‘O, SKELETONS’: An Investigation Into What Lies Beneath Us All
Wait. What is that thing that hangs out with you your entire life, but which you hardly ever see — and then has the audacity to exist far longer than you ever will?
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A feather, A poem, An old quote, A call-for-help, A foggy photo, An election video & Some sundown advice
In which our interlocutor works himself out of a pre-dawn funk by fashioning an illustrated poem; seeks advice a few centuries old; re-directs attention to an Appalachian catastrophe; snaps a feather and a fog. And also offers up for your 60-second inspection an election video which, really, deserves more than an audience of zero.
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PRE-ECLIPSED: When it all does not add up, and yet it still all goes on
And, so, we light up our smokes. Then, ponder the / shape and proximity to clouds of what escapes / our lips. Passing the time between the next / befuddlement, the fresh intoxicating despair, / the blindside moment of sublime wonder ...
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Five Short Poems and Then You’re Done
Five short poems to consume on the run: 'A Poem About All Poems About Trees'; 'Something for Nothing'; 'Platitude-lessness' (brief, but essential writing advice!); 'Mission Statement' and 'Wait a Moment'
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Don’t talk about it
I toil mostly in obscurity. But which writer does not? / Except for those few who are feted, adored, and / lifted so high. Until they pass from favor & are knocked / back to the second-rank, never to return to / the heights from which they sipped / the better champagnes ...
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Mr. Brainwash & Friends at Auction
Who, pray tell, / was Mr. Brainwash? / Did Andy Warhol know? / These questions / agitate my head, as / my light goes red to green ...
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“Signal 23,” a very old cops beat, print-out poem
I wish I might resent you, or Fate or / my itinerant Guardian Angel. Yet who / indeed might I blame? / Your world has failed, I say. / But it goes on, rotating beneath / the feet of that gesticulating man ...
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“Time Happens,” an Illustrated Poem
That feeling you get after the days turn into weeks and then into decades, and you look in the mirror one morning ...
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Categories
Poems
‘A Dream of Perfect Motion’
I've spent years collecting footage of trains rumbling through West Virginia's hills, dales & valleys. I also scribble poems that play on Buddhist allusions. And there's this electronic music maestro I know named Lucas the Flow, who composes ethereal tunes. Mix them together and this is what you get ...
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Short Poems & Epigrams for an Autumn Day
Sometimes, you gotta go short, instead of long. A sampling of short poems and epigrams in advance of an autumnal reading amid the West Virginia trees.
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‘Killer on the Loose’
My beard is trimmed close to the flesh, so the strong coffee barely touches my mustache, leaving a scent of dark chocolate and turned soil. / I have never learned to tell the truth, dressing instead in these words for a passeggiatta in the cool September sun.
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Categories
Poems
‘The Difference Is’
There is a difference / between people who do things / and people who don't ...
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‘RUN-ON SENTENCE: At 47’
I am 47, the day is Jan. 2, the year is 2005, / my beard is stained white in several places, / my son is 14, my girl 10, my (borrowed neighborhood) / cat is named Mister Puzzlesocks, / my favorite red wine of the moment is / Trinchero Cabernet, my car is a white ’93 …
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‘Dirt & Bourbon’
My ink-stained hands hear the/ sound of the railroad, another train / passing through my town, here/ at the middle of nowhere &/ everything. I am ready to burst/ open like a cherry tomato/ between your teeth …
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Categories
Poems
‘In Need of Saying’
I am on a porch, captain/ of a green ocean. Wasps patrol / the boundary lands. In whispering winds, conversing / in high tulip poplars, I hear / poems from another tongue …
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