I am old and fat and slow.
Even the breath leaving this body is stale,
leached of life by its torturous climb
from the flesh cavity of my chest,
up the worn trachea,
and into a mouth clinging to its teeth
like a shipwrecked sailor to driftwood.
Category: Poetry
Poetry: Never Catching Up
I started with
the basic summary—
one wife, two jobs, no kids—
then added chapters to detail
the paths taken
since we last spoke,
but soon realized
I was boring even myself.
Poetry: Six Geese A-Laying
When you were five
and so small you were
almost lost in your own jacket—
a bundle of bones
and two eyes so blue
they drowned out the summer sky—
you would recoil
from every loud noise on
the nearby street,
Poetry: Linear Degradation
I left for work this morning
but never came home.
The man they sent in my place was older,
weaker. He had a scar across his left
cheek and gray splotches in his hair.
Poetry: Fever Dream, Part 2
Last night, I dreamed
that you were tossing back highballs
from a martini glass,
and when I pointed this out,
you slapped me,
and said everyone was doing it.
Poetry: The End of Sheep
I’ll count white hairs instead of sheep,
as there are more of them each day.
(How many more? I cannot say,
for when my counting climbs past ten…
Poetry: What the Eyes Do Not See
is given form
by light,
refracting,
reflecting,
translating mass
into shape
and colors
and faces,
but in the darkness…
Poetry: Words
the moment I set them free,
tumbling from chapped lips like
broken acrobats;
the carpet is thick with their
skeletal remains…