Long Floorboard Poems

How unparticular the day had particularly been,
On March the third of two-thousand and eighteen,
For the caretaker at an historic Adirondack Inn,
Had lacked company, and therefore, dopamine.

 ‘Twas Sunday when all the guests had fled,
From either...

Read More

NOTE: Some of you seemed to enjoy my stories from the past. Of course, posting this in the story folder is tantamount to burying it six feet under, as you know, so I'm posting it...

Read More

As morning glowed pale light over the town of Soup Creek,
Jenna woke with a start when she heard a floorboard squeak.
She raised her gun and took aim at a shadow near the door,
"Hold it right...

Read More

The old Ford truck was dustin’ the gravel roads that day
I was listening to some pounding seventies hits
My second bottle was about empty by my thirst

Nothing much else to do on a hot dry southern...

Read More

I had a date (not a great date but a date)! Could our covid nightmare be ending? 

An actual one-on-one date - can you imagine? It was with Noud, a university student (from Holland) I...

Read More

Is a strategy a slam of a door? Or another noise?

Will you just please look over there...
No no not there.....
There......
Right in front of you....
Now come on please calm down
For I am not speaking to you...

Read More

Framed by moonlight,
Neither sunlit consciousness nor death's aegis,
Will come between our union tonight,
For I can no longer deny myself the happiness they promise,
Every creak in the floorboard and fluttering of my heart is talking,
Urging me...

Read More

37 Jesus replied: “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’[a] 38 This is the first and greatest commandment. 39 And the second is like it: ‘Love...

Read More

“He is out there again.”
It was said in a menacing way.  One check-out woman to another,
In front of me, the customer.
It startled me.
Someone was out there.
But who?

Was he there for a solid reason,
Or was...

Read More

I sit here, 
Surrounded by these four walls,
Staring at this mirror again, 
No telling when this madness will end. 
I'm allowed to leave at any point, 
But at this point they might as well lock...

Read More

The black skies poured outside, the walls that kept me in, felt safer than ever. Every day, I stand here and wonder “why is the world like this?” The grueling discrimination over us, just because...

Read More

The heirloom, Neo-classical, Palladian, almost as old as light, was mine from conception, so, when the latchkeys were placed over Simian crease, 
I put my ears to the hardwood floor, listening for the cacophony of...

Read More

Another eve of another day
shrinks to wee hours;
the only light flashes dim
from a distant lamppost. 

My mind’s contrarily still charged 
with words, chores, lists, sacred places,
mountainous memories,
and then a thought that hasn't visited in awhile…of...

Read More

be careful 
when you
invite new 
metaphors
into your
fresh built 
box of a poem.

a small 
house is
perfect
or a poet
that has 
few silver 
words left  
in their 
pocket. 

lower case
       ...

Read More

The Ballad of Love Distorted 

The horse’s ears flicker in silent rebuke
His rider is tense, taut, confused. 
Raw frost shining in soft silver rhythm 
And the cutting cold wind is unforgiving, 

A dark house ahead,...

Read More

to the men in lab coats with horns like unto goats, 
an open confession of a minor isotope:

I -- so -- Hope that a day shall dawn
when men no longer long
for the things that do...

Read More

cat man had enough forced isolation

sabbatical dreams after quarantine

entered his hermit cage in seclusion

I need time out from lockdown he promised


they told me of the psycho cat’s demise

but cats have nine lives so I can...

Read More

You came to give me a slap, your arm bent back,
with the back of your hand poised to 'shut my trap.'
I stood to rebuff you with anger, and schoolboy indignation. 
How dare you bring reproach...

Read More

I remember that ‘69’ Chevrolet
dark green and with the spit
of a combat soldier;
a mean green, power machine.

My Great Uncle bought it new,
his pride and joy for years;
when he died, it became my Parent’s car.
without a...

Read More

tonight 
cold rain fell as heavy snow 
flakes fat with polar dew 
roads turned to sideshows 
skies black as crows 
but the java tastes off 
(beans must've turned south) 
as I haunt crowded coffee bars...

Read More

I've got a Bobble Head Buddha
That nods on the dash
Some guy named Gideon
Whose Bible rides in the back

Rainbow covered Rosary beads
Hang from my mirror with ease
I've got all the bases covered
As pretty as you please

Have...

Read More

I’m scared of the dark
When it’s dark our minds can wander
Creating objects and people that don’t exist
Anything or anyone could be hiding behind and object that we can’t see behind, waiting
Waiting to creep up to...

Read More

Since she passed on I now live on my own
In a new town not just a new street
No more must I listen to that woman moan
But she’s haunting me through the loo seat

In view of...

Read More

Behind a chair 
        Below a desk
 with my bare feet on a wall, in my flannel pajama or a wet swimming suit,
   
With my hands...

Read More

The sound of her touch still echoes. 
Each pearl snap exploding
down my chest. 
It was a controlled demolition of my conscience. 
I screamed as my palms slapped against the drywall. 
I knew it was; We...

Read More