Dreaming in Satellite

This New Covenant

2026-08-14T13:47:14.479-07:00

Jesus dressed my poor angel
in unattended weeds

and thus the lowest ebb

of perverse suspicion

flooded the summer

and thus we fell

among cryptic texts

unanswered calls

and nights turning

into suspicious morning

routines of angry gardening

together tearing

at the hearty stalks

and thus the bed

became warm with loss

and rich with fingers

and thus a thin fire culled our lives

vigorously, almost professionally

so therefore Jesus spoke

a new wood, sending me

a preserver, a new soil

my impoverished angel

tossing seed, so I could eat alone

be punishingly alive

tending to a new shoot

Friday Writings #240: Despair and Delight

Like the Weather: Part II

2026-08-11T19:53:41.248-07:00

germinating from the ennui, you shake

the quiver from your head

can you weather, or shiver

with outdoor angels

they are in you, above you

that feed, the play

the force

is the same as a chime

waking from its stillness

to trill its voice

as it remembers

yes, the morning

is a cold hard color

slip it on, the earth

will have its noon

with sunflowers

steeped in gray

you’re not of this pillow

take your coal outside

feel the sound

of today’s wet lips

pecking at your skin

dVerse Poetics — Have You Ever Seen the Rain?

Dusk for Dawn

2026-06-26T12:57:09.284-07:00

floating rests on a polarized light
substance mirrors illumination

in a dream, firing up
unavailable rods, clouded cones

unphotogenic in a sense
omnidirectional, but static

can’t trust it, the chlorophyll
bit dust, it’s de-luxed

swap that green hill
for a pasture bathed
in colors unimagined

Friday Writings #233: “set another goal … dream a new dream”

Anno Domini

2025-12-16T20:27:00.003-07:00

I sprinted for juxtaposition, swore

to shelf & page, by god, I’ll go blog

something keyboarded & scratch

my dreams in satellite

then cops knocked & Belfast

not to mention all that being

married & to do, ta-da, the grind

the cemeteries & signatures, certainly

there were long forms buried

in Tuesdays & saturnalia

& so much shorthand loafing

for daily crumb to bomb/bread

& nada, again resolving to the work

before the blasting caps

then, it’s December &

what have I done:

stargazed & grew

one heirloom tomato

________________________

dVerse: Poetics Tuesday - Looking Back

Snow Drift

2025-12-16T17:11:00.003-07:00

pillow pace rhythm
hibernus cicada, when last

did gauge packed inch
did dog shit? metformin?

allwhite den, eye glue
the group mute
11 Photos You MUST See
2 Believe, where bees
what gentle leaf, leitmotif

what atonia creeps
yawning symmetry

not one ever
identical

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dVerse: Quadrille #238

This Present Labor

2025-12-12T16:28:00.009-07:00

maritime fog envelopes stuff

full O slow train, O head lamps

O workers decked out

in reflective orange and hard hat

safety trained, bobbing breath

O, Oceanus breathes wet

slips away to blue, to gulls, O bellow

horns, drywallers crack jokes

below, the concrete men

screwing around between task

and the wrapping up, resorting

to resolve, spending time

through yule and aching hands

the open present

O children, behold!

_______________

Friday writings 207: in between

A View

2025-12-11T06:59:00.001-07:00

pools of light puddle, collect

on banks, on bars, the business district

in grounded constellation, to gaze down

for lode star, to see signs never fixed

always fixing, aquarius laying

out words for us on soft knit

we nest, backlit

who sees us settle

behind paned storm glass, a veil

threats to tear, or so we seam

__________________________

dVerse: Come sew with me

The Lost Tablet of Enkidu

2025-12-07T08:05:00.004-07:00

softly running waters never

question whose cold body

is that, or why the tears

or reveal what game

horror froze the deer

lake mirrors seldom

reject reflection, untamed

virgin eyes break

surface tension

as washing

not for slaughter, fleshlier

shredding pierced pelts to bend

her hunting ear, she stands

dripped to the waist

nose to the sun

when the pouncing is done

the daily grind, reduced

to old predation

by spreadsheet

she blinks

dry, holding an empty

pink hand soaked

in perfume to milk

the mind, disrobed, then

in quick epic feat

we meet a god sweating

over luxury brands

_____________

This started as an attempt to sonnet (something I never do), but I hated it.

