Why One Way?

What is it with the one-way streeters? The looky-loos, window shoppers, stare-bears, rubber-necks, etc? I am not a one-way street. This not some Rue de Voyeur. This is supposed to be communicative, interactive, expressive…not a peep-hole. If all we ever do to each other is observe, what can we possibly do for each other? Yes, [...]

First Refusal

Dear Christopher:
Thank you for allowing storySouth to consider your work.  We have read it
carefully, but must decline to publish.
We regret that the volume of submissions we receive and the small size of
our staff prevent us from giving a more personal response.
We wish you the best in placing your work elsewhere.
Sincerely,
Dan Albergotti
Poetry Editor, storySouth
Yep, that there’s [...]

My Time of Year

What is it about the Fall? A little dip in the humidity, an unexpectedly early red sunset, a hot, misty bag of boiled peanuts, and I am a kid again. At 59 degrees, something begins to stir within me, and life takes on a fireside glow. Before you know it, we’re seeking out corn mazes, [...]

Cold Pre-Winter Curtain

So this is how the autumn comes:
flooding my pasture,
drenching the weeping corn stalks,
floating pumpkins off protesting
the injustice of too much rain
and not a wink of frost.
When it’s dry, the land scratches by
instinctively,
barely moving or breathing,
inching through the suffocating dryness,
content to exist another day
still standing,
reaching toward the sun.
But let it rain the gray streaming rain
of southern [...]

Answers to Unasked Questions (not to be considered poetry, please!)

No, I have not forgotten.
Yes, I care very deeply.
My soul is alive and very well.
I just don’t want to waste my precious time.
This blog is not dead.
Home is wherever my wife and children are waiting for me.
If I don’t try, then I am a failure.
If I fail, at least I tried.

A Beginning?

So, “Recipient” (see below) was selected by poetry.com for their Editor’s Choice Award. I’m not really sure what this means other than that I received a congratulatory email from the chief editor and the poem will be included in their upcoming anthology. But, perhaps it is a beginning, a marker that I might return to [...]

Despairing For Anchors

where have you gone
you golden-haired wonder
diviner of mysteries
parter of seas?
were they not enough:
the blue, weeping masses
the quivering faithful
disconsolate trees?
or were you betrayed
by the folly of longing
misplaced adoration
the erosion of ease?
and now with the flotsam
you’ve jettisoned hope
despairing for anchors
lost by degrees.
(for joshua)

Visa

I am no longer what I once was
nor what I am soon to be:
there has been a closing
and a silent reopening,
an invitation addressed to myself,
a visa
enabling cross-border
exploration,
the misunderstanding
of self-imposed
exile
in a world of
pedants
miscreants
contractual obligation.