zinc words & images

  • Night eyes

    There was a night when I know you watched me look up at the stars just emerging from the blushed sky. You had a camera to capture everyone’s presence, but I couldn’t see how my stargazing would be important, unless you wanted to be the star I looked to. I heard the camera click, felt…

  • 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…

  • 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.…

  • Untitled

    Salt, When the tide comes in. My eyes are clear And the grains of sand are mirrors Reflecting one another For miles. Beyond the horizon I know nothing waits And only becomes. Piers Stand crumbling, Tickmarks that circle the shore. I can count the number of times I’ve been here. My hands, my words, Adding…

  • Scenic

    The shape of your waist is a bolt of red satin wrapped around a spool. The woven ripple makes waterfalls and valleys, lines and angles. I can see you, a pillar, red, against the sky, against mother earth and father city.

  • Feast

    A crisp edge on my plate At Le Quartier. I’m Reminded of the Saline oysters which Hemingway consumed And then described. Perhaps It is less the food than A feeling of timeless Observance. A table, A chair, sustenance and Pleasure. If the day is Cloudless, fine, but with A few clouds all the Better. In…

  • If Not for Water

    Keen, I am not. I’ve seen the white tipped Ocean waves beyond The shore. If I hold My fingers in a frame I can become close enough To taste salt and feel The water in my ears.   Remembrance places Me above the wave, holding Still while the current changes Its mind and pushes me…

  • Filigree

    My heart wants a thing It cannot name. Spreading Among rose bushes and Pushing toward sandstone walls, In a way it is directionless, Yet knows where it goes. Beyond Desire, to be taught by the sky’s Pigment and nurtured by salt Scraped from the ocean’s body. I cannot envision the place it Will come to…

  • 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…

  • Musings on a Single Topic #1

    What is left behind? Me You We Paper clips and candy wrappers Friends from high school Friends from college A car, in the parking lot of a bar, when you’ve had too much to drink A CD, a favorite one, in 1998, in your ex’s car Doggie bags full of leftovers A credit card A…