So, I gave it the old line break treatment, and made peace with it.

______________

The Lost Tablet of Enkidu

softly running waters never question
whose cold body is that, or why the tears
or reveal what game horror froze the deer
lake mirrors seldom reject reflection
untamed virgin eyes break surface tension
as washing not for slaughter, fleshlier
shredding pierced pelts to bend her hunting ear
she stands, dripped to the waist, nose to the sun

when the pouncing is done, the daily grind
reduced to old predation by spreadsheet
she blinks dry, holding an empty pink hand
soaked in perfume to milk the mind
disrobed, then in quick epic feat we meet
a god sweating over luxury brands

_________________________________

Friday Writings #206: Everybody Scream

Salad Days

2025-12-06T08:52:00.000-07:00

the garden is a racket
of praise, worms whistling

through roots, tapping

a jaunty compost tune

it’s delightful to hear

such industry at work

the soil echoing

their anthology

of scrap, peddling

under the bedding

chanting grounds

shells, skins, shavings

these are salad days

feasting on once

energetic flesh

serving to sing

and teach muscle

and shovel, a song

to make it

abundantly clear

that no body

goes unsung

_______________________

Open Link Night 397: Abundance

Coleman Stove

2025-11-30T06:33:00.002-07:00

a little pitter pat of getaway romance

in melting yellow sun, we rolled together

each in our olive drab flannel bags

close enough that the stray tentacles

of your strawberry gray hair

flirt with my eyelash and nose

we stretch and roll

out under honest purple mountains

that majestically mirror lake

and sky and butter stick packaging

our field guides open in morning’s

grass pasture, goldfinches too

are here for salted songs and delicate

footfalls by the AM’s cooing light

downy milk pours from white hilltop

sweet cream churned by antler

soon, a blue flame will tickle

the underbelly of the old

green two-burner

Coleman stove

and as from a magic

black top hat, I will pull

peppered eggs

and buttered toast

_________________

Friday Writings #205: Food as Ritual

Why the Children are Yelling 67

2025-11-25T15:24:00.002-07:00

they pitch foreign coins and .22 shells, they pile on each other until madness takes an arm and twists it back and the scoundrel howls uncle, they play they love to congregate against our wishes, splash and track November mud into classrooms, pouring their minds into losing their native language deciphering adult talk pleases them, they listen like architects with an ear for secret chambers and fire escapes and drills for active shooters, the kids duck and cover, cower under atomic numbers while the sensible grown ups goose step and holler repent storm capitols with idiot chants, yelling Geronimo they push the grand experiment off the cliff, spittle-lipped screaming at children what to do with their hands put them up, slap cuffs behind back, against wall and still, after all the years the evangels stay perched on their stoops, ravenously pointing down at the least of these, squawking their beastly six-sixty-six _________________________ Writer's Digest November Poem a Day

dVerse: Poetics: 1,2,3…Go!

