zinc words & images

  • Smoke on a Cloudy Night

    Tonight, I wish I still smoked. My brain And body vibrate With late spring’s promise And I want my hands And heart to be busy. Each pore could be filled With smoke, like a beehive, Settling my desire, my heat, Abating the humid atmosphere That seeks my envelopment.

  • Defrock

    In May tulips splay, rendering their carbon undone. Petals, a visual cacaphony on the ground. Me, believing myself a spiral running into the soil, an archimedes screw that overturns soil and buries joy. I wield my scissors, clipping decay from its stem and falling to the ground.

  • Ossify

    Bones grind to high heaven like an unholy ferris wheel and I am caught, a piece of fabric, frayed and flapping against the wind. A prayer of quiet in the joints and knuckles that are white-hot with their crackling. They talk to me and speak of the limestone and dirt from which I am made,…

  • Sundays

    We come to our work-week Washed, wrung-out, Spent like soap, laying In a pool of its own Disintegration.

  • Eonic Botanic

    Sunflowers turn their head slowly, as if August’s heat has given them a life much slower than time. This seems right- they are backyard watchmen, peering over my neighbors fence and greeting the surly dogs that live to the south. Making believe that they are simple flowers and that their agenda is not to outlast…

  • Red light

    Hot foot Lizard Smell sand Like its A mouth Waving Mirage Burns me Oven Of God Color Blanched to One tone Squeeze down To touch The ground

  • The Return of Spring

    I bloom when I speak, When the rain beats the windows, When I recline in the sun.   I bloom, if you remember, When you ask, who is the artist- The one who teaches the future.   I bloom when I nap, Softly breathing, dreaming beneath A tartan print blanket.   I bloom at night,…

  • Typewritten

    What are our sins? When we write home what do we say? What can we say With dust in our lungs And blood on our fingertips? Forgetfulness and the decollecting Of history stains, too.  

  • Ephemera

    Were I a song I suspect I’d be hidden, Folded into the spine Of a book. Never sung. Vaguely remembered By the writer and his wife Who hummed it briefly, Then went about getting Dinner ready. Found Too late, notes faded On the paper remains.   But, really, I’m not written yet.  

  • April at Night

    Tonight the windows ripple with lightening.   Each shot from the sky breaks me open like bread.   With rain, instrumentation, an arrangement,   layers that drop into place, roil my body,   subside and return louder, more insistent.   Water wants its place beside the night’s bright fire.