I started writing when I was 15, trying to “Crystal Blue Persuasion” the poetry world.  46 years have passed since then, taking all of a single second.  Just released from Urban Farmhouse Press is my book of poems called Booking Rooms in the Kuiper Belt.  Also available: Bend of Quiet from Blue Light Press.
​

Breakable


Jerry and Jeff sit on the porch 
watching fireflies bring light 
without sound.  It’s their
twelfth anniversary.
They date it from when they
met at the flea market, an album bin,
fifty cents each.  Candlelight
and wine, a conversation about

fish sticks.  Their neighbor,
Alice Karshaw, comes outside
And bangs trash can lids together.
Jeff says, “Ignore her!”  
Jerry says, “Maybe I can calm her.”  
That never works.  Last fall 
he started a chat with her--
she demanded that he shovel up 
dust that blows from their lawn
onto hers.  Jerry pretended to do it.  
Jeff: she’s a radio station—tune her out.

The trash-can symphony swells
as Jerry yells “Knock it off!”   
The guys hear her crying beyond 
the apple tree.  Her door slams.  
Lights out.  They sit in silence 

like houseplants, rise to bring in
gold-rimmed glasses,
the most breakable ones.





Caps


Jerry shouts that Jeff shouldn’t screw 
caps on bottles so tight.  Jeff says 
it keeps fizz in.  This escalates.  

The sun puts an ear
to the door and hears all
the juicy stuff—only mildly juicy.

Besides, they know the sun’s secrets, 
including that affair the sun had 
with a hot star in Andromeda.  Junk
gets out eventually.  At dusk 
Jeff and Jerry watch a reddening sky 
rouge the yard.  Dahlias look made up— 

petals wink when the wind walks by.





Charley Pride Sings

​
Heart Songs, the album that Jeff
says is his alltime favorite,
even more than Bette Midler’s first.

Jeff is feisty about music— 
either it’s great or it’s awful
and if you like something awful,
you’re a ninny.  This bugs Jerry

who likes many records
that Jeff considers awful,
has a complete 1910 Fruitgum Co.
collection, sings “Simon Says” 
in the shower so that Jeff slams 
the bathroom door shut.  Sometimes
a music fight spatters them 
like bacon grease.  About art, 

Jeff often sneers. In a museum, 
he races through the Van Gogh’s 
and Rousseau’s, preferring art 
that replicates reality--
“I get that,” he says

to Jerry who has already drifted
into Georgia O’Keeffe’s Clouds. 
Jerry says, “She puts me there.”  Jeff
keeps his feet on the ground, a steel
guitar as perfect to him
as Pollack’s tipped over paint cans
are to Jerry.