upside-down squirrel
runs toward the ground
tail puffed by autumn breeze
/ / /
25 September 2025
Charlottesville VA
Category: My poems
gentle rain falling
next door, machinery starts
never mind
/ / /
24 September 2025
Charlottesville VA
Unanswered Questions
So many of my elders died
before I knew who I was.
Is that a loss or a blessing?
Could I have explained to Grandma
(who never liked my triangle pendant)
that I was no longer her grand-son
but instead her grand-something-else?
Would the Franciscan friar
who christened me “Jaybird”
have thought, to himself or aloud,
that a queer mouse must burn?
/ / /
20 September 2025
Charlottesville VA
for I.F. Gonzales
Leave a Comment8 Minutes Ago
eight minutes ago
the sun was still shining
that’s all I can tell you
if it were suddenly to die
we’d all go blissfully on
long enough to play
“You Learn” by Alanis Morissette
twice
which is ironic
92 million miles
at 186,000 miles a second
you can check my math
Alanis would be singing
“you live, you learn” one last time
then click – lights out
seven days later
we’d all be freezing
in a year it would be -100°F
under their frozen surfaces
the oceans would stay liquid
for hundreds of thousands of years
most plants would die
in a few weeks
some tress could make it decades
the $64,000 question,
to quote Pink:
“what about us?”
we could live in submarines
in the very deep oceans
which doesn’t sound great
the better choice:
geothermal or volcanic heat
could keep us going for years
prepare yourself now, is my advice
take a page from Blofeld’s book
get yourself a volcano lair
you don’t want to be
the only person without one
when Alanis stops singing
/ / /
18 September 2025
Charlottesville VA
head down, eyes on screen
he misses
the sparrow, completely
/ / /
13 September 2025
Charlottesville VA
the rainbow I want to see
forms in a puddle of gasoline
pooling below a row of Molotov cocktails
a riot not a parade
they’re not coming for us
they’re already here
that warmth you feel
is the breath of the enemy
uniformed like a dark patch of night
light glinting off a truncheon
grab a brick, break a bottle
sharpen your knives and axes
this is the hour when we fight
/ / /
6 September 2025
Charlottesville
cool salmon, warm daal
on my neck:
September breeze
/ / /
2 September 2025
Charlottesville VA
The Singer & The Hunter
cricket in the window well
sings to Orion in the sky
in a language that means “find me”
but the hunter doesn’t answer
and my partner shuts the window
/ / /
27 August 2025
Charlottesville, VA
the eternal debate:
whether or not they’ll split
a quiche
/ / /
25 August 2025
Marie Bette
Charlottesville VA
only now
calendar
only now
wristwatch
only now
this moment
only now
drop of rain
only now
cat stretches
only now
steaming ramen
only now
inhale
only now
exhale
only now
no yesterday
only now
no tomorrow
only now
no regrets
only now
no plans
only now
no us
only now
no them
only now
no you
only now
no me
only now
/ / /
23 August 2025
Charlottesville VA
Stone Angel
I looked past the stone angel
to the open front door,
saw the back of a recliner
in the living room beyond.
The vice grip of longing:
a little house for us in Lenox,
a cat, a dog, a yard
full of flowers for pollinators.
We’re sipping tea on an autumn morning,
reading our books and chatting.
I don’t even know if that’s what I want.
Not this.
Not this.
Not this.
/ / /
20 August 2025
Charlottesville VA
Rivers
Reading about Paris.
Listening to Boston.
Thinking of Lenox.
I should be present.
Be where I am.
The Rivanna is not the Seine,
but then the Seine is not the Rivanna.
The Housatonic, the Charles,
these rivers of the imagination.
Where are they, really?
Do they flow even now
through this summer night?
/ / /
4 August 2025
Charlottesville VA