zinc words & images

  • I am the soil

    I sift the dirt through My fingers and make work Of root, stem, leaf Gone ginger with fall And the slow death of desiccation. I’m not sure what I search For. Whether it is the hoof Of a doe that came to me In a dream or the rapier Of a nightmare, I don’t know.…

  • Sound and color

    Between Rome and Florence, amongst strangers, a blue-sounding tunnel took me to my destination. A star-fed cloak wrapped the day and was only interrupted by shuffling magazine pages and the argument of two men on the street. The granite cobbles seemed to move with them, allowing their hands to gesture above the cars girdling the…

  • On rotation

    Things that keep me writing and thinking about writing this week. This song has been out for a while but I keep coming back to it. Less for the specific lyrics, though the writing is fantastic, and more for the way the rhythm reinforces the sadness of Bahamas’ voice. When the female chorus reaches that…

  • Crosswalk

    This is a poem for you. For how hard you ran When there were six seconds left On the crosswalk. The wind shifted And your scarf trailed behind You in the breeze. I wondered What you imagined yourself To look like, bright sun and breeze, Dressed in Soho black. Magic. Because you were strange And…

  • Sometimes

    Can you cry for the loss, for the way the words lay across my lips? Or celebrate the crossing of an idea into the air. What happens now, happens forever. So say what you mean, what you feel. Answer yourself before anyone else. Make sure you know the question. So cry or don’t, but be prepared…

  • Chivalry

    Make the race long, past the point of no return. Cannons and ramparts, weaponized playthings read the dirt for signs of God, of father. We joust with words, carved in the air and spinning out towards our posterity. Counting wooden nickels, the wooden women, the knives on the table, recognition is for the dead, You…

  • End is nigh

    Wash me in ash culled from the river, The place where the burned trees gather. Hunt for the sun as it sets a bloody curtain Over the horizon. Grasp me fiercely As if I am careening toward the world’s Gaping maw. Make believe that tomorrow exists.

  • Lookout Points

    We have tall trees. The sort that seems to have raised themselves From a story,  rather than a seed. From the north they look Like spindly teeth ready to eat The sky. Along their roots, We mapped the spine of our land, Coming to conclude that Moss is a language rather than A cartographer’s mark.…

  • Babes

    Feet touch flat, The thin layer of atoms That never allows you To touch the earth.

  • Where We Went

    Unwrap your teenage heart Like a chocolate dream. I miss the self that sings, the one that wraps string around her finger and waves. Lightening steps and electric belief was what we wanted and could never get. Not enough to satisfy. Rather, we became maudlin. Watched rises, stretches, untouched heartache, unmounted tenderness and lamented the…