zinc words & images

  • Musings on a single topic #4

    What is fruitful? Lying Being honest Confessing love, If you don’t mind a bruised heart Staying in the shadows on a hot day My fruit bowl, red with a pedestal My mouth, during peach season Opening the windows when it is cool out Writing thank you notes Writing your grandmother Laughing with people you care…

  • 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.

  • Open heart

    Seeing you is a riot To my eyes. In it Is roiling memory And that sense (you may be   Feeling it, too) of each Rib cracking itself to Introduce my heart to The midday sun as it seeks   To brace itself against Recalling your closed Eyes, your hair pushed Behind your ear, whilst…

  • True promise

    Lessen the lively way You say, forever. Forever Is not what you think it is.   Burnished steel with oil And old cotton shirts. Buttons On fire when the world ends.   Is it a guidepost or clock, An imperceptible second or The sun’s arc across the sky.   More so fatal reasoning And an…

  • Dreaming of Sound

    Cacophony scrape, My sound and The sound of forgiveness. I once thought the sound of death, But know that blackness has a stillness Unreplicated. This is movement, Sheet metal across gravel Ready to awaken the God of heat As it strides the exterior wall of someone’s house. Sound deep in your teeth, Scrape The rest…

  • Late Summer Along the Missouri

    I followed a reed Down to the ground, It’s stoic greenness Leading my hand.   Fibers, like razors, Like all grasses slice The dry parchment of My palm and make a   Blessing of my life. Leaves, embalmed in muck Tangle with the fine hairs Put forth by your will,   Reed. I expect frost…

  • Musings on a Single Topic #3

    What is a gift? “Lover You Should’ve Come Over” and every single person that covers it. This body, as broken as it is. My magnolia tree and fresh bread and good butter. Mark Rothko. The intersection in front of Mother India, and the beautiful fragrance I can smell while stopped at the red light. The…

  • Invention

    People are capable. Marigolds become brittle. What was worn is new. Fire escapes rain down Particles of soil seeping through the drainage Holes of a city garden. It is in the rust That change comes And in the taut drum Sound. Golden polish buffed With an old t-shirt And ignored by children Looking at clouds.…

  • Selfie

    Is this me? Hair laid over one eye, Looking, but not looking. Am I Narcissus or The discoverer of a new World? Blue, Brown, cream, pink. The pigmentary fragments Of an image I recognize As a fateful friend I never knew. Adjustments and lighting Obscure and reveal further, Shifting shade and light to be Fragonard,…

  • Measured

    I took the bird wing from the shelf And placed it in a pouch of red gingham. A bundle misshapen and lonely, save For its solitary companion, a tin ring, found trapped in the quarter slot Of a gumball machine. I do not know Where this gift will find its resting place. From my place…