Sample of Published Works
My newest book, In the Cities of Sleep, poems entered on the ramifications of a warming planet, has just been released by Fernwood Press https://www.fernwoodpress.com/category/catalog/ This is my second book with Fernwood. They published Insistent Grace at the end of 2020. You will find both books in their catalog.
"After the Inferno," an ARTICLE about the 2017 massive wildfire in Northern California and implications for the future on a warming planet.
Here are a two poems published by Free State Review -
MUSHROOM HUNTING
Consider it so. Thus, as you wish it.
as you will and as you consider, you
my dear one. Here's this mushroom
red stemmed, crimson near the saffron gills.
Your shut look where once was blown-out bliss
while you swept the fields
of rose and gold and violet blossoms.
Me swinging my hips, my sweet
remembered ravings. Consider it –
the red stem, the saffron gills.
GREAT SWIMMER
I'm working on the whale stuff—
did a whale witness when a whale stranded
out at Limantour Beach at Point Reyes.
The whales eat tiny crustaceans that cannot
make their exoskeletons without calcium.
(Less calcium in the water as the oceans acidify).
The whales are starving.
I just sat with the dead whale
When people paused beside it,
I gave them this tiny poem:
Great Swimmer
We pray you travel swiftly
To the Other World
May you find your kin
May you swim in safe seas.
It was a conversation starter.
Families read it together.
One young woman started crying and just couldn't stop.
Of course, that made me cry, too.
Chagrin River Review - poems read aloud - links you to my reading of several poems published in the review.
Comstock Review has published a number of my poems over the past few years. Here's one from my manuscript, Scavengers.
SALT
I remembered kneeling
on cold monastery stone, the red
velvet cushions at the communion rail –
a reverence
history could not contain.
What is history?
The bones of a dead mouse.
His masked face was the first
mystery. Six veils
to reach the dark pulse of his wrist –
Salome dancing for John the Baptist's head.
I have found God in the least likely places.
The dog that once slept by my chair
was inhabited by God. Could I go
into the street and tell everyone
God slept in my house
in the body of a dog? Would you
believe me? You have your own moments.
I too have lain in the night
beside my lover
and heard God breathing.
Intention was the second mystery.
When my father died, his skin
was like Michelangelo's marble, his veins
the hidden rivers that sustained him
through five children, two wives, deaths,
wars, even prison.
Under the skin
where the blue vein pulsed
I saw my grandmother's heart flutter.
I leaned toward the pale gate
of the executioner's wrist, my tongue
reverent to the taste of salt.
The impulse to worship is always there.
It is the diamond in the water, the deer
last night, dreamily
over the fence in the fog
for the shimmering lick in the field.
"Engaging the Spirit" - an ARTICLE from ReVision, Journal of Consciousness . . .
(This section is currently under construction.)