ICE

you are pretty
I grant you
and men are
drawn toward you
but I have to
tell you we have
decided (the poets
among us) to
withdraw your
goddess status
and henceforth all
artists of the word
are duly commanded
to look on
you with
ordinary
eyes

and as for the fire
your eyes and
perhaps rest
of your body

even with global
warming, polar
floes melting
there is
still
enough ice

DISPLACED

what a fall
from grace

from Muse
of my poetry

to amuse me
poetically

from cosmic
connection to
toxic
detection

so much of your
light sheer
radioactivity

all that faith
displaced

DISPLACED

what a fall
from grace

from Muse
if my poetry

to amuse me
poetically

from cosmic
connection to
toxic
detection

so much of your
light sheer
radioactivity

all that faith
displaced

THE LOVERS (REVERSED)

loneliness
bent her
twisted her
drove her
mad

which, by
any definition,
is so
bad

so very bad that it
seems good

and as her
world tipped upside down
I cried, for my
part in
this reversed
love

CASCADE

you cannot
call it a
cascade

but hard to
not the words
overstate

especially in a poem
that has not already
signaled
ironic code

suggestion: you
know the code so
play the game

run out of deign
before the refrain

MY EMOJI MOJO

you sent me
a love emoji
when I was
close
to
clinical despair

so close I could smell the antiseptic
feel the white walls closing in on me
and stuff
fed intravenously
that kills
off love
and guilt, and shame

MY EMOJI MOJO

you sent me
a love emoji
when I was
close
to
clinical despair

so close I could smell the antiseptic
feel the white walls closing in on me
and stuff
fed intravenously
that kills
off love
and guilt, and shame

CLING

“war is a terrible thing”
Baldrick’s war poem, BLACKADDER GOES FORTH

cleave is not
cling

this I sing

until
the cows come
home (their
fields turned
into no man’s land)

and the lion and the
lamb not to
speak of the
different races
different nations

lie
truthfully down together

AT BEST

at best I can be
bent sprocket
in your badass machine

as it wanders through
the Universe smoothing
and toughening
up everything
it sees

moving across the firmament
so many sizes and shapes
to the divine image

POEM IN

THE KEY OF K

I misread the
warning signs

took danger
as encouragement

and here we are
and here you
are
about to kill me
devour my
soul

or
touch me
love me

something truly
scary like that.