Long Charcoal Poems

"The Payload" 

The payload 
came crashing down
like rain expelled
from the fat belly 
of a ruinous pregnant cloud 
bilious with buxom promise

it came crashing down 
like school fish released 
from the tight confines
of a course rope...

Read More

I was hungry and headed to one of the tents that had been set up as a field kitchen and noticed Tim who came over to talk to me , he said that he was...

Read More

On Fam’ly Traditions - 2nd third -
 


“Might as well grab us some food an' some beer...some ice...and some bundles o' wood, an' prob'ly some charcoal....there ain't nothin' better than walleye from right off a...

Read More

HEROES

Near somber guards, units of children heap 
dead leaves, naive to any else fallen.
Friend, you chuckle, but your posture speaks
of duty on this day of contradictions.

Firefighters bow heads in silent paean, 
while polished trucks stand...

Read More

Hold the phone, hold the freakin’ phone. Lisa’s got a boyfriend!
I’ve never seen Lisa with a boyfriend. Lisa draws men like fireworks on a dark night, but I’ve never seen her keep one. I mean,...

Read More

8.Reading

I see them all rise to an endless sky.
Tumbling burnt pages from raging fire,
To leave ash of closer, to pacify.
A single deep breath near flaming pyre.
To see destruction with a silent face.
My eyes will cry...

Read More

I awoke to the familiar sound of dishes rattling in Mother’s kitchen and to the thick scent of coffee wafting through the air. I glanced out my bedroom window; the neighborhood was lit by the...

Read More

"Small Mutinies"



So what if my point of view
is not that which wraps 
you in comfortably warm
fluffed-up silky 
cashmere blankets 
of insecure insincerity
simple scribbles 
bleating from the 
chirping crickets 
and frog croaking
symphonies 
muddying waters
cutting pristine lines...

Read More

For several years I'd worked as a life coach, assisting clients day by day,
Like blazing colors in the shank of the evening, chases deep blues away.

It was an occupation that I enjoyed, as helping others...

Read More

Take me to the tombstone 
let me touch the gray stone that stands
where life could not
I will put my face to that touchstone of deaf thunder,
What happened  to your breath baby brother,
what happened in...

Read More

Norwegian bachelor farmer days I never lived

Woebegone and egg foo young on you
meaning me of course
sidestepping a crucial positive
electric kool aid battery acid test
prior to pledging troth,
and tying Gordian knot
to strangulation point,
never fending for myself,
nor...

Read More

I learned so much last time I went too 

The shore casino near the ocean blue  

Conjuring up honesty and words that were true  

Looking for tranquil sanctuary to think and talk ...

Read More

Yuletide pageants vis a vis merry go round revisited

healthy progeny regaled being alive
analogous to children ecstatic twenty-five
on December exhaling joie de vivre at dive 
in into neat stack of wrapped gifts, when...
what! out of thin...

Read More

Men, do not give up your dreams for these girls, keep sleeping. 


My cousin had read this phrase to me in August, when my wife left me for a harvard graduate that moved in our...

Read More

I'm determined to get better 
Intent on improving 
If you saw where I was
You would shriek and gasp what are you doing 
At 7 countries counseling clinic
This process 
I'm ready to begin it
Cause the longer...

Read More

My 1st round:

I know we just met and you seem like you're cool but there's a whole bunch of s**t that I don't know about you. Now I don't care about your race, what kind...

Read More

The Undertow


The two could feel the undertow
Pull at them both - then let them go
He wondered if she could know
Or sense it too and let it flow

The undertow in the fast-running tide
Ebbed and flowed at...

Read More

Yuletide pageant merry go round

Panoply of mystical elements of holly day style 
breathe prez sense frostily exhaled aired
per millennia athwart 
(this terrestrial spaceship planet Earth)
two plus seventeen carousel rides resonated
veritable pantheon of pagan rituals 
and...

Read More

Along the road called forestry, the silver ash weeps over me
as I meander 'round the dell and glade.
Pass scars of sand pits long disused, where gullies, washes speak ‘abused!’
Reclamation offers now a new facade.

Need for...

Read More

After hiking on the trail one day, I was making my way back,
Immersed in balmy thrills of summer, and the sunshine attack!

Birdsong was in my ears, and fragrance of beauty all around;
And greenness like a...

Read More

Timothy had always been a man of laughing joy and conversation	


               -Friendship dialogue communication -


But now there was silence but for...

Read More

What do I see when I drive through my old neighborhood?

Not the familiar cookie cutter houses or the elementary school I attended with my friends. Instead…

I see my ten-year-old self clad in saddle oxford shoes...

Read More

For thirty years I’ve been a truckie who has driven far and wide,
Carting goods through day and night all across the countryside…
But hours spent upon the road, do not permit a set routine,
When it comes...

Read More

I lived a quiet but active life, packed with brilliant sparkle and warm shine,
Like devoted lovers strolling under the captive moon, sometime after nine.

I was the manager of a jewelry store, with a number of...

Read More

It is dark! I could not see
I grasp on the night and I held on to objects that I know not of so tight
Dark! I hear strange voices from afar
but I see not their faces
Because...

Read More