These are a few excerpts from my books of poems Hard Polish, Torghatten, and Born on Friday the 13th. My book of memoirs and poems titled Spawning Gray is also featured. All these books are available in e-book format and in hardcopy in the 'Buy' section of this website or on Amazon.com. If you don't like these excerpts or skip some, don't worry, I won't know.
Blink-Slack
There is a consciousness we gimps must endure, must alter.
You reading this may or may not understand that.
That consciousness is the reason that Danroy Henry’s body
Lay in a New York City suburb.
It is the reason Jacob disregards candidates
Because their résumés have a female name on them.
Assumptions: insidious seeds, the reason
Passed-down declarations are reflexive as a blink.
You might think this far-fetched, think that we gimps have no quarrel,
That our struggle verges on paranoia because public opinion is on our side,
But when a new business owner is forced to make a
Building handicapped accessible—. We know why the dogs bark at us.
I am not asking that you cut us slack. I am requesting
You loosen the lasso squeezing your mind—let it expand,
Blink different.
​
We Are Not What We Were
World, don’t wait for us
To stop fighting civil wars.
World, don’t wait for us
To create an industry.
World, don’t wait for us
To purify your tears.
World, don’t wait for us
To close the hole in the sky.
World, don’t wait for us
To cultivate galaxies.
World, don’t wait for us
To cure you. We can’t cure ourselves.
This Road I Roll
They told me
‘Your texts should say nothing’.
Texts don’t speak,
And mine mean something.
Or else why are we here?
What is our value?
If you erase my words
You erase me, too.
I’m blazing a trail
For all to share.
I’m just one man
In my wheelchair.
Wheels turn forth
And I’ll just be.
I’m going to type these words
And set me free.
The Heralds of Spring
Let young, beating hearts be known
Not just for cell phones or Facebook pages,
Or the ‘me’ mentality and iPod phases,
But as those who healed the Eagle’s broken wing.
Let papers penned by fifty-four men
Be rewritten as their ideals rise in smoke
And saunter into pores where they roam and soak.
We have a chance to disappear holes, let trees sway,
To show black liquid does not gush through our veins.
This land’s fuel: visions seen when eyelids close.
Let this wall between us dissolve so that
Swindling words and conniving voices will have
An acidic puddle to burn in
Where our thoughts can slice through their vapors.
Let desire be realized, though achieved differently.
For we are all cooled by the same weak wind
On this blue-green ball that gracefully spins.
We have a chance
To be the candle swirling with milky red and blue wax
With a white flame on top that guides.
Let sickly skin suffer no more as
The Aryan order is brought to its knees,
And let those crippled by gray-cloudy blessings
No longer be forgotten. Now is an opportunity
To demonstrate that Daisy-Cutters and AKs
Are not the tools needed to grow a garden.
Outstretch your arms, show the moon your palms,
And raise the silk light towers from their dusty graves
So that they can shine on our native land once again.
For after 237 winters, we must herald spring.
​
Cripple Blues?
Chris Columbus sits in the lobby
Among rubble inside.
Dusty ghosts haunt still, frantic streets,
Fireballs fill the sky.
Chris’s crew numbers near three thousand.
They saw land but were confused:
The devil was speeding at them—
Each beginning has an end too.
Don’t you wish you could be me, friend?
It’s not my fault you’re stuck in Mobile
Singing cripple blues again.
Jackie gracefully falls out of planes
With a parachute on her back.
She plays tennis, moves fluidly—
Her lipstick and mints are in her pack.
Jess slowly wakes up at eleven:
She drank firewater last night.
She met a guy, took her in his room
And they did what you do ‘til five.
Don’t you wish you could be her, friend?
I’m sorry you’re wallowing in Mobile
With cripple blues and no courage.
Erik, Mike, and Brendan play B-ball.
Tonight, they’re at a youth farm
With some sweet swimsuit calendar girls
Who cannot resist their charm.
Scotty needs no part of that life.
He’s happy and has a girl.
He wants to keep playing rugby
While he strolls through the world.
They’ll steal your girlfriend’s attention
Because they’re not citizens of Mobile,
Can offer new experiences.
Steve, he’s a borderline genius.
