I learned his rhythm, step-for-step, To break no bond, to earn respect. Behind, he flees-an untamed ghost, Ahead, he strikes, his guard engrossed.

Beside, we tread the timbered lane, Two hearts entwined in wild refrain. No master, leash, nor tethered guide, Just wolf and I, the woods abide.

As I sit here, I wait for her
I make new promises
I am confident
She is my solace

The bird with feathers of red autumn
Her tune, marked by joy, is sweet
I hear her blithe symphony
In the park benches, in the hymn of leaves

While beauty is found
In this faded old memory
In the end
Change arrives like an old friend

Once wintry chill arrives
The park turns still
And she is not there
A breeze stirs the sleeping flowers

On a day that was
fraught
with anxiety and anger,
I sailed on
to the
other side.
The two pens that
blew up in my hand
foreshadowed the
prolific writing
streak to come.
Six poems today,
a personal best.
Bukowski would be
proud.
He might even
wonder
How I did it without
******
***** and
cigarettes.

It was easy.
I had bluebirds for
lunch, and listened
to Vivaldi.
I just let the telephone
ring
ring
ring

it is the inky, only one, you will ever be gifted,
the others, you will need create from scratch...

In these days where
solving for Self, "Selving," dominates,
a long time,
now-all-the-time work,
this selling
of the cells of sel~awakening.

though, duty insists,
                                    I insert the Psalmist's wise words,

"There is nothing new under the sun'

a cautionary comma to reckless abandonment of senses,
instincts, passed down wisdom.

a hardy learned lesson that's
not needy
for forgetting,
advice offered up with a
compote of temerity, tenderness, timidity.
'tis:
    
                                  far, far better to fail well than not at all!

In the hollow stretch of fading days,  
I reached for shadows, not your touch.  
The aching hours grew long, unkind,  
Beneath the weight, alone, I stood.  

And now you speak of turning back,  
The road eroded, trust dissolved.  
How dim the light you think I see,  
When all was night, and none was you.

Wet and cold, I stand

in front of the shop, looking --


at hot sandwiches.

Lean, the hands rough skin
A hoarse greeting with holes
between my sand gnashing teeth:

a scary person
I am everywhere because nowhere
I'm allowed to be, give me shoes:
as long as I walk I live

Call me Job, I don't
believe God will save me
from the underworld
where it's warm in winter

till midnight
when the doors close. Whether I hope
to wake up from the cold
I don't know, maybe

I'll do what you do and push
it into the future
Then it doesn't exist

The Poetry of Waiting

Not the break,
but the breath before the break.
Not the silence,
but the listening it invites.

A caesura is not absence,
it is presence held still.
A hush with its hands open.
A comma that prays.

It lives in the gasp
between heartbeat and echo,
in the moment the dancer
hovers mid-turn,
in the glance that says
more than the line ever could.

It is the ache
that punctuation cannot name.
The pause
where grief gathers its syllables.
The space
where longing loops back to begin again.

We write it
with white space,
with hesitation,
with the courage
to not fill every line.

We live it
in hospital waiting rooms,
in the hush before “I love you,”
in the breath between diagnosis and reply.

Caesura –
the sacred seam
where poetry listens
to the body.