eBooks available!

I have eBooks/PDFs of my work available for sale to those who might be interested. All were previously offered as rewards to various tiers of my Patreon subscribers (a program I will be continuing there, btw). If you want access to the most recent collections as they come out, I’d go there. Just sayin’.

The titles include:
Annual “best of the year” collections. Currently available: 2017 — 2023.

“Then Play On,” a chapbook of poems about music

“Pushpins and Thumbtacks,” a volume about icons and cliches of American culture

“Noted In Passing,” a revised eBook of a chapbook from 2012 that was a limited edition written for a single feature

“White Pages,” my collection of poems related to race and its role in my life

“Decay Diary,” a collection of poems about aging

“In the Time Of Contagion,” a collection of poems about you-know-what

“The Wrong Flowers,” a prose/poetry meditation on the state of the USA in 2020

“Show Your Work,” an eBook version of an earlier, out of print chapbook.

“The Day,” a selection from 20 years of poems about 9/11/01.

“Ideation,” a short collection of poems old and new about living with depression and suicidal ideation.

“Long Winded,” a collection of longer poems.

“songs for reluctant warriors,” poems for the US political moment of early summer, 2022.

“3 Quarters” released in October 2022. Random and recent.

“Owner’s Manual” released in December of 2022. Poems in the form of directions.  

“Worksongs,” March 2023. Poems about the world of work.

“3” or “Tercets.” July, 2023. Poems with stanzas of three lines. An experiment in craft.

“Missing.” October, 2023. Another craft experiment. A chapbook that’s missing…something. Or a couple of things. Up to you to figure out what…

Minimal # of repeats among the collections.

All are available as both PDF and ePUB formats.

If you are interested, let me know with a comment on this post. Right now? They are 1 for $8 through Paypal, Venmo, or Cashapp — 3 for $16. We can talk about larger quantities and discounts if you want more. Message me for the details.

Thanks.

Continuing the story

Whew.

It’s been a whirlwind of a standstill this month. Feels like nothing is getting done and everything is perched,waiting to begin.

On a prosaic level, that’s true. I’m perched on a very high tier in that my motor skills are pretty sharp and my intellectual skills are also good.

On a more profound level, it’s not so great. I still have trouble with getting my ideas across and occasionally the word salad in my head tries to eat them. Those times I have to stop and let the storm calm itself before setting out or moving on.

There are also work travails and other stuff I won’t bore you with right now. Suffice to say I won’t be doing much. I do have some poetry gigs coming up, but I cannot cross that bridge just yet.

Word of advice?

Don’t have a stroke.

Onward,
T

A Pair Of Lenses

On the horse,
a pair of lenses

swollen to fit the nose.
Handsome in silver.

The frames slick with promise
that this attempt wouldn’t embarrass.

I stood there embarrassed.
I suddenly had scant idea what was required

but I swore this attempt would not fail.
I swore this attempt would matter.

It didn’t matter. The horse
attempted closure. I did not.

We two were alone with our failure
since all I could do was fail.

We stood, false-lonely, loose-limbed
on her part; I wept tight and shaking

with unease and frank horror.
I could not, would not.

Did you know this would happen?
I did not, should not.

As ordinary as shattered glass?
As customary as any mistake?

I should not, would not.
The horse and I stood there

in the stall until someone came
and took us back to our places.

I lay down on my bed
and wept till I knew I wasn’t wrong

and this was the way of things,
how space and the universe were supposed

to unfold and that being right
would take a long time.

The horse doffed her glasses,
shook her head. Wondered

about the taste of sugar as if
it was supposed to be sweetness.

It was supposed to be.
Anyone knew that.

Trials

The nourishment of the illegals is at hand, the Karen Read trial proves it, you can hand feed the test feed of media bits and let it hang, you can dance as if it matters, you can hang your jaw over the words for your own purposes and pretend it’s for Passover and remain invisible? What difference does it make?

The ravishing of the system is at stake, the white faces of the defendants are at hand, the Donald Trump trial challenges it, you can hand test the offspring for proof of the ravening and the lusting, what of it? What of it with the great grey lull of power gnarling over it all? 

You can challenge it, is all. You can imagine it all in power, all invited to lust within, all incited to yearn with invertebrate longing of grand glow and globs of deep glow.  It won’t matter at all. It won’t and it can’t. The sun will shine, the rocks will glow.  You’ll be fine, or you will die. Thank Jesus for that one. Thank someone, for Chrissakes.

