zinc words & images

  • 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…

  • Closing time

    With seconds left you tell me. Lights soaring and ripping apart the sky. Stones scattered on the rain-discolored pavement. When your eyes are closed, you say, this is what eternity looks like. But you are born today or yesterday or 50 years from now. Time is shuffled like cards and God lands on whatever is…

  • 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…

  • Simple Song

    keep me close, write my name along the inside of your finger. swear we’re the same, sentiments you wrap in paper.   leave the smoke, leave the style. capture now and return to yes. flee the room, use your guile, soft and spare, the reasons why.   make me warm. be last to leave when…

  • Thankful wash

    We spill our bodies, breathless, into the beat Of the ocean. Choral salt. Land tapers. You can only regret what your hands Haven’t touched. But now that’s not true. Birds fly, a long stroke over the white line, Receding and returning. My hand cuts the water, But really I’m reaching for the world, Its birth.…

  • 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…

  • April 30

    The soft touch of breast And the red bell pepper have in common summer, when both are discovered. Do you remember your neighbor when you were 11 And she 13? You could barely stand to look at her. So bright, like standing between the vast expanse of ocean between Honolulu and San Diego and the…

  • April 29

    I could fall asleep with my head bobbing like a novelty. i know it was you who took the branch and left it in my path, it was like you were saying something but also not saying anything. The greatest magic trick ever from the spoiled milk you turned to cheese to the harpsichord shirt…