Drawn
 

I am drawn to the light

Yet hedged by darkness

I am firmly rooted in logic 

Yet science betrays me 

My faith is strong but 

Buckles in adversity 

This test we are in 

Leaves me leaving my 

Memories for a paltry set

Of invectives, leaves me leaving my 

Hopes along the road in a 

Black burlap sack for the vultures 

To ravage, while I play duck & cover

From the very men tasked with my care 

I am drawn to the light 

Drawn to Hope 

But all along this road 

Are opportunities to renounce 

And fearsome enemies bent on 

My destruction 

I will fight but lose

Just as I have done 

From the beginning 

Despite my fear 

And my inborn tendencies 

For I am drawn to the light 

And nothing else makes sense 

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Debris Field

We are at war with ourselves

over thoughts

over beliefs

and we don’t seem to be able

to stop

The bickering

The violating

The disregard of our truth

and common heritage

We are at war with ourselves 

Needlessly

Fruitlessly

Hopelessly in love with the desire to separate

from brothers and sisters mothers fathers

who could heal us

and give us the peace we seek

But we are divided

and can’t find our way home

even though the keys to our reconciliation

are right in front of our face

A bit of love and understanding

justice and hope

would begin to heal our fractures

and long suffering and adherence to truth

would shore up the walls

of this house divided

 

-Leader Herald

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Collect

 

a night of days strung together 
nothing new in my inbox 
the heat turned up so high it makes my eyes water 
as I swivel and move in my desk chair
waiting for a bulb to turn on 

a street sweeper/Zamboni leaves its dirty water trail
on the city street
alongside mangled curbs, overlooked by the men in 
fluorescent shirts 
the man in blue, sidearm intact, kindly escorts an addict
into the waiting cruiser to a cell complete with three squares 
and a nonstop flat light above his head

A girl the age of eight descends into the doorway alcove and picks up 
an orange and black caterpillar rolled up in a ball 
she talks to it then names it Elly 
and when the creature refuses to come undone she 
places it gently on the sidewalk and steps on its frail shape
“Elly,” she says as she stares at it, unmoved 

they say the pool is tainted 
but it may be the well has gone dry
the world’s struggles are too much for me 
as I stay in my four walled world and make little hints and whispers 
in protest and supplication 
my hope is scant, but still I try 
to undo my life’s tragedies 
redeeming the time

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Toilet

 

He grips his cup with two fingers
And stares out past the balcony
Onto the crowded Street below 
He swivels in his metal seat
And threatens to take a drink 

You don’t know me 
Nobody knows me 
I have done no wrong…

He swirls his over medicated coffee
Longing for a cruller
And wonders what will happen to her 
When he is gone 

I did not mean to 
Just the furthest thought 
Oh my head…

He shifts his loafered feet
And scratches his heel absently
On the mahogany decking
Searching

Soon they will come 
And my breath will end 
And where will all these be 
I will not go 
Quietly…

He swirls the cup and takes the last dregs 
Sets it neatly on the saucer
Turns to the street 

There is one last thing I must do…

 

 

a perfect theft of flowers

it must have been thirty acres or more

criss-crossed with access roads 

some paved, some grass 

marble and granite markers 

denote last repose 

terwilliger saltsman small frenz

all along the trails 

pre-Civil War stones 

laid flat in a pattern, bleached white 

and gilded with a dark green moss

a mausoleum in the corner 

granite with white columns 

a white flower stuck in the rusty gate 

she found the hydrangea bush 

took out her hidden scissors 

cut off a bunch and stuck them 

in her canvas bag 

nobody comes here except

to weed the stones, she said

these are going to a better place 

on the way home I kept my eyes peeled 

for cops      

 

-A Blind Reason

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My Syntax
 

I attacks my syntax 

and shove it down the stairs 

I disown my pronoun 

and leave it unawares 

I disembowel my only vowel 

proposition my preposition 

act perverse to spite my verse 

portray my rage upon my page

with sayings terse and worse  

get tense with tense and 

savor the experience 

my profession, my expression, my digression 

 

I gave you a doughnut

and you let it sit on 

the hard, cold table 

still in the bag 

until I finally put it away 

in the fridge 

where you swore you'd eat it 

for breakfast 

but I’m going to get up 

twenty minutes early 

and steal it back 

and eat it on the porch 

 

-A Blind Reason

​

 

Opines

she sits in her rocker 

and knits a scarf for No One 

he switches the TV from 

News to News

thinking he is well-informed 

she bites her tongue when he opines 

and rolls her eyes quite often 

When he looks at her he sees 

the 23 year-old mermaid he fell in love with 

water pouring out of her ears 

from a midnight swim 

she remembers being courted by him 

many, many dinners clubs picnics services ago

a church wedding and then, life

she sits and knits

and thinks about the times he left

only to come back, with flowers and candy

he says it’s too hard to think it’s a hoax

then flips the channel to a game briefly

 

the night wanes, the scarf grows

 

​

Black Widow

she was sleek in her day 

with lines pulled lean and long

like stringy taffy

she was a dream 

dressed in black to seduce me 

and subvert every good image 

of my own 

we shacked up for 18 years 

through all the childishness, fear

evil attacks and restlessness that being 

childless can inspire 

 

on a day when she did all she could 

to rattle, upend, and attack me 

she did a maneuver-

her screeches became purrs 

her railings became entreaties 

and I became…compliant  

I traded reminiscences for compliments

and she traded desperation 

for coercion

holding mine and my future 

in her barely warm hands 

leading me to a bed

of her own design   

 

when the deed was done 

as I lay there in my recriminations

she demanded I get her a glass of water  

I said no 

she screeched GET ME A GLASS OF WATER !

I hesitated 

she did not 

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Untitled

it’s not just the night sweats and untoward visions

the same thing in the heat of day and 

all those words flying through 

and how they rebound off my mind and heart and all 

my feelings run amok 

not just the disordered thought patterns drifting in and out 

of my consciousness affecting everything I do and say and say 

all my mind my mine and only mine and all this perception 

“You can’t fix crazy!” he said, but how he know? 

In his rattlesnake cap and negligent unfeeling smile and

all this would be fine except for the judgments and 

condemnations from those better knowing and improperly educated 

on this, our common bond—our minds—

sacrosanct, seemingly impervious, ever learning but never coming to 

accept

the truth of our existence and mutual fate

“We are all one,” they claim, but not you—you are two, or three or 

somewhere down the line because one organ among many goes awry, 

and you don’t think like we do and you are suddenly too bright 

or too dull and you are dangerous… 

We are all dangerous in our ignorance and fear and lack of help, 

when in our arrogance we alienate the weakest and most gifted, 

the hobbled and feckless.

We are all one, when many lose, and hope is only true 

when the world approves   

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