Published Work (Longer Poetry)

What Happens

 

What happens

 

​when the busy noise of stressful lives

slows to a steady pulse

and becomes still

 

when the sounds of a city

fade away as children sleep

 

and the hollow walls

of those ancient buildings

begin to speak

 

their hidden voices

carried in the hearts and minds

of those who can listen –

 

when the people start to live

in this place

where no words can follow

 

and all language subsides

even for a moment –

 

to watch our words fall into their roots,

into the ancient harbor – (this empty page)

 

that carries them                                         

 

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VerseWrights, 2016

The Last Days of Winter

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Names

 

We don't have names in the beginning

but seem to be given them out of necessity

to live in our separateness, some believing

we couldn't live a day without them

 

it seems some forget

the ocean does not know of ocean

nor does the city know of city

or of sounds we will never hear

the lost languages of an age

I can't remember

 

we've paved new streets to name them

helping us turn when we know its time

 

but they were all made without names

each going their own way

leading to unknown distances

 

while the words streets and distances

will soon only be memories in sleep

waking again the next day, at their own pace

gathering in empty spaces

 

I keep looking over the valley

and cannot see where it begins

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The Last Days of Winter

 

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Familiar Stranger

 

I remembered his face in sleep 

one last look from the familiar stranger
one long look into his weathered face
that told stories I never knew

the colors that once stared at me, un-moving
with old eyes that speak a forgotten language
while the remnants of words had long been silent since I arrived

he lived without speaking
working alone through the long hours of daylight

and when night came
he glanced back at me once again
staring into my face for a long moment, un-moving
like a loving grandfather asking if I

wanted to hear that old story he has already told
many times before—the same story he told years ago
but deepens each time he listens to the sound
waking from memory

I will never know what remains hidden
within his face
and when morning came

I watched him looking out the window
still without a sound                                      

 

 

Clark College Phoenix, 2016
The Last Days of Winter

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Early Morning

 

We start to wake

the way morning fog fills empty fields

listening to the way rain moves

seeing thick mist hide the horizon

 

listening to you sleep

inside a distant bird call fades

against the sighing breath outside my window

 

your body curled inside a cozy blanket

then the eyes start to open

your eyes start to open

a sudden sigh and a long moaning mmmmm………

arms stretch out, then loud, uncontrollable laughter

 

that soon fades

into the sounds

of your first whispers                                                 

 

 

VerseWrights, 2016

The Last Days of Winter