The Ballad of Terry Chaplet
Miss Chaplet wandered down the winding path of Memorial Park, lingering by each knot of conversation long enough to get the gist of the current story. If anyone had been watching, they'd maybe describe her as looking at each like camp like someone...
Ragnarok - I
Somewhere it was autumn, and the trees Hung undecided, torn between the fear Of concrete skies and black obsidian nights And clung to fading leaves, yet still they felt A dark desire to let the summer drop, To scatter to the wind their...
Ragnarok - VII
"I died not," Varr breathed shallowly, "I woke Midmorning, by a gentle brook. How far I'd skirmished from satanic swamplands I Had no surmise. Three days I nursed my wounds, And then I took the mission meant for Luke, To warn the Old Man. As I...
Eight Minutes and Forty Six Seconds on June Twelfth, Two Thousand Twenty
The rain continues. No thunder dares ring. No winds howl. All is silence, save the sound Of distant trucks down on the interstate. I tell myself, pretend it is the sea That all this rain, perhaps, will wash into. And I remain in silence. What must...
Rust River Valley Rail Crossing Three, Pop. 527
From the valley they say you are going I can see why you would. And I know As the slow grinding years Grind the hills into tears Each year grinds a little more slow. From this valley they say you are going. From this hopeless collection of...
Autumn Interrupts
It's easy to forget what autumn means In tired lands of sun-stuffed tedium; Assassin breeze the blackfly never weans, The forecast is extremely medium. It's easy to forget those ragged skies Crushed, throttled, splintered by the frigid light ...
And I Shall Rest
Sun going down. And I am far from home. Sun going down. And I'm out there alone. On the roads, I'm one more weary soul Searching for some place where I'll be whole. With my loaded backbone bending And the pain jolts up my arm. I will reach...
Ragnarok - VI
"In coolness of that evening we stood guard Atop the knoll our mastery had turned To barrow. As the hidden sun went down We watched the pit as does a mongoose, for The snout of the great serpent to appear. While there we watched we argued: How to...
Blank Verse Essay On The Futility of So-Called "A.I." Art
My husband, sometimes, draws erotica, He has for years. I'm sure you know the kind, A tiger man and husky man, perhaps, Or handsome fox and manly-smug raccoon, Or fatherly but dangerous wolf, in all The situations that might give excuse For them...
Ballade of Three Birds
The morning miles of liquid cold that hang between the spheres Will bear you up forever, but will not veil your eyes. The clear wind and the clouded and the misted wind that mirrors Will show you every corner of the old hills that they clean. ...
Maybe All Confessional Essays Should Be Written In Blank Verse
This started as a question, in my head. Why can I not write love a happy end? Why, when I try, must I write mourning, loss, Bereavement and the need for elegy? I write unto my husband, whom I love, And it becomes a prayer for his soul. I write...
Haiku on the Collapse
Fiddling while Rome burns, If a fiddle's all you have, Is hardly a sin.