Cosmetic Damage

2025-11-21T06:09:00.007-07:00

all that paper skin circling the eyes
gives in first, it claws its way

from the corners as time marches
its trumpets over your dermis

get cool with the crumbling
temple, or get obsessed

with tighteners and tossed treasure
to see yourself swimming

in the fountain at a city square
where women emerge uncracked

surgeons applaud their faces
with dotted lines, marvelous

one suspects it’s a fine line
between bloom and reborn

no stem-cell serum
can remove
your scars, which are
the body’s memory

it’s not like you
can massage a filler
into the crevices and forget

the profound sorrow
in a rejuvenated wrinkle

______________________

Friday Writing #204: The most expensive garment

Still Life

2025-11-14T16:34:00.001-07:00

mid signature, the ink

disappears, tearing

through the dotted line

surely the lawyers can

piece together

what I meant, in print

it’s legible, shaken

but my legal name

and hers, I scream

it into the axe

and dried oak

over and over

it’s not like winter

to wake up and walk

away, the meterologists

count down hours

until the blizzard

it will be a white out

on the skids

when I pull over, let her out

drive off, rehashing

every time I measured twice

cut once, and fell short

_______________________________

Friday Writings #203: Things you hate

In Umbra

2025-11-07T06:42:00.002-07:00

it’s the hours you have
to practice being dead

your ears fingering the air
for any feathered scratch

it is how you starve
for a candle’s
sweet, close company
a conversation

with its light interrupted
by coughing shadow

until the wisps
drift quietly away

the new darkness
invites you to open

your eyes to the
deep earth above

_______________________________

Friday 202: What I love about the dark

Cake Walk

2025-10-31T12:05:00.000-07:00

words are known

to gravitate towards graves

and chalkboards, slate

canvases ripe with abecedarian

scratching, billowing dust

floating over the lesson

soaked in stone, students

and warm shovels, and always

the work is present, the spirit

part law, part trick

crosses itself

stepping over the mound

the fresh little mud loaf where

dirty hands perform for answers

and tiny feet shuffle, elementary

festival cake walk theatrics, daring

the lucky one, jumping on twenty-four

to rip open the shredded

shirt, rend his ketchuped guts

and collapse

to the asphalt, shrieking

“t’was the Baptists,

the Baptists have halved me…”

the iced pumpkin muffins

outperform the pastoral

scolding, he nods

off in the back seat, hooked

to death and conjuring

Houdini’s free falling alphabet

Friday Writings #201: On Halloween

______________________________________________

Instagram

2025-10-24T07:31:00.004-07:00

It’s in the sitting, the unstudied control
of your bent frame for the light, the eye

batting hair unblown
the aerobatic housefly’s
derring-do, unswatted

all the world zigging, it’s all
in the sitting, the sitting

for the generational blessing
of a stern visage with flock
unattended, ten minutes

of unsmiling photons
weaving silver waves, clashing
on copper plates, a one hundred

and eighty year wait

for just a shade
of your face

Friday Writings #200: To the power of 10

___________________________________________________

Unpenned

2025-10-17T08:18:00.003-07:00

you could say we lost our child
or heaven gained an rogue, or parents’ bodies
doubled and shaking mimic the broken stalks
of a species native to hell, or say Christmas

cards languish unpenned
in shamanic silence, tucked
in a box of locks

you can say we gained a PIN code
pecking out grief’s numerology, attached
to every account, every transfer reborn
and wet like fine hair freshly emerged

but, whatever you say, say enchiladas
are still enchiladas, and music
is still loud enough to stir the ash
and see the moon and say, “the moon!”

say statistics are coughs, and say we
are side-eye dancing, glancing
into oblivion, you could say

when hands are held tightly
to keep ourselves up, it’s the guts
that punch back, or you

could say that is a bold face
for a lotus in December

_________

Friday Writings #199: gut-punch

Allhallowtide

2025-10-10T18:17:00.004-07:00

On the horizon, thin and without reason

October scribbles across the sky in empty limbs

a pinch from a preseason tyrant—the month coughing like a blade retracting

behind a black curtain, disease haunts the stage

shadows long, so certain, so long, everybody

burning summer’s sickly sonnets

in fires barely hot enough to choke smoke

the children contemplate half-emerging skeletons

on the beach, they do not know their parents

or which few of them will pull through

as the tide pulls back, October reveals

bony white reflections in the salty water

there is no votive, no hymn

for their wordless struggle

_____________________________

Friday Writings #198: October Writes

Tools

2025-10-04T11:43:00.001-07:00

we’ve all been goat-shrubbed
bearded with salt, brothers in gray

eventually the night will be enough
to delight our empty bowls
after all, what’s left

for four common subjects
who will one by one step off
this green pedestal
from which we peered
into each other’s years

dad’s yard fading to beige
what did those tools do anyway

who will hide his keys
the snub-nosed .38, now
who was whose keeper

Friday Writing: Poets and Storytellers United

September Clocks In

2025-09-26T19:23:00.001-07:00

ants go side-by-side, ark style
across the sink, called in

by the autumnal deluge

of their little ant genesis

a nomadic gulch

twig-shadowed and dank

carries the fluff

of the last goose

the hayrides of tobacco, mugs

and blankets trot across the bridge

the football boys are

pushing fire and stolen

cabinet liquor, the ritual

of binge-watching a leaf

nature and cinnamon rhyme

like dawn and apparitions

the fundamental work of powerline

squirrels is the last real industry

until winter hijacks

our mortal ears

(Friday Writings #196: Hello Fall!)

