Self-bound volumes:
-In These Thoughts (2005). From 2009-2010, this book was used as a prop by the main character, Diana, in the Pulitzer Prize-winning Broadway musical, "Next to Normal" (winner of 3 Tony Awards, including for Alice Ripley for Best Actress).
-Arising From Sullen Earth (2010)
-Will Work for Meds (2013, excerpts)
-Walking Backward, So You Can See My Face (2025)
Poem samples:
-Tuesday
-Seen/Scene
-May Poem
-July Poem
-RECEDE
-Callus/Callous
-Diana (1)
-Diana (2)
-I'M SOLO TONIGHT
-In Stride
-Room to Grow
-Stay
[More than 150 poems available, 1993-2019]
Tuesday
I can’t give you another world
I can’t give you another place
Where forever’s tied ’round your finger
Her locks curled ’round your face.
I don’t know the day of someday
I don’t know the way to somehow
And I can’t give you the tomorrow
When sorrow will take a bow.
I wish upon the moon for sun
I wish upon the sun for shade
And tho’ I’ll give you all that’s gained,
I can only wish she would have stayed.
Amidst the rot and blooms of everything you miss
The only thing that I can do is give. you. this.
| Apr. 7, 2015
Seen/Scene
It’s hard
watching tear tracks
from the front row
because I try hard
not to fall for it
not to let mine show.
But, for you, I will fall.
It’s hard
watching tear tracks
from the front row
because I try hard
not to fall for it
not to let mine show.
But, for you, they will fall because
but for you, I’d have fallen long ago.
| Dec. 5, 2014
May Poem
I see you
when the moon rises.
Voyager
with a tune
that surprises me:
“Lost chances.”
“Misdirected focus.”
“This life, already wasted.”
I didn’t know you tasted
salty tears as you danced
on a salt white beach.
Orchid,
hibiscus,
heart leaves for you.
Memory
of a dogwood tree,
she is blooming still.
It’s her you see
as you shuffle off to Buffalo.
Regret is a blanket
that will always leave your feet cold.*
Day after day,
fray after fray,
you will awaken reaching
till you shuffle off this mortal coil.
Forgive yourself.
That is the first stone to turn over.
On your own, you will learn
to cover head to toe.
You owe no one.
Forgive.
Live.
Saddle the quarter in the sun,
light hold, this time, on the harness.
Let run
then let rest
and the rest of us will bear witness.
The hound’s tree
may hound you,
but I found you
rising with the moon.
*"Dead Poets Society"
| May 7, 2013
July Poem
Pitter-patter, does it matter,
these sounds I barely bear?
Chatter, chatter, will it shatter
my soul, unfairly bare?
Needing, heeding, I’m left reading
the pages to which I subscribe.
Pleading, ceding, I’m left bleeding
from the hope to which I subscribe.
| July 7, 2013
RECEDE
Only such a singular moon can influence the tides,
but you, you move my limbs, my innocent insides.
And you have push and pull over my ebb and flow,
but how can this be, if you’re someone I don’t know?
It’s pretty, it’s gruesome, sweet as sugar, just as rough.
Your effect on me, it’s too much and not enough.
But with constant thought, of late, I am forced to see,
it’s not your move; it’s what I know you know of me.
| June 18, 2007
Callus/Callous
My guitar is in tune, E- to E-string,
but true only to itself, does it ring
’cause hell if I know if a single chord
is in tune across the board
of any other guitar out there.
But, pluck it! I don’t care.
Go blow your pitch pipe somewhere else.
What’s key is inspiration still poured,
its voice in tune, across my board.
In its own key, my guitar still roared.
You’re in tune, but across the bored.
Call me dissonant; hell, I’ll still sing.
Go be consonant; clip your own wing.
My measure is. like. nothing. else.
| Aug. 15, 2008
Diana (1)
The fall colors, brisk and on the move;
your crawl of winter is already here.
The bloom and green gone for just a spell,
while your gloom won’t rest. It’s always near.
Since their forward march welcomes the change,
their winter blows in, on fire, austere.
You breathe in thickness, a waxy cloud,
while the air they’re granted is sharp and clear.
You light candles to try to strike back,
but, that iced darkness has already won.
While they get to sleep, then rise in light,
you’ve got to fight to awaken the sun.
You walk in earth’s third level of freeze.
Even at day’s height, your night is not done.
You seek the candle that’ll light your wick
and you wonder if you’re the only one.
| Dec. 8, 2008
Diana (2)
How did what you sing
become a harmful thing?
How did what you throw
cease to slice your woe?
How did the way I run
cause us to come undone
and how did your leaving
become my public grieving?
It’s not my right
to seek insight.
You’re not the cure for me.
It’s not my place,
it’s not my space.
You’re not the light I see.
It’s not my pain,
it’s not my pane.
It’s not my mourning view,
but it is my fight,
the sudden twilight
of the person that I knew.
Why is the only thing we share
the us that's no longer there?
| May 29, 2010
I’M SOLO TONIGHT
FOUR WHEEL PEEL, GOLD AND BLACK PALETTE.
WAVE AT MY NAME– THAT’S ALL YOU GET.
IT’S NOT YOUR RIGHT, NOR YOUR GREEN LIGHT,
IT’S NOT YOUR STATION TO TUNE.
EMPTINESS, MINDLESSNESS, FEAR WEATHERED.
IT’S ME, NOT THE WIZARD, FLYING UNTETHERED.
I DON’T CARE ’CAUSE THOUGH IT’S YOUR HOT AIR,
IT’S NOT YOUR BALLOON.
SO, SIT BACK ON YOUR HAUNCHES;
JUST WATCH AS MY ROCKET LAUNCHES.
IT’S NOT YOUR FLIGHT, IT’S NOT YOUR HEIGHT.
IT’S NOT - YOUR - MOON.
| Feb. 11, 2010
In Stride
When you are alone,
I know it’s by choice,
I hear it in your voice
on the other side of the screen.
I won’t overturn your stone...
...won’t seek, won’t find
the talk back in your mind.
I respect what’s to remain unseen.
I know when you’ve flown
to not knock down your door
and pick you up off the floor.
I honor your lines and in-between.
| Nov. 22, 2011
Room to Grow
How— to be where you sleep,
weep, and press on still— how,
now, this helps me see where,
bare, you give credence to pain.
Sobbing the truth in the kitchen,
which in this case, promises life.
Knife stays sheathed, no leap
deep into a need to keep payin’
the price of a warrior’s choice.
Voice bowed, but your eyes, they
say, “And yet you can see me
here, through my blue-lit pane.”
| Sept. 18, 2012
Poem titled "Stay" added to the interior of a woodburned box.
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