7 December 2025

Two words holding 

the whole of this moment 

hope, grief, love, chaos.

I could kiss you so the little winged wraith

flies from my mouth into yours.

Two words longing

to be spoken

straining to be heard

making an impression 

a little ache when it rains.

Two words finding  

you as you are

stranded on a distant shore

building up that fire

leaving you

as you were meant to be.

Two words saving

all the endings, beginnings and middles

etched into everything 

keeping time

even as we forget.

Come back.

30 October 2025

Of all the things I don't have 

I don't have you the most

22 August 2025

I dreamed you left me poetry

on white paper with silver ink

but the writing was so faint

I parried.

27 June 2025

I'm leaving this telltale heart

under the floorboards 

for you to find one day

when all your obligations 

have been set aside 

and time has been loosed.

I know it probably won't be you 

but maybe the ghost of you

or a ghost who likes to look

for things that wait.

Drifting through the world 

with a cup of coffee and a book

and a claw hammer

which will come in useful 

when you notice that thumping 

coming from beneath your ghost feet.

And when the dust has settled 

and you unwrap the paper

with your splintered hands

I trust this flawed but willing heart

will explain everything 

in the way that buried things do

or at least give you some idea

of how hard I hoped.

Haiku

Born of stars, we spend

our lives scrambling to get 

back there, the hard way

16 May 2025

This is one of those times

when I know it's just a dream 

but I've got Toto in my arms

and ruby slippers on my feet

and I don't want to leave 

I don't want to sit on the edge

of my sepia bed

looking at my sepia shoes

trying to remember what was said

but it evaporates instead 

And I am left softly

and you were there 

and you were there

and you were there

It sounds ok in the daylight 

but it's crushing by lamplight

There is no alone

that goes so hard

as two in the morning 

even though it's an undercard 

And I am left softly

and you were there 

and you were there

and you were there

13 May 2025

That dream I'd been hoping for since the wreckage

finally washed ashore

but the moment I woke up

it started to recede, the way dreams do

and even though I can't remember 

where we were or what we said

I kept the feel of it

In a few hundred years

when my bones lie broken open in the ground 

no stone will remember 

That dream will have seeped

out of the breaks

and wherever we are 

whatever we say

we'll be the feel of it

09 May 2025

As your head aches with loss and regret

as your beauty melts and washes away

as your arms grow tired from carrying the broken parts 

as your braces become unlaced

Remember that everyone who adored you

still does and will

That your hands will always be warmed

and the hair gently swept from your brow

The thought of you being enough

to sustain a million lifetimes

in defiance of fear and the gnashing of teeth

And in that endsome night hour

may your collarbone be marked with a lipstick kiss

so the faithless will just wave you through

11 April 2025

Winter was made 

to hold a space 

between autumn and spring 

to buffer the pain 

and take the blame 

 

But winter, it turns out, 

muffles the quiet 

and the little death of time 

with his own heart, buried 

gale-force fragility in white, falling 

over everything 

And while there still appears 

an invitation to the spring formal 

in his mailbox every year 

he stopped attending long ago 

finally understanding it was only 

an artifact of a polite society 

which had also been stranded 

holding a space

7 September 2022

This is the time for sleep.

In this moment, you see an opportunity for a respite, however fleeting, from the pain and the fear. You see a chance to abandon your defenses and slide out from under the weight of your confusion. The moment speaks to you softly, invitingly, and you cross the threshold.

But tomorrow, the clarity eludes you. You find you are still thinking about whether the saints were ever good people and what really happened to Amelia Earhart and if it means anything that we are made of stars and will return to them. And now there are more questions and fewer answers.

The rope slips the pulley and something innocent tips into the well. The swirling fear picks up your scent. Instinctively, you seek comfort in convenience and familiarity. The only way back is to cauterize the nerve endings you ripped from their fortifications. It will be painful but you will do it for the promise of illusion and protection and quiet. The remembering will pass and the forgetting will claw its way back to your embrace.

This is the time for sleep.

28 July 2022

Things that are broken, staying 

broken. 

Things that are fixed, waiting 

to break again.

Time always trying to stay 

but going 

always trying to rewrite 

itself, someone, anything but 

it just keeps happening. 

Things that are lost, finding 

the terrible truth. 

Things that are winged, flailing 

on this salted earth.

Eternity, wounded 

mortally coiled 

within a universe of 

beautiful shards.

16 January 2015

Last night
when the carousel was all lights and music
the horses were wild and just about
to break free
your sensibilities were stretched
and what was wanted seemed the same as what was needed
for once.
This morning
when everything has snapped back
the horses are made of wood
and it's not just that the words are different
but the sound of the words
the sound of no words
is not the same
and you don't know if it will hurt less
to chase it
or ignore it
or bury it with full military honors
so that when they hand you the folded up triangle flag
you can stand there blinking back tears for a few moments
and no one will think it's unusual.

