recent tanka

my finger
traces the edge
of her lips
around the curve
a new adventrure

Tanka Splender Award 2008
Take Five, tanka anthology ed. M. Kei, 2009 Met Press

just as
I pull myself from
gutter to curb
all things dear to me
can be found in a swamp


the sound
of a broken bottle swept
across asphalt
like the cry of a child
you have given away

for Katherine Cudney

Ribbons vol. 4:3, 2008

drunk
lying in my
own piss--
from the bedroom
my son's voice

Ribbons vol.4:4, 2008

people change
like the color
of a bunting
I feel at peace
when I'm alone

Sunday morning
reading the obituaries
calling daddy
the same name
Sylvia Plath does

sober
she asks me to
come home
I pierce a badger's claw
then hang it from my ear

Rusty Tea Kettle, vol.1:1, January 2009