I’m not sure where he went to school.
Teaching us about the dark of night
Makes him anything but a fool.
Travis is an individual
Who is a talented painter.
He paints red and white dogs on ice—
He used to be one earlier.
Aren’t you sick of normal, friend?
You’re feet move in Mobile,
But your head’s a cripple blues lament.
For what it’s worth, Frank was best.
He helped those poor Tennessee boys
And everyone else who was in need
By keeping them all employed.
Superman once was a hero,
He stayed on TV, though.
They dressed Superman in a wardrobe
For a whole different type of show.
It’s not all front row seats, friend.
Careful, they’ll exploit you in Mobile
If you sing your cripple blues to them.
John Smith and profits are on the mind
Of senators on the hill.
They do whatever they want
And take away your living will.
Lady Liberty sits in the back:
Looks like she’s staring at a wall.
She was colored green like money,
But has corroded into fall.
Are you sure you could be me, friend?
You can barely survive in Mobile—
Watch me keep rolling.
​
Apocalyptic Lullaby
Lava will ooze,
Melt cities;
Armageddon visions,
Prophecies
Will come to fruition.
Curl on me.
Close your eyes
As molten creeps towards us
Like the melon sunrise
And wait with me.
Winds will whip,
Swirl, and tilt
Gravity on its side,
Then throw
A knife like it's a paper bag.
Frost will crackle,
Seep to bones
That fracture and explode.
Awaiting fate, snowflakes cascade
And I will watch with you.
Seas will rise,
Flood the land,
Swallow every tree, man,
And building—
Water will roam through streets.
Let us lock
Lips and share
The last soft breath we have.
Let me clutch your warm hips
And drown with you.
Yes,
The day will come:
Glass will rain.
Bright, jagged bolts will strike,
Spark flames
That plume into fire-clouds.
Hold my hand
Or
Shall I hold yours?
Look into my eyes
And sit with me.
Gas Station Conversation
“How’s it going?” I asked the giant figure next to me.
“The same as yesterday.” His gray ratty hair shimmered in the lights of the gas station. “What are you doing up? You college kids don’t wake up till the midday news is on.”
“I’m catching the van to Phoenix—going home.”
“Going to the airport?”
“Yeah, got a 7AM flight ”
“Where’s home?” He tapped his cigarette and its smoke rose.
“Boston.”
“Oh, really? I got a brother-in-law out there in Gloucester—been out there a few times.”
“Yeah, I live near there.” I forced a smile and nodded.
A short period of silence broke when the man turned to me and said, “So, you just going home for the break?”
I pushed my glasses further up on my nose, “How did you know I was a college kid? And that it’s the start of winter break?”
He solemnly grinned: “I work here, been here my whole life. All the out-of-town college students come here to catch the van.”
“I bet you sold some classmates of mine some 30-packs once or twice, huh?” I chuckled.
“Probably.” Half of the tattoo on his bicep hid under his shirtsleeve. “So, what you at school for?”
“Creative writing, English.” I said clutching to the black luggage bag on my lap.
“You going to stick with it?”
“I’ve come too far to turn away now.”
“Stick with it, kid.” His shoulders sank and he let out a stream of smoke from his mouth and nose, “and don’t fuck up like I did, or you’ll end up working in a gas station your whole life.” He looked down at his feet and chuckled.
“Don’t worry, people like me are bred to go to college and get good jobs. If we don’t, the humiliation will keep us going. My problem is that I want to be a poet.” I ran my worn down hand over my buzz cut.
“Ah, so you’re an idealist; there ain’t a whole lot of money in that.”
“Exactly. So, I just hope everything works out at home, you know?”
“Yeah,” he said, “Me and the Mrs., we been together twenty-six years—just keep everybody on the home front happy. They’re the only things that matter.” He looked down the road covered with shifting streams of sand, “looks like the van’s running late.”
“Looks that way,” I said admiring the surrounding mountains silhouetted by the early morning's purple sky.
Leaning against a white pole sprouting from cracked concrete, he said, “So, you’ve probably been on the ride up to Phoenix before then?”
“Yeah.”
“Ugly ride, ain’t it?”
“I think it’s kind of pretty.”
