to them

Outside I still see trees stand out

days are slow

One Winter Closer

He staggered in the door
weak from sweat
It was just a simple trip to the store
but the heat had made it
an expedition to the Amazon

Goddammit get us out of this summer
How long is it until November

The old man cooled off
and smoked what could easily be
one of his last cigarettes
as could this summer

Watching a dove land on the fence
he suddenly knew
and spoke softly to himself

Stay summer
Be slow
I can stand your heat
It’s the long dark cold I fear
One winter closer

you know how (iv)


when you get up
in the morning

to take a piss
& then you look

in the mirror
& see

how you look
like shit?

some of us are lucky
enough to live alone.

```

you know how (v)


when you are hungry
& you decide to cook

instead of ordering
a pizza

how the peanut butter
& jelly

doesn’t dirty a pan
& cause dishpan hands?

i wrote this poem
on a paper plate.

pale words a clue in the breathing
the stone set left in barns
caught the words hopefully in burning hands thinking that the sky was clear
though in the past
never so far away

She molds us all with an imperceptible touch. Egoless,


her un-staged wit and grace elicit devoted following.


We’ll do anything for it—her smile, or laugh, of approval.

CHRISSY'S ICE CREAM

Chrissy you want some ice cream?!
Chrissy you want some ice cream?!

the only way this mom
could get her kid
outta the pool
was with ice cream

Come on get out of the pool and we'll get
some ice cream!

rewind
40 years earlier to my mom and I
Danny, time to get out!
Ok mom!

and that's the way it should be

I'd like to take Chrissy's ice cream
and throw it in the pool


SWALLOWING CHLORINE

the goddam snotty moms
were there of course
letting the pool water
babysit their kids

it felt like a fucking family cookout
that I wasn't invited to

I knew I should've taken some pills
before I came to that public pool
and drifted in the water
looking up at the sky
and floating in it
but I didn't

so I had to
look at these goggle faced
ill mannered
spoiled brats
swimming around me
like gnats

everybody was screaming
you'd have thought
someone was drowning
thing is
nobody knew
it was me

SIREN IN THE POOL LIGHT FUZZ

another fucking...

Sign up for the writer’s retreat

not narcissistic enough?
come to some fuckin secluded cabin in the woods
with other lonely people
trying to write poems
sit there on your fat ass by candle light
or some shit trying to pretend
your Edgar Allan Poe
without the demons
see that’s just the problem
you’re just not fucked up enough
so you pay $1000
to sit in a circle
of people over too expensive red wine
and critique a bunch of other poets’ shit
using the word “deep” too much
as if the world still had meaning