I don’t want to hate poetry
but I can’t find my rhythm
every lone line drawn 
at an uneven pacing

it makes me feel angry 
frustrated and cursed
an imposter who just can’t 
seem to make the words work 

wind in the lay of this land
where the eastern coal fields begin
is a living thing moving wild as it will

lofting birds carrying voices
bearing rain and thunder in madness
and silk spreading the seeds of trees

it is the trees who safeguard
the shards of the mighty wind’s heart
ever broken by its yearning for home

My wife uses little bronze plaques on stilts
to mark her plantings. Iris. Purple coneflower.
Broccolini. Onion, radish, lettuce, dahlia.

Cities use big bronze plaques on poles
to mark significant locations & events.
Old Water Street. Florence Crittenden Home.
Original home of Lexington Public Library.

Communities would be much more interesting
If we each got our own plaque on a stick design
to highlight our lives.
“In this driveway in 2002 Bernie crunched the spare
tire on a Honda CRV with a Ford Escort while thinking up a title”
“On this dogwood for 14 years Biscuit the terrier
peed nightly, even after he was blind.”
“This wicker chair is named ‘lost in thought’ and
has spawned over 80 poems”

Signs that denote who we are
instead of cataloging nameless
history.

You can only do
what you can do.
Let it go,
outcomes out of your hands.

Except inspirational speakers
on scratchy LPs in high school classes
and hair-sprayed preachers in pulpits and at church camps
all convinced me I was supposed to make a difference,

fostering a longing
in my in my psyche
for tangible successes
that has never gone away

despite all reason
to the contrary.

Really, I don’t want            
      to write about                        
            this dark. I crave light,  

to see the moon            
      face in daytime,                        
            some sun to fracture  

another ragged day. Long            
      after midnight                        
            I remembered to fill  

the feeder. My porch            
      is a watchtower                        
            of cold and stars.  

At daylight a housefinch,            
      a redbird, a titmouse                        
            were in line for breakfast,  

taking turns, charitable            
      as the clouds soon                        
            binding the morning sky.      

Arm swing, grass swish,
I rounded a bend into green unknown,
relaxed in the expectation of some
fresh surprise of wildflowers.

Instead, fur charging
brown-gray at breakneck speed.
I hopped, he swerved,
our mammal bodies
inches from collision.

It happened so fast,
but I’m sure I saw fangs.
Whether on the bunny who almost
mowed me down
or the dog revving close behind
I cannot say.

I will say this—
that was no ordinary rabbit.

There’s always a reason why people gang up on you and bully you

You met a man named Martin
and you killed him with your gun.
But my commands are Spartan,
and Nate, you broke a big ‘un.

I have to ask, did you feel strong?
Did it finally get your father off your back?
Did you prove the haters and losers wrong?
Are you a Punisher-sticker-haver, and hopelessly wack?

Yes, I made you a coward, and I’m hardly surprised.
Your fate? You are damned, this you surely surmised;
you signed up for this “job”, you knew all the hazards.
I am a loving God, saying 
                                                All Cops Are Bastards.

                “You are a poet, and poets are dangerous
                 to ordinary words  (…)  You build cathedrals
                 of feelings while I stand holding a single candle
                trying to show you the same light.”

                                                                                    – M 

Poetry is my attempt to capture a moment
like a photograph, like a still-frame glimpse
of beauty, even when this world can be
terrifying or tragic; there is still something
profoundly orchestrated and transcendent
if one can simply press pause and see
and know—so I try to express that, shape it,
speak it in such a way that others feel an echo
in the chambers of their being, or can see
and be in that moment, for but a moment
lose themselves on the page, within stanzas,
inside the borders of what I build
on the page.

                                           But I never intended
to fashion walls, to enclose, to exclude, to hold
you out.  You speak a benediction over us,
when you call what I build               home,    peace,
inside your heart, a place where you can lay down
burdens you did not know you were carrying

and this is all I ever desired, for you, for us—
a sanctuary of solidity in a wavering world,
a refuge for reflection, a monument for momentum,
a sacred space neither of us has ever known,
a holy Eucharist where we break and bleed ourselves

into one flesh before the altar of our Lord…

where Love and all that is and flows from
Love can be worshipped in thanksgiving.

             Come.  Come, Beloved, and speak
in the language of your silence.   

It is enough.
It is good.

We need not corners of streets nor synagogues
nor to be seen by men.  I will write my words
as prayers, fold your hands within my hands, hear
the spectacle of your spirit
in the sanctuary we build, together,

palm to palm,
                           face to face,

                          silent, drawing nigh
                          and nigher

                         a place to stand and love in
                         for a day, with darkness

                         and the death-hour
                         rounding it

Today has been full
of unexpected stress. One
more haiku it is