The Status

The status was no longer
easy, a relaxed nervous pitch;
an eventual result could be
failure, could be catastrophe,
could be nothing much at all.

The status reached over the edge.
No one coaxed it to point in one way;
instead it demanded we go either direction,
urged us to choose a way and follow it,
then stepped aside and serenely refused to choose.

I sat by tingling with the status.
I say I sat and did not worry about who would respond.
I sat and did not respond to the storm of urgency
that followed the elevated status. It was my choice
and only mine. I chose, and there was distant thunder.

Nothing Changed

Observation: some of the writers
are stuck in the wake of an eclipse
that was contested a week ago
and moved on serene from the wreckage
to today or nearby, calm as churchgoers
in the leavings of damage and mayhem.
Afterwards they thanked their stars and
moved on.  Others held their breath
and remained stark and breathless
with the memory of near death, while some
exhaled and just moved on without seeming to care
about where they were or how they might
eventually place.  A whole world collapsed
and nothing came of it for me. Nothing
moved on. The world remained intact.

Say It All

Say it all. Put a meaning
on your sounds. Attach
other words to new words
and let them dangle and hang.

Love and theft and mistaken urges
like the longing for sense or the gasp
of the delighted lover over
the unexpected gift: give them your voice

and let them speak as you do. Say 
it all as you do. All will be well
or it will not. You will stand
triumphant either way,

knowing that however dumb
you appeared, you managed
to release yourself beforehand.
You were free. You are free.

 

 

 

 

 

Blue Light Unexplained

Why she fell to her knees and
offered whatever she was
to blue light in the corner
of the bedroom remains
unexplained

This light around a lady
crouched on her familiar floor
suggested secrets here
Told us we didn’t deserve to understand
and we should not and would never

Next day at first light we thought about her
cold kneeling on the bedroom floor
Wondered about blue light
For which there was no explanation
Glow that remained without context

Next day then next day and all days to follow
First second third light of blue turned to red
A woman cold kneeling on a bedroom floor
We knew she was gone when they trundled her out
In a haze of blue light under neighborly gaze

Now she is fixation
Now she is figment of imagination
Now she is unsteady fact and myth of rejection
If we had known her we would have wept more
If we had been there when she passed

But instead she stayed and she stays and remains there
Shining with blue and then subsequent red
Calls out subtle and haze and blameless stare
She passed among us in such a way
That she has not left and shades every moment

Damp

A long night is over
and while there’s no dawn yet
it’s clearly coming,

There is always a dawn.
Always have been dawns.
Likely will be for seasons yet.

You are an American.
You get to count on things
like dawn being there for you.

You’ve heard of such things
as bombings and such.  You’ve heard
of such things as sudden death.

It’s been a while and the news 
gets worse, stays bad
and spreads like a wet spot

on a table. This is a local surprise.
An intrusion. An unexpected 
blot on things.  Dawn can be like that.

The light and the news spreads and
it’s feeling all Gaza in Massachusetts.
Feels like a mistake, out of place.

Look, you say — a body
on the sidewalk? Do I know that person?
Shake your head, turn away from it.

Gossip about it at work for a week,
then forget it. Gaza ain’t in Massachusetts.
No matter what death tries to tell you,

it has to have a reason even if
it doesn’t make any sense.  And it doesn’t.
Dawn coming up a stained mistake.

Catch the glory of sunrise
over the changed world.  Someone bought it 
down the street. Don’t you feel damp now?

Select Insects

It’s like there are select insects
who know I’m decaying inside.
One landed on my arm
and waited there on my skin
for what seemed like
a season. I felt a change
in the weather.  I tried 
to memorize its shape
so I could tell anyone
who might come 
how it came and I got colder
and how it was a little square
like a chitinous ice cube
and a little gray 
like a piece of old bark or flesh,
but that’s all I could say — 
something like a piece of death itself
sat down on my skin to wait
and I did not have the words
to explain that insect to anyone
who might have come by. 
It was a bit of comfort, in fact,
to have to explain something
yet not have words for it,
to sit with it upon me
and know it wanted death from me
and not want to offer it up,
to resist without trying
to create words for that resistance.
I am not worthy of this moment,
I said; it just sat there
and perhaps I was resistant in that,
but one way or another
I was alone with the insect Death
and this time, at least,
we together chose without speaking
to let this passage wait for another time
while the flies buzzed beyond the screen
and something indistinct crossed the far floor.

