Not there on the back step

Not there on the back step

Or windows with curtains 

Smoke rising from chimneys 

Or safety of certains

A bird’s nest in my heart

Organic and make due

Twigs of life and ribbons

Faded green and sky blue

Protecting the beauty

Protecting the beauty

Not wanting to mourn loss

Urban renewal plans

The bare wood without gloss

Pulling the clouds back or

Pushing back ocean waves

Look again and see it

Moments dirging to graves

Looking back letting go

Looking back letting go

Shoes worn in young mistakes

Permanent report cards

Are now private keepsakes

Repealing perfection 

Raised with this standard set

And failure to be so

The leeches will blood let

Taking back the shaking

Taking back the shaking

Promises formed in haste

Writing on white clouds smudge 

A storm warning foretaste 

Words fall into puddles

And sink instead of float

Fishing expedition 

On the hook what was wrote

Spinal meningitis

Spinal meningitis 

This was my beginning 

The start of hearing loss

A loose underpinning 

Never able to run

Counting steps in my walk

Not telling anyone

The totals should they talk

Wooden bridge in the wood

Wooden bridge in the wood

How I wanted to stop

To play Pooh sticks and watch

Our twigs race after drop

Our stares growing longer

Silence in slow motion

We could have but didn’t 

Though I had the notion

Just over eight minutes

Just over eight minutes

Sun’s perpetual wait

Why count the stars when some

Are already of late

In the great expansion 

Markers made get buried

The pulse and the moments

Only briefly married 

Is this for rainy days

Is this for rainy days

Or late summer twilight 

Must we wait for gray skies

Or quietness of night

Are we avoiding sun

And will we run for shade

Can we give too much and

Our colors start to fade

My book is available!

 Please consider ordering my book from any bookstore or Amazon.

I hope you enjoy it!

Winterpass

(photographs by Tiffany Napolitano)

A white sky above with

A white sky above with

A white plane passing through

Vita Sackville-West would

Most certainly approve

The brief peonies held

Their grand debutant ball

The corn is now knee high

Patient crows hold their call

For a moment the world

For a moment the world

Peels back to the sidelines

Like a Red Sea parting

Or a road through tall pines

But not for a painting

Studied and inflected

But a snapshot flashbulb

Frozen and collected

A small apple orchard

A small apple orchard

Near a clover hillside

No tourists for turmoil

Camping to gain inside

The days repeating like

Silverware and dishes

Sun imprinting time

Reflections and wishes

Feeling foolish finding

Feeling foolish finding

Inspiration from this

Granular and wood grain

The closed eyes and a kiss

This small object of yours

Pocket ephemera

Pollinating with me

In this etcetera

X-ray or dissection

X-ray or dissection 

The soul cannot be found

Not blood in our veins or

The fabrics we have gowned

It is not charisma

Or intellect and such

It is the essence of 

Self and the thoughts we touch

Unable to gift and

Unable to gift and

It cannot be a loan

A mere shift in light like

Flashing mica in stone

The loneliness knowing

The subtle change in tone

Something between the lines

Experienced not own

I moved on yet people

I moved on yet people

Are still using old maps

I have outgrown some thoughts

In my private elapse

I am growing and new

My old self now older

But you can locate me

With hotter or colder

In the valley of dreams

In the valley of dreams

Sleeping before lights out

Rumors and mere murmurs 

Like wind chimes strung about

Compassion compresses

The last echo rebound

The lullaby chorus

Now dirges to no sound

I carry them always

I carry them always

They have the weight of light

Less the weight of shadows

And the blackness of night

They swell without outlines

They are too big for sight

They are defenseless yet

Stronger than any might

Fearful of black rain on

Fearful of black rain on

Inverted tulip blooms

When wars are started by

Unjustified White Rooms

Persian carpet flowers

Covered in black mushroom

Humanity lost for

The lower cost of vroom

The intimate of us

The intimate of us

A forest of two trees

The youth and the weathered

The new wood and old these

The Braille in our palms that

We punch new every day

The quick glance of the eyes

That can speak without say

Slowly the unravel

Slowly the unravel

How has the evening come

The sun was above us

Now on horizon plumbed

How was your day today

Reveries in focus

Tasks handled better than

When the sun had woke us

From feather to cement

From feather to cement 

Everyday a downpour 

Our sense of touch is worn

No want of feeling more

Numb to the madness, did

You know numb has a “b”

The dumb corp dumbing for

The anniversary

An undeclared artist

An undeclared artist

These grasses are my lawn

The privacy of prayer

Without deities spawn

My scarecrows are failing

Those intelligent crows

Or any wildlife that

Stays untamed in their throws

Somewhere the imagine

Somewhere the imagine

Is beyond math and sky

The complexities of

Heart accept without why

And the World with its wide

Spins without sound in grace

And the collective sum

Is not equation base

My book is available!

Please consider ordering my book from any bookstore or Amazon.

I hope you enjoy it!

Winterpass

(photographs by Tiffany Napolitano)

The hull sits on dark clouds

The hull sits on dark clouds

George Floyd an albatross

The wind has stopped blowing

The Stars and Stripes now Cross

Thoughts are everywhere yet

There’s not a drop of think

If the earth were flat then

Clearly we’re on the brink

Stevie Smith in my dreams

Stevie Smith in my dreams

He’s in the neighbor’s yard

He always comes when called

He’s out there standing guard

No questions or logic 

But this is not our home

I call and collect him

And together we roam