National Poetry Month Letters to Poets Series — Here I am just trying to save the world with one love letter at a time. Writing unfurls slowly in a busy clime, in the hothouse of a framework that hurls challenges at me constantly. Effects seem unlikely. Bravely I pick daisies and count the petals, aloof of all rejection (just kidding, not really; I’m too touch feely) Hope keeps towing…

National Poetry Month Letters to Poets Series — Where in Xanadu, tormented soul, could you now be found whole? With all of life’s blue problems washed away, in white robes whose hopes blossomed like a new day evermore from the shore waving. Bowl upon golden bowl takes its toll. So shipwrecked, the serpent’s chase; his hiss, amiss, his bite, so sweet, replaced…

Into the West Sonnet Series — Seeking a stone to fill the hole of loss that gaped and sang for medicine. Precious as silver mined or a hawk feather tossed by the wind, where the high desert’s spacious grace gives benediction to art. Holy dirt in a hole in the floor, offering a cure, a miracle. We were only travelers, become pilgrims, bestowing meaning…

Nantucket Memories — Thousands of lives under an ocean of sand undulated and unmarked as the years since they were laid to rest graves unadorned unblemished shy as violets eschewing adoration their souls set free from the land where their bones plunge deep My daughter said “you have to see the Quaker graveyard…

Nantucket Memories — The old roots hiding sidewalk shapes give them away they are all still there I’ve always been fascinated by the evidence of extreme age in places — I think this probably comes from living most of my life in Texas, where most of the surviving architecture is younger than what…

Nantucket Memories — Oil was the mortar that bricked a dynasty of families floating on the back of a whale When the spinal tap ran dry they put away their mason tools on the shelf next to old dreams They calmly donned an apron kept on a peg by the door stepped behind the counter with…

Nantucket memories — When they brought sheep to the island they intended them to stay put since the sheep aren’t swimmers. Thirty miles out to sea, you’d think, would be a decent buffer zone. Where are they now? Do their descendants still graze in secret pockets among the dunes? Do they gaze in…

The last of a short series — Comes with a paintbrush Paints everything green again Refills the pitchers In the ponds, a revival In the clouds, sweet survival A little tanka to finish up my little series on rain — thank you for reading!

A short series — The rain rages in bed tosses sheets to make rivers stormy dreams & a troubled brow it will bluster in its sleep everywhere its skin glistens a sheen that reflects back all the light available racing pulse, heartbeat thunder-loud, drumming to pound the walls until they sound back with heavy sighs what the deluge in its somnolence can’t quite put into cohesive words…