Excite Your Palate with Meat Mania

2025-02-09T14:40:00.002-07:00

when the flavor of the highways

and beelines gets too much

and the salt of wandering lines

crusts over your tongue

beg a little pepper off the sun

a sufficient bubble
will break forth great rains

and sin will ice your veins
leaving you hungry
for a palate of two

by two and glittering
giblets by the scoop

a common heat spells out the cuts
of pigeon grit and sidewalk guts

and when you stand on dry ground
face the heavens and throw up

your resounding grace
for a scraped gray plate
and bowl bursting with
everflowing returns

of a meat soaked meat
and eyes scraping
barren fields
for daily wheat

(Give Us This Day Our Daily Spam Feb. 9, 2025)

Y0UU HAAVE BEEEN PAlID 1OOO.OO DlREECT T0 Y0UUR ACC0UUNTT

2025-02-08T20:57:00.000-07:00

your bread so abundant you must

dangle it like a price tag to the kingdom

but I’m not buying it, my hands

rest palm down, for so long

receiving was always a whisper

of last night’s moon

I’m past that, promote whatever

funding hums, it’s your paper

balance your gift

in the wind, we know

your payout is a glare

so forgive me if

my silence is thick, stacked

with side eye, ain’t nobody

ever gave me nothing, keep it

that way, your transaction

idles, nothing comes

from nothing and nothing

will come of it nohow

that is how

my bread rolls

down my street

unpaved on account

of nobody

(Give Us This Day Our Daily Spam Feb. 8, 2025)

__________________________________________________________

Thinking of resurrecting my Give Us This Day Our Daily Spam project where I use my email's spam inbox as a writing prompt, using words from the email in the poem and the subject line as the title. We'll see how it goes.

Reformation

2025-01-31T06:41:00.005-07:00

sand cascades from the cathedral
a shard of green glass taxes
the thumb, flesh has no parallel

so close to the ocean, possibly save
the seaweed pods that pop so crunchy

charred fences return
to float off, these are hard days
for soft structures

the circle surrounding the steeple
fills slavishly with foam
one must laugh theologically
watching wafting water

pull the work and treasure
out beyond outstretched arm

this collapse, this laborious loss
is in harmony with buoyant souls

re-forming to skim
over the weight
again, and again the

————————-

for Poets and Storytellers United: joy in chaos

The Nose

2025-01-29T19:09:00.000-07:00

silent about face, it alone
can cause humming hair

to stand, back when hair

fought scale and fin

when summer drenched

sweat, the body beat

the rain to the punch

reptilian, hissing

straight to the brain

as if it were the surviving crone

snoring cantos of our names

without use of spine or nervous

system, this means maggots

bathed in putrid meat

the predators draw near

this probe can grab smoke

or decay, remove it, sure

leave discernment to the crow

in verse of feathered caw

unhallucinatable, it knows

the olfactory assumptions

once a caravan, once a sum

savior while eyes struggled

for awareness in deep caves

there, tadpole, the sea

and scent of salty cream

so thick you taste it

--------------------------------

dVerse: The optician's words (I think I used them all, or at least variations of :)

A Good Return

2025-01-29T05:32:00.000-07:00

among the forward, our fervor holds
serpent human and orchid
go set against each other

so wonderful then, a companion

to lounge beneath strange trees

roots like tongues tangled

where words falter, what is blood

when we have branches

a fig, a frond, inside jokes

knowing nods for gentle ribs

when fire blooms into the sky

magma crust and vine

we will chuckle in verse

cling to petals, unmoved

daring each other to go first

_______________________

Writer's Digest Wednesday Prompt: Friends