Poem

The Walls of Life

The walls of life are everywhere.

Low and far off in the distance,

And moving fast like a tsunami.


The walls of life are right in front of you,

Packed tightly all around, just out of reach,

Like groping in a dark closet.


The walls of life loom high above you

Like a canyon of buildings,

Narrowing as they str...



Married to the Earth

We are married to the Earth,

Yet there have been moments

We have taken each other for granted.


Rarely do we talk 

About the first time we met.

Our heads nuzzled in deep field grass,


No one around for miles,

Warm hay-scented air wafting

Over hills, and the sense


We could live right there,

Protected in a n...




The Socialite- I

The Mrs. Astor inspected

The mahogany table, 

Stretched to accommodate sixteen, 

Hovered over the polished silver 

Like a Supreme Commander examining her fleet,

Flatware laid out like the Spanish Armada, 

Reflecting the Italian embroidered tablecloth, 

Sailing on still white seas.


T...


Near

Near an exit ramp off Route 15

Outside of Emmitsburg, Pennsylvania,

I walked along the shoulder of the highway,

Between the reflectors and the edge of the road,

About four hundred feet from our broken-down Honda Pilot,

Looking up the hill, looking down at the ground,

Looking for somewhere a cab could come...

Death & Birth

I found out about the wedding 

On Facebook, a month before the birth 

Of our second daughter,


Running around,

Getting her nursery together,

Warm nesting resounding deep


In the heart spaces,

Like golden mahogany hues

Descending down my body.


You think you’re ready 

With the second one, 

But ...




The Photographer- I

Focusing on a giant green pepper,

Feeling the muscular folds 

Rumple into deep green and black channels,

Like the gyrification of an exhausted 

And diseased brain.


Texture is the skin of the world and

Our birthright is to feel the history of the earth,

Tactilely reading plutonic rock

With our bare...


The Gallerist

About selling

They were never wrong;

The old cognoscenti in sports coats, 


Spinning stories, sensuously salacious, 

Selling art to suckers

Through their ears.


About people

They were never wrong;

The old guards


Shuffling past the Brueghel,

Listen for hours,

Pained by monologues 


Of what people do ...





The Publisher- I

Nobody knows

Everyone wears the same clothes,

Except for a trendy scarf.


Nobody knows

There are lines of coke beneath the keyboards

And trash cans full of barf.


Nobody knows

This is a dying industry, dying like an old Hollywood starlet,

Dying for decades.


Nobody knows

The art of histrionics

Like media executiv...




Nothing is Easy, Everything is Hard

Nothing is created.

Not the small beat of first love, not the big bang of your wedding day,

Not the first hour your first daughter was born.

Nothing is destroyed.

Not ideas, not technology,

Not real love that bloomed before your eyes.


Everything is struggle.

Uphill careers, backward relationships,

Rusted-ou...


Third of May

Why reject the reverence

That makes this day,

This day,

More holy than yesterday or

Tomorrow?


If your birthday is just a number,

Aren’t birthdays mystical as well?


When Pythagoras sat cross-legged

Looking out at the Ionian Sea, 

Listening to the inaudible symphony

Of a mathematical universe,

When Cardano ...