“Huh?” He looked at me with raised eyebrows. “I’ve worked at this gas station and lived in this town my whole life, and I’ve never heard anyone describe Highway 10 as ‘pretty’.”
“There’s a first time for everything,” I said. “The desolation, the sadness, something beautiful can be found in it.”
“I don’ t know, kid. All I see is a bunch of sand and a strip of pavement. You want to talk about a Road to Perdition…”
“Every grain of sand, every crack in that pavement has its own story, we just need to take some time to understand it. I won’t lie, I can definitely see what you’re saying, though.” I laughed. “Where is the van?”
“I don’t know, bud. Don’t worry, though, it will be here. I’ll hang till it comes.”
“Don’t you have to work inside?” I asked.
“You trying to get rid of me?”
“No, it’s just that you’ve been out here a while, and…”
He laughed, “And what? It’s a little after 5AM at a college on a Saturday: you see any customers?”
I smiled. “Yeah, you got a point.”
“Don’t worry about it,” he assured me; I thought our conversation had reached its end point. Then he blurted, “Any plans for over the break?”
“Actually, yeah. I’m looking at colleges to transfer to back home.”
“You don’t like it out here?”
“No, I love it out here—the weather, the town, the girls.”
“Then why you going?” he asked.
“Well, I told my family and friends it was because the school was too big or that it was too different from the private school setting I’m used to, but that isn’t it—I just don’t know anyone. I mean, I went through the shitter and came out clean on the other side. There ain’t much I can’t handle, and if I had anyone out here, I wouldn’t be going back to Boston.”
“Besides family, what’s in Boston?”
“A familiar feeling.”
“Sounds like you’re just scared and fleeing the scene, bud.”
I laughed, “You think I haven’t heard that from all the shrink-types? Yeah, I took a class on Freud too.”
“It’s the truth.”
“Funny thing, I thought I was going to find the truth out here," I said with a seething bitterness. "Something that would give me a purpose, you know? ‘Go west, young man’. Thought I’d be like some literary character and start my life over.”
“Can I give you some advice?”
“You already called me a pussy.” I joked.
“Sorry about that.” He flicked his cigarette and put it out with his shoe. “See, that bottle of Coke in the store? If it wasn’t for the label it could easily be a Cherry Coke or Dr. Pepper or some other brown shit—who knows, right? You could spend your whole life searching for a bottle of Coke, and when you finally found it, you could be gulping down a Pepsi and not even realize the difference. That’s what truth is, one of those things—what’s it called—a mirage: invisible as the heat, deceiving as a bottle of Coke.” His eyes glared at me: “Don’t let the mirage fool you, kid.”
“Van’s here,” I said.
For the entire ride I leaned against a headrest and peered through the van’s windshield at the rising Sun.
The Magnificent Artist
A bead of sweat descends a forehead,
The sound of waves ripple, transcend, and blend
With vapors that stretch, curve, and rise
Towards that magnificent artist painting in the sky.
Lead clouds brood and clamor
Warning those below with a boom of thunder;
A camera flashes, a shockwave crashes,
And a phoenix dawns from fire-wind ashes.
Bright gold blotches in the fox's season
Provide eye-watering, earth-quaking reasons,
And a splatter-dabbed silhouette ebbs
Into a rustic landscape of crimson spider webs.
Gravity pulls crisp orange down to congregate
Plopping a pumpkin pillow that placates;
The ancient wind, in bone-hue moonlight,
Dances with brown leaves under six streetlights.
White tears slice through chilled air breathed;
A chrysalis wraps around exhaled energy.
The meek Sun will delay until fading day
Hardens forlorn tears, paralyzing Earth's fleshy clay.
The accumulation of nature's textured detergent
Bends birches into a tunnel over pavement:
Before man rummages and creates gray villages
It is important to remember this pristine image.
When fields and gardens burst with flowers
Sparked by yellow silk after gentle showers,
Let it be known that their aroma flows
Like rivers through veins into pastorals unknown.
Magenta and purple pastels will flutter
Under a cerulean canvas where red roses saunter;
On spry blades of grass, whose sight is well worthwhile,
Spring dew will ferment and arch an eternal smile.