“So I shipped them all over here, every man, woman, and child in the Oompa-Loompa tribe. It was easy. I smuggled them over in large packing cases with holes in them, and they all got here safely.” Roald Dahl, Charlie and The Chocolate Factory  The Oompa-Loompa finally free, we litigate because of TV.  Smuggled in luggage breathing…

We keep sipping on crystalware, tumblers coffee mugs,pitchers, kettles – cafésthese days are creative withcrockery. You like blue andgreen colored drinks, I likepale stalks popping out ofmouths of wine bottlessplitting into tiny tendrilsbetween us – the pothos plantthrives on neglect. I keepforgetting to pick one up forthe kitchen, and you areundecided; forget me…

I’ve got this mental picture of you glimpsed in the reflection of a storm door closing.You wouldn’t look at me as I left and I wouldn’tturn around to see if you looked afterbut I caught you peeking.That meant a lot at the time,but not enough to turn around. I don’t regret it…

Fireball. Gorgar. Wizard.The pull. pinball release. Careening bullet, zipper flippers, Bumpers, and roll-over targets. A supple wrist and keen eyes. English bank shots. The Who. At 60, this is my hip pain.  Also, my favorite peach halter, embroidered elephant leg bell bottoms, and hips slender, young leaning against Flash. Pain free.  Now. A silver ball bouncing nerves. Fracturedbone bumping…

         “Nobody knows where it was cast. But they do tell a story about it: that it was pledged to St. Joseph in the wars with the Moors, and that the people of some besieged city brought all their plate and silver and gold ornaments and threw them in with the…

In a decrypted charcoal stone tower interwoven with thorn vines,  beyond the tattered, transparent  white veil, lays a slumbering  angelic maiden, cursed  by a covetous fairy who recited  a veracious incantation on her  Christening.  Her marble face remains untouched  for hundreds of years, while the world,  a time she once…

This place of shadow is discontent         a mouth spitting out     lips of blackan alleyway unsheltered.Wasn’t there a streetlight here? What breath does out of sun                   goes unrecorded.Perhaps that’s for the better.Run along, sweet child,   with a face like yours   a fate won’t last long untampered This sphere is a rather heavy dark,        obscure to see you…

time heals all woundsor so they say,but i know that’s not true; nineteen going on twenty years and i still think of you— i wish you could’ve felt enoughlove to stay,but perhaps that day the nightmareswere stronger than any dreamthat could’ve saved you; but i miss you, uncle— i hope that…

I sit beside you, strangerAnd waitA once-filled mindMy black sunflower seedsNow half sown Introductions are necessary I’m terrible with namesWe met before, you sayThe hillside, sanctuary Classroom, dinner tableCreek—To name a few Muted voicesScreen-strained lonelinessAnxiety and doubtWindows shutteredI drain the glass and wipeWater droplets from my mouth I don’t answer you, strangerAnd…

Maybe I should consult the devil. Maybe I should embrace world-revvingnightshade sonnets until clovenharmonies etch fountain pen rhythmsup and down my spine. Maybe I should appreciate unaccomplished blank space;Ride the empty page instead of enslaving meter and phrase.Maybe I should idle-out, back to the ground and exhaust the weight of symbols…