Haunt

When I'm a ghost, I'll
haunt you, but delicately
a passing shadow on the page

when you're reading on the
train, a sigh behind the door
when you walk through--a breath

all warmth and longing on your
neck and when you turn, of
course, nobody there.

No chains will rattle silence
from your sleep, no sobs nor heavy tramp
of feet in attic rooms disturb

your peaceful afternoons; just finger-
tips on frosted glass, a message
indecipherable writ by

no human hands. Just the soft
occasional chill as if someone
were watching as you step

out of the shower, with water
droplets bright upon your cheek
or streaming down the river of your spine.

And when you bend to towel
your dripping legs, the unaccountable
brush of ghostly lips

curling like mist under the swell
of breasts, trailed down along the bone-
plate where your ribs meet at your heart

--you won't know I was there until you see
(much later) on your fragrant naked thigh
the pale gray outline of my grasping hand.

Read More......

I *Wowed* 'Em!

Review of my reading Saturday night at the Arkansas Times' annual Pub or Perish event.

Well, not "review" so much as a "mention," but I'll take it. More info here at the Sonnet Project, where you can also download audio of the entire reading--if that's your thing. :)

Thanks again to David Koon of the Times for making it all happen, and to all my friends who came out to drink and lend their support--not necessarily in that order. ;)

Read More......

Poetic Recognition in the Blogosphere

"Whiskey Wisdom, #113" was selected by Charles M. Rowland II as his "Poem of the Week" on Friday, February 20. I can't log in to post a thank-you comment, so I'll do it here: Thanks Charles! It's good to know somebody's reading. :)

Poem of the Week: "Whiskey Wisdom, #113"

Read More......

And Yet MORE Poetry News!

Guess who's the Spotlight Poet for November 2008 over at well-respected and awesome poetry site The Hypertexts? That's right--yours truly, baby.

Editor Mike Burch has compiled a wonderful, extensive online poetry journal with a strong bent toward the classic and the formal, and I'm honored to have been noticed by him and invited to submit some of my best work. Not only that, but now I can say I've been anthologized with such poetry giants as Richard Moore, X. J. Kennedy, Rhina P. Espaillat, and Scott's all-time poetry hero Jack Butler! So yeah, I'm pretty pleased and proud about the whole thing.

Check out the lovely write-up poet and editor T. Merrill gave me here, along with no fewer than 12 of my sonnets, some of them newly revised and improved. Let me know what you think!

Read More......