Opens like an ancient coin

She grants safe passage

paper collage

What can be found in the night

pencil on yellow envelope

Place on Straight

paper collage and pencil

My Parrot

Like Abraham before me,
I scribbled my solemn verses
on the back of a shovel,
by candlelight when the mood struck me.

My parrot would repeat after me,
perched on my shoulder
like an eccentric professor;
I admonished myself through him.

The day he died I took up my shovel
and buried him in the woods.
My words were lost to the moist earth;
none were recovered.

Untitled collage made August 13, 2006

A Pocket Anthology of the Human Spirit

An old drawing I did of Ezra Pound using the photo off a book of his poetry.

Degas Done Better

collage with charcoal

After the Flood

This poem originally appeared in Grasslands Review #13 way back in 1995. I thought I'd put it up since I believe that literary journal is now defunct.

After the Flood


A waterlogged breath from a dry tongue

There are no tents in distant lands
or gods rising from chiseled wombs

like there is no smoke rising on the horizon
where wet sticks sulk
current-beaten among the bulk of weeds,
leaves, branches and bodies. No footsteps

but these of sixteen feet stepping from wooden planks
and another, neither stranger nor Father,
stalking among the sun-fasted faces.
This figure, shadow casting shadow,

moves among the vines of the vineyard,
enters the tent in which he already waits.
His eyes gaze across his own contours,
staring, in any land, with foreignless features.

Experiment...please respond

Here's a little experiment. Please leave comments on how you would interpret (if you even do) this particular collage. Just curious. Thanks.

Night Out 

Whirl