POETRY PACIFIC

Blue Moon       (the second full moon in a given month, occurring about every 2 ½  years)  and which isn’t blue, but pearly as an abalone...

FREEDOM Between tied boulders on a windy mountain cliff, slaves in rugged rags panted and their dreams panicked. A freedom beckoned, ...

Atomic Checkered Blankets wool warm checkered wool, red wool, and black against black skin, charred black and red bodies trapped by h...

Final Resting Place He reached his peak of happiness he said, when he bought the acreage on the road that curved. Done with a squared o...

THE PRESENCE    Beyond description, Too wound weary To hold            ... The Beloved Lays The wild violet Beside The Patron     ...

The corner grave Old Cemetery, Owensville, Ohio Rain had worn down her name, left a few letters and a stone leaning low after a centur...

Verses Of The Endless They have gone mad contemplating versions of the black ocean still waiting to be written the blond cliffs before...

We are just passing through The one who shakes IS the shaking. A person can turn into a shout in the woods or a long spill of loud te...

In the House Where I Grew Up The kitchen table In the house where I grew up Was wooden, cold and stained Came apart in the middle ...

Masquerade I'm leaving my body the costumes are borrowed from the changing room of life my face belongs to a foreign person for th...

Tree-ception standing on the shoulders of your elder wood where the sides curve into faces long, disfigured yet noble your arms embra...

A Chief Speaks His Truth After the massacre of whites, the long row of gallows, and the vengeance felt in white hearts, the sun abando...

Nesting With grasses from epics           Sticks from philosophy Feathers from contemporary art We are all busy building nests of mean...

EATING DISORDER I buy the loaf for want of praise and break the bread alone and eat never missing the leavening nor the wheat taken...

Ephemeral (for David) it can rain down in cinders at the strike of any kitchen match get tossed into corners, crumpled and forgott...

EARTH IS SICK Earth is sick feverish ocean temperatures birth monster storms still-born fishing grounds heat shimmering off baked land...

EMILY AS THE ROT I am not aging well. Emily is aging appropriately. I’m glad we made extra promises to each other after that wedding...

Until My language and voice to give what I saw as truth was crippled I crippled my voice myself to keep the unwanted language at a dista...

Obstinance your aberration is dyslexic and frail, bats beating at the brink maniacal mirage of untapped blue devils and untested claw...

Sesshu Sesshu’s black lines, inking leaves, limbs of trees white spaces, painting in a circle snow on paper, snowfall on pap...

THE BLUE The blue of the ocean snatched up by sky Fog smudges this perfect landscape I wait to be called by name The violinist on the s...

PORTRAIT OF A KITCHEN Rather, it’s about the void she left behind– no dirty dishes in the sink, no hand to move the plates out from the...

Sipping a Bud in the He’s Not Here Club It made the cowboys nervous when the cowgirls began dancing with each other; there were so ...

Goodnight              —for Diane I’m telling ya’—really!—they’re only friends. It’s jus’ . . . well . . . evenin’s drawin’ to a close, ...

(solitude) the most faraway song, i’ve come so far without what has slept in the decades not knowing how to be knowing what i a...

A TOO LARGE FACE It is how we think of childhood and death, paler than their awful selves, tall versions when they are taller and in...

Sunrise Seascape Ring in the new year, light and carefree, with early morning hike, binoculars in hand, to catch first day sunris...

Snowflakes cover the ground like broken dreams they are god's fingerprints left on the world like a computer spilling out code,...

SOLITARY MAN AT THE PARTY He sat silent on a sofa between two huddles of loud talkers, with no idea what he was doing in that place. H...

Sparrow Song A trinity of sparrows came to me while I was sitting beneath an oak tree at a weathered picnic table in the park, a pla...

Ignored The paragraph of mud muffles our boots. Two birds skip rocks, a rain-happy stream; they splash their fearless joy. Open Wind...

Oku In Japanese, a farthest, dead-end place These unlucky pines go against their fate. Each pine the only pine, each moment t...

FALL DEFIANCE The October maple leaf was gifted to me for its Fall red wondrousness. But after a day inside the leaf curled until it...

Response to #1263 Tell all the truth but tell it slant-- O Emily, I can tell you about slant rhymes, half rhymes, half moons my slant,...

Joker strangers across the poker table i see you royal flush in your hand i know it. you see me behind my array of cards undr...

PUBLIC INSECURITY                                     Everyone on the inbound bus                                     thinks their small ...

THE RED LEAVES The first red leaves of a Keatsian autumn, a draught like fire piercing the dawning air. They will soon be gone, beyon...

“The Winning Ticket” If the tuba-voiced telemarketer I hung up on won the Megabucks jackpot, he'd torpedo his reality shitcom a...