Cut Deep

It is a measure of the fragility of my life
that I am cut so deeply
by each happening;

every time I am compromised
it is as if a window long ago paiinted shut
has been thrown open into me

and all can see the walls of the wounds
from wherever
they are standing.

It’s not like that at all.
I am surprised by all of it.
I look like the people in films,

nonplussed when the crevasse
open before them in what was
solid ground. You’d think

I’d be used to it by now:
the elimination of privacy.
The poet’s cinematic life.

You get insight; I get
a script for my own overexposure
as a tunnel into art.

I wish I could tell you
it’s fine. That I am at peace
with being so open,

even if it is not
of my own doing.
Surely am close. Surely

there will closure
for having allowed
such intrusion.

That is how it goes:
let it carve me unto death
for the sake of art and others’

healing. You say: stop.
I say the blades of poetry
aren’t mine. Tell me: how

does one stop
without dying?
I need, I need, I need to know.

Baltimore Bridge

Take the case of a bridge that breaks in a quite unexpected way.  The morning news shows it collapsing when struck by a ship.  We are told — and by “we” I mean the handful of us up at four AM to see; aren’t we special to know so early? — that seven people or more have fallen into that black night water and that divers have gone in after them.

Take the case of the blood vessel in my head that did the deed less than a week ago.  I’ve told pretty much anyone who would listen that there’s a bridge in my cerebrum that snapped and now, I’ve got to keep an eye on everything. Can’t send anything or anyone in after it to rescue the cells that were impacted by the rupture, this time.

Take the case of the Rapture. Take the case of the Apocalypse. Take the case of not knowing what comes after the long plunge from a height.  The ice water in the dark. The looming demise, the struggle to survive.  Attempted rescues in the cold dark. All the likely failures; the rare miracles you hope for.

Take the case of all the morning numbers. It’s early, very early — the BP, the sugar, the pulse of me watching that slow fall over and over on the daybreak news.  I’ve been on that bridge before, long ago. I’m recalling that it was long and seven fallen seems low even this early. 

Take my case. Take my head as a full bridge tumbling. What should I save, what can I save? This isn’t Baltimore, there’s no traffic this early.  I’m one man with a busted passage, and no one thinks it’s news that this passage is snapped. I should have seen it coming. I should have taken a different road. I should make myself get more sleep.

CVA

In the paperwork
they called it
a “CVA”
A “cerebral vascular accident”

On the street 
they call it a “stroke”
Like a sky-sent bolt or
a smoothing hand on skin

I don’t want
to call it at all
for fear of raising it
to fiercer life

I’m shaking slowly as I stand up
less than a week later
They say I got off lucky
Call it “tiny” and “minor”

I don’t have the luxury
to minimize
or slide it aside 
as I try to stand steady

How much of this tremor
is fear and how much
impairment of a more
profound nature

Beats me right now
Beats on me right now
Is this a new normal
or will there be another to follow

and another and another
Blow upon blow
Stroke upon stroke upon stroke
Never to mean a gentle hand again

I didn’t mind getting older
I do mind getting old
Everything catching up to me
Now and now and now

Feels like all I have is now
Then is just a fiction I’ve told myself
A eruption in the brain
White dot on a scan

Like a snow cap
on a polar field
A tiny stroke of winter
on my earth

CVA — an accident
that happened
An equinox for a new season
I should have seen coming

Just fyi

I have been in the hospital after a stroke.  Back soon.

Spectators

Taking a walk around the neighborhood,
I see an older fellow wiping blood 
from the arms and seats of his lawn chairs.

I slow down to watch, express my dismay
and concern.  “Oh, nothing much
to worry about…just 

the usual, just the everyday
mess.” He turns away to resume
the cleanup.  I notice the pile

of bloody towels beside him
on his still-brown, slow-greening
lawn. I shrug, then head home

for supper
and the evening news.
It’s spring, I guess.

Of course that’s what it is: spring.
The world gagging on blood
as it tries for renewal. Some of us

strolling by evidence of the bleeding,
taking quick notice,
shaking our heads,

then heading home for
a quick word
from our sponsors.

The Phantom

Today is for
the streams of 
“if only — “

if only the front room
was lush 
with palmetto,

if only the sink
was not full
of sharks,

if only you’d grown up
on porches
on Mars

and spent hours there
thinking about the art you’d make
if you could live forever.

Today is for
faking happiness with what
replaced dreams unfulfilled —

a celebration
of your absence
from your deserved life.

For the phantom
you became
in its impossible place.