12 December 2014

You got tricked
because it was safe
and in the back, something shiny.
You reached as far as you could
folding your wings
to climb part way in
to get that little bit more.
That's when you heard the door being closed
and you managed to thrust one hand
back in time
to lose three fingernails
before the spindle rammed through the wheels
and everything went dark.

I didn't know if I could
forget the numbers
- or those little red eyes
so I defaced the dial
with a screwdriver
so everyone would be safe.

But I got lonely
and looking at those three fingernails on the floor
just gave me a pain in the stomach.
After dark, voices
Wisps of air on my face from their wings
around and around me
and I wondered if you were safe.

Halved with regret
I keep spinning that battered dial
left right left
listening for the notches to line up
listening for a sign of life
waiting to feel safe again.

7 October 2014

The road - dark and wet
the sparklers fizzing out
before they ever really had a chance
to make it the way
it should have been.
Long past the sound of boot heels on asphalt
you rested your aching head
but the road didn't notice
or curl its fingers around your brow
the way you were hoping.

Just do one thing -
just keep going.

Clouds draped over the moon's cage
for the night
disbanded stars
glinting in the road
showing you the way
it still could be
the way you were hoping
when you smashed the glass
that said EMERGENCY.

Every step now takes a year
and you are certain there are only seconds left
and the road
just does the one thing.

30 September 2014

Every drop of rain
standing on the ledge of the storm cloud
wind whipping through their hair
one trembling hand gripping the window frame
the other hanging limp
burned eyes misted over
obscuring where the ledge ends
and tragedy begins.

Thunder and lightning begin to chant,
"Jump"
while the cloud chokes out a whispered,
"Stay"
before everything falls apart.

26 September 2014

I never asked you about that scar
mostly because I knew exactly what happened
and who was to blame
but also because I'd heard you
tell lies about it so many times
I wasn't sure if you remembered the truth anymore
and I didn't want to be the one
to remind you.

24 September 2014

Swirling in a glass
taking odds on being drunk
or spilled
or poured back.

Sparking the flint
wanting to be held in that perfect moment
before everything burns.

Lingering over the cinders
asking the vanishing glow
to come back.

Lying across the tracks
waiting for resolve or regret
or a train
to show.

I guess they don't
call it The Witching Hour
for nothing.

11 September 2014

I remember nothing.
It's my only defense.
I don't want my memory jogged.
I want my memory dragged
out of his safe place
claws scrabbling at the felt
delivered shellshocked into the street.
I want my memory roughed up
by some unsavory characters
in an alley behind a bar
after last call.
I want my memory forced to fight
against insurmountable odds - unarmed,
when the other guys
all have knives.
I want my memory romanticized
for refusing to hand over my last 5 dollars
not out of bravery
but because threats were made.
I want my memory shoved
face down into the concrete
for having a look in his eyes
that was familiar.
I want my memory exposed
picking locks underwater
like Houdini in an empty theater
practicing for the grand finale.
I want my memory felled -
hurt and blue and drifting
knowing that in those final moments
no one is coming with the ax.
I remember nothing
just the way I want it
just the way it happened
the key jostling the mechanism
keeping everything locked up tight.

17 August 2014

Stranded in Hy-Brasil.
You were supposed to meet me here.
Did you never come?
I keep watching
underneath the waves
the stars, blurred
and crashing -
my whole home is gone.

Did you sail straight through
thinking I was pulled under?
I woke up at the fence-line.
I keep the torches lit.
I mind the waves
the memories, blurred
and crashing -
my whole heart is gone.

If I let in this banging dark
to flow over everything
it won't put the torches all the way out
there will be a muted glow, still.
I will tie a rope around me
and loop the other end on a fence post
and I'll keep looking up
the watery stars lapping at the edges
you can find me, still.
Meet me in Hy-Brasil.

1 July 2014

Wanting something so much
that you knew nothing
except that it would never happen
because it's possible
to hope so hard
that you wish the thing
out of existence
before it ever comes into being
which leaves you
as you were
trying to put some distance
between you and this holy ghost
that you won't let go of
just in case.

Most people save their hope
for times when it seems like there's at least a chance
but you always said
that's not what hope is for
and I always liked how you spent yours -
just a trickle at first and later,
past midnight, past all reason
you open the spigot all the way
flooding the chamber
so that your holy ghost is trapped
beneath the surface
that terrible underwater light
reminding us
of all the things we never
should have wished.