I received an MFA in Poetry from The University of Montana in 1999, so naturally I now sell insurance.  My poems have appeared in some journals and anthologies, most notably The Best American Poetry 2007,  and my chapbook Silent Partner won the 2013 Sow’s Ear Chapbook Competition.




The Song That Used to Speak to Me


You whispered me to sleep,
then pigmented my dreams.
You picked my views apart,
then reaffixed their pieces
into a colorful mosaic. Your
three minutes and thirty one
seconds of deliberated sound
watered my budding world.
Which, after multiple listens,
began to flood over. My cities
were decimated by the deluge
of your relentless sentiment.
I had to construct a makeshift
raft that kept me safe until
the storm subsided, brackish
waves vaporizing in the raw
rebirth of sun. It has taken
me years to pumice the algae.
Now, reclining on my porch,
I think back upon you fondly,
a painful but necessary lesson.
So I start to hum you, consider
with a startling seriousness
taking a road trip to Omaha
for the kickoff of your band’s
unfortunate reunion tour.





I Didn't Sleep Well Last Night


When I submit to day's repeated strains,
As to a faith I've lost the energy
To see through, I take what sleep is meted.

Symbol upon symbol deranged, seated
On pillows, my dreams betray the clergy
Judging the means to my accreted gains.

I elect a pain to go unheeded
(repression such a hard-fought lethargy),
But sleep's eye roves beneath depths to meet it.

The body twitches, beats while sleep-detained,
Too sentient for night's dull-knifed surgery:
I yield to truths secreted from the brain.

Seconds mimic hours, time leaps its frame.
The hardened self softens to effigy
Upon the eyelids (screening sleep's display).

I wrest myself from rest sorely needed,
Begin the task of conscious strategy.
Awake, I've broken night's receded chain
To see another day—unless cheated.





Nightlife


This street is so still
it begins to move.
Eyes glint from bushes,
holes poked in shadows.

The trees sag
beneath wind's absence,
beneath moonlit clouds,
bouquets of ghosts.

The air is so languorous
it blurs the homes,
slithers through lawns
among mating fireflies.

If stillness can't sit still
how can the mind,
whispering against its will
to the acquiescent eye?

Night skips
along the street's surface,
a smooth black stone
thrown by the moon.