here's some of my poems
Smudge
Back of that house again
Out of the way
If not there
Then anywhere else
As long as
We’re back by dark.
Streetlights will flicker
Annoyed at waking.
Colors drain
Off the west side of the sky
Into a can of spirits
Sitting by the shed door.
The scent of dusk
Is warm asphalt
Just before it takes off a layer of skin
--jan 2025
Id no.1
Outside your window
sometime after 4 a.m.
Lights are coming on
all around us
Your body
weary from all of it
The absence of empathy
leaves a shadow
leaves a bruise
leaves an echo that sounds wrong.
All there is at this hour
is attraction and fear
Everybody else went to bed hours ago.
--may 2026
Scraping
Scraping out flecks from between the cushions
Helping yourself to another few feet of legroom
Volume inflates the song into noise.
Eight feet away a chrysalis breaks apart.
Another rigid temporary thing
On its way to becoming soil.
Everything on this counter is on its way to ground eventually.
That was a sunset.
That charging cord isn’t going to just “turn up” now is it?
--sept 2025
bitten
The last inch of water
that never drains
warm and translucent
as August dusk
heavy with critters
like the tree you climbed
only finding the small hole
in your hand the next morning
--feb 2025
collapse
Winter brings enough
Space to witness
Winter brings enough
Substance to perish
This room loses light
Faster than its neighbors
The crunch of leaves
New shatterings
Scattered puffs
In the long beams
The dance starts soon
Hurry along
Before they lock the doors
--jan 2025
Scaffolding collapses under the weight of observation
I sit down
With hours left
In the afternoon
And intentions
Perhaps a plan
Even
Just get the skeleton
Of this stanza
Bolt it onto the next
And so on…
Then I happen to notice the back of the person sitting in front of me
and they have recently been out in the sun too long
and their skin is peeling in an increasingly intriguing pattern
and all I can think about in that moment is helping them out
and that moment swallows the
entire
fucking
afternoon.
--jun 2025
grief
Inventories of loss
Hierarchies of sadness
The same damn room
With no windows
No doors
No memory
Stacks of ledgers
Silverfished pages
Boxes of images
An old flag after the storm
Are you in?
Did you make it in?
Well, I tried
--jan 2025
Like, comment, share
Well now
you broke it
and here I’ve
left all my
tools
up at the shop
guess you’re on your own
pal
--jan 2026
pez
you pick up the phone
you dial you wait
the local bar cuts you off after 3 rounds
with no explanation
waking up at the wrong time
the village idiot offers you money
we make due with the bones
as there is no more meat
you could move right into your blue period
if you could just find the stairs
thinking of your mother out of habit
no speaker no situation not enough development
to accept literally
after a while you just get used to them
dog follows you home
there is no scene
there is no band
there is no party after the show
if you would like to make a call
please hang up and try your call again
litter of unsolicited inspirations
and broken ashtrays
waking up with the pillow over your head
starting to cry because of a smell
want to purr
words like aquamarine flavored candy
forklifts in each walkway
always the same warehouse
never the same shelves
wind somewhere moving
we temporarily chew air
a place to rest
a voice to sigh
a lid to close
a glimpse of your silly lopsided smile
cannot wake up
long cigarettes of coffee quietly outstepping later.
–feb 2024
soapyair 