Edgar Alan Poe is dead. Seriously, I read it.
He died in October 1849 - or did he?
Do we really know?

Poe wrote about death a lot,
he teased with it, it was his favorite tool.
He kept death close and twisted it like a knife.

His profession was the macabre, the shadow,
the summoned dread and the gruesome aftermath.

He was a writer and a critic - what’s more dreadful than a critic?

They say he died from “unknown causes”
- how absolutely perfect.

I drew stick figures
things were simple

in a pencil world
mistakes were erased
you could start over

but an inchmeal awareness nagged
- the sky isn’t gray, it’s a liquid blue

but crayons were complicated
you couldn’t erase things
mistakes were irrevocable.

and there were 148 colors in the big box
keeping them in rainbow order was work.

growing up is hard

I'm standing close by a river of rhyme,
where words cascade, in endless pantomime,
each line is a ripple, on the rugose water's crest,
but the chaotic current seems a randomized mess.

I see waves of words riding swells of sonnet,
into concrete verse, only to crash upon it.
There are dark plaintive whirlpools of elegy
and swirling haikus kissing off sharp envoi.

This river of rhyme could wash me away,
with its desperate currents of poetic dismay.
Its sensual verses can become a toxic wine,
oh, God, don’t let me drown in the river of rhyme.

if the wind this morning is taking requests
it will deliver to you my gentle caress

the wobble of a muon foretells a paradigmatic shift in our understanding of the forces of nature

my wobble foretells an excess of alcohol

I refuse to write anything brilliant today,
in support of the writers’ strike.

Deep inside me is this seed
In search of light and water
to grow, before it’s soil runs dry.
Deep inside me is this dream that wants to awaken
to make itself come true,
before the sleep is over.
Deep inside me is this love in need of someone else’s love
To go hand in hand through life,
before horizon’s dawn.

The seed is in the dream
The dream is in the love
The love is in my being

The seed becomes a tree
The dream a shining light
The love the carrier of peace.



Shell✨🐚

I wipe my face
with grubby hands
and pretend it is you